Foundations of Flavor - The Noma Guide to Building Flavour

Finally, the secret sauce of Noma is revealed—the long-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling The Noma Guide to Fermentation offers more than 150 recipes for infused oils, vinaigrettes, fudges, spice mixes, rubs, sauces, and other flavor-boosting condiments that professional and home cooks can now make and use to elevate every part of their cooking.

Nothing tastes like the food at Noma. Nothing is as delicious, as surprising, as unique. A big part of the reason why is found in the Noma pantry, the seasonings, condiments, sauces, and other flavor compounds developed over two decades by René Redzepi and the Noma test kitchen. And now 150 of these components that define the inimitable taste of Noma—including roasted kelp salt, smoked egg yolk sauce, Nordic pesto, and lacto-koji beurre blanc—are shared in The Noma Guide to Building Flavour. Most of the recipes are illustrated with step-by-step photo sequences detailing the techniques needed to transform surprisingly familiar ingredients into elements of Noma’s distinctive cuisine. Noma uses these recipes to create elevated preparations for the restaurant (a selection of gorgeous plated-dish photos are included), but readers—whether professionals or avid home cooks—will find plenty of inspiration for their own kitchens, aided by do-able suggestions from Noma chefs.

In conversational essays and anecdotes woven throughout the book, Redzepi shares how staff members from around the globe have influenced Noma’s flavor palette, and how Noma chefs take pristine seasonal ingredients and blend, grind, dry, smoke, macerate, reduce and otherwise elicit the most potent and desirable flavors that make up the sensory language of Noma. Between the narrative portions and the meticulous recipes, chefs and home cooks alike will discover new dimensions of flavor and expand their ideas of what food can be.