Chapitre 1
Cooking as a Culinary Symphony: Sohla El-Waylly's Kitchen Revolution
Sohla El-Waylly's "Start Here" isn't just another cookbook-it's a culinary manifesto that has taken the food world by storm. Beloved by everyone from home cooks to professional chefs, this groundbreaking work has been praised by culinary icons like Samin Nosrat as "the guide I wished I'd had" when beginning her cooking journey. What makes this book so revolutionary is its focus on teaching the "why" behind cooking techniques rather than just providing recipes. As a TIME100 Next honoree and culinary creator who's worked with prestigious publications and shows including The New York Times, Bon Appetit, and HBO Max's The Big Brunch, El-Waylly brings her extensive restaurant experience and culinary education to create what many are calling "culinary school in a book"-a comprehensive guide that transforms cooking from a mysterious art into an accessible science that anyone can master.
Chapitre 2
The Foundation of Flavor: Mastering the Art of Tasting
The journey to becoming a confident cook begins not with fancy equipment or exotic ingredients, but with developing your palate. Sohla learned this fundamental skill from her amu (aunt), who could analyze dishes with remarkable precision, identifying not just individual spices but their ratios and cooking methods. "How else are you going to know if your food's any good?" she asks pragmatically. Professional kitchens start new cooks on cold dishes like salads and vinaigrettes not because they're easy, but because they teach crucial seasoning skills without the pressure of heat cooking. This deliberate approach allows cooks to focus entirely on flavor development and balance.
Proper seasoning is about more than just salt-it's about creating balance through multiple dimensions of flavor. Sohla recommends showering seasonings from height (at least 12 inches) for even distribution, giving them time to dissolve (especially important in cold dishes), seasoning in stages throughout cooking, and tasting constantly. She emphasizes that salt isn't always the answer-acid, sugar, and spice are equally important for balance. When a dish tastes flat, the instinct might be to add more salt, but often it needs brightness from acid or depth from umami instead.
Her seasoning toolkit extends beyond Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt (her gold standard) to include MSG, which she uses to "season in stereo" alongside other flavors. She debunks the myths surrounding MSG, noting it occurs naturally in tomatoes, parmesan, and asparagus, and explains how it amplifies savory flavors without adding its own distinct taste. For acidity, she calls fresh citrus juices and vinegars the "cheerleaders in your pantry," bringing pep to dishes that taste dull. She particularly recommends keeping multiple vinegar varieties on hand - rice, sherry, and champagne vinegars each bring their own character. Sugar, often forgotten in savory cooking, acts as a base note that rounds out other flavors and can help balance heat and acidity.
To practice these principles, Sohla offers cucumber salads and raithas as perfect vehicles for learning-blank canvases that transform easily with seasonings and are forgiving if you need to rebalance flavors. She suggests starting with a basic cucumber raita and gradually adding different elements: a pinch of sugar to round out yogurt's tartness, black pepper for heat, and mint for freshness. Her House Salad becomes an opportunity to calibrate your palate through constant tasting, while her Super-Savory Tomato Salad leverages tomatoes' natural MSG content by pairing them with other umami-rich ingredients like tamari, nori powder, and aged cheese. She encourages experimenting with different combinations of these umami boosters to find your preferred balance.
Through these foundational lessons, we learn that cooking is less about following recipes and more about developing the ability to taste, adjust, and balance flavors intuitively-a skill that transforms every dish you make. This approach to cooking emphasizes that recipes should serve as guidelines rather than strict rules, and that true culinary confidence comes from understanding how flavors work together and trusting your palate to guide you.
Chapitre 3
Temperature Management: The Egg as Teacher
If taste is the foundation of cooking, temperature control is its architecture. Sohla turns to eggs as the perfect medium for mastering this crucial skill, explaining how their quick cooking time and versatility make them ideal for developing fundamental techniques that transfer to more expensive ingredients.
"Eggs consist primarily of protein bundles floating in water at a 1:1000 ratio," Sohla explains, making them uniquely transformative when heated. Raw egg proteins start as tightly coiled, negatively charged strands that repel each other. With proper heat application, these proteins unravel and link together, forming a three-dimensional network that traps water molecules-creating tender, moist eggs. But excessive heat causes proteins to link too tightly, squeezing out moisture and resulting in dry, watery eggs.
This delicate balance between too little and too much heat forms the basis of all egg cookery. For boiled eggs, Sohla debunks the myth that old eggs peel easier, instead sharing a foolproof method using temperature shock: drop refrigerated eggs into boiling water, then shock in ice water after cracking them all over with a spoon. This causes the membrane to contract away from the shell while water seeps between them for easy peeling.
She presents three distinct scrambling techniques that demonstrate how heat and agitation affect texture: "Teeny creamy curds" made with low heat and constant whisking; "Big fluffy egg clouds" created with moderate heat and minimal folding; and "Silky marbled ribbons" where whole eggs are cracked directly into the pan and gently scrambled.
For poached eggs, Sohla dismisses the need for vinegar or salt, focusing instead on water temperature and egg quality. "The key is using a fine-mesh sieve to drain away the thin white that causes cloudiness," she explains, noting that fresh eggs are essential for plump poaching due to their higher ratio of thick to thin white.
These egg techniques build confidence in managing heat-whether it's the gentle simmer needed for poaching, the moderate heat required for perfect scrambling, or the high heat that creates crispy-edged blistered eggs. This temperature intuition becomes invaluable when cooking more expensive proteins like fish or meat, where the margin for error is much smaller but the principles remain the same.
Chapitre 4
The Transformative Power of Water: Grains, Beans, and Pasta
Water isn't just a cooking medium-it's a transformative element that brings dried pantry staples to life. Sohla explains that grains, beans, and pasta are essentially seeds carrying everything necessary to create life, forming the nutritious core of global diets from rice in Bangladesh to wheat and corn in other cultures.
She introduces several cooking methods tailored to different ingredients. The Absorption Method involves cooking with a measured amount of liquid until it's fully absorbed-perfect for rice, small grains, and lentils. "Every brand and type requires different water ratios for optimal texture," she notes, challenging the traditional "knuckle method" for rice cooking in favor of precise measurements tailored to each variety.
The Porridge Method aims to create tender grains in a thick sauce made from their own starches. Unlike the precise measurements needed for the Absorption Method, porridge is forgiving and can be adjusted by adding liquid until the desired consistency is reached. This approach works beautifully for her Ginger & Turmeric Rice Porridge, a comforting dish from her childhood that combines medium-grain white rice and split red lentils that break down during cooking to create a velvety, nourishing bowl.
For legumes, Sohla recommends cooking them low and slow, preferably after a salt water soak. Contrary to popular belief, salt doesn't extend cooking time-it actually helps tenderize beans by breaking down pectin, making seed coats more flexible. Her Basic Pot of Creamy Legumes creates a neutral canvas for diverse uses throughout the week, from salads to crispy beans to quick stews with wilted greens.
The Pilaf Method transforms simple grains into flavorful dishes by first toasting them in fat-called "parching"-which develops flavor while deactivating surface starches to prevent clumping. This technique shines in her Black Sesame & Nori Rice Pilaf, where jasmine rice is simmered in dashi with toasted nori and black sesame seeds for a briny, umami-rich side dish.
For pasta and whole grains, the Rapid-Boil Method offers simplicity and flexibility. The technique involves generously salting boiling water, cooking until tender, then draining-no precise water ratios needed. Sohla's guidance on saucing pasta and grains follows a four-step process that ensures perfectly coated noodles with emulsified sauces, demonstrating how proper technique elevates even the simplest dishes.
Chapitre 5
The Maillard Magic: Dry Heat Cooking
Dry heat cooking creates the essential contrast between food's exterior and interior that moist cooking methods can't achieve. While water maxes out at 212F and steam only slightly higher, dry heat from skillets can reach 500F, enabling the crucial Maillard reaction-the complex interaction between reducing sugars and amino acids that creates rich, deep flavors in everything from bread crusts to seared steaks.
Sohla outlines five golden rules for achieving perfect browning: use low-sided pans that allow steam to escape; ensure cooking surfaces are properly preheated; thoroughly dry ingredients since moisture is the enemy of browning; use high smoke-point fats for efficient heat transfer; and control movement based on desired results. She also emphasizes preserving fond (the flavorful brown bits left in the pan) by deglazing to create sauces.
These principles transform humble ingredients into spectacular dishes. Her Blistered Carrots undergo intense charring that changes them from "grassy and watery" to "meaty, sweet, and practically like fudge." The contrast between charred carrots and fresh, lemony carrot top salsa creates a balanced side dish that showcases the magic of high-heat cooking.
For proteins, Sohla's Crispy-Skinned Salmon demonstrates how cooking a whole fillet rather than individual portions allows time for the skin to get perfectly crispy without drying out the flesh. The dish is served with nuoc cham-a Vietnamese condiment that's sour, sweet, and salty-which cuts through the rich fatty salmon, creating a texturally exciting dish that's simple to prepare.
Her Broiler Lamb Kofta recreates the flavors and textures of Persian koobideh kebabs without requiring a grill or special skewers. The ground lamb is kneaded with grated onion and salt, then allowed to rest, giving the proteins time to reconfigure for a springy texture similar to sausage. The thin, flat logs cook quickly under the broiler without drying out, demonstrating how understanding protein structure leads to better results.
Perhaps most impressive is her Monday Chicken Dinner for Winners-an ambitious yet manageable weeknight dinner strategy involving weekend prep for a complete roast chicken dinner. By spatchcocking and dry-brining the chicken ahead of time, she ensures even cooking at high heat, with legs getting direct heat while the breast remains juicy. Cooking the chicken in a skillet collects all the drippings and schmaltz (chicken fat), which becomes the perfect medium for cooking vegetables.
Chapitre 6
Butter: The Baker's Magic Ingredient
Butter is a uniquely versatile ingredient-not just a pure fat but an emulsion of fat, water, and protein that creates the foundation for countless baked goods. Unlike liquid oils, butter's flexible structure allows it to be whipped with air bubbles for cookies and folded into doughs for flaky pastries.
Sohla explains how butter is made by churning cream until phospholipids are displaced, allowing milk fat to clump together while squeezing out buttermilk. This transforms milk's oil-in-water emulsion (4% fat) into butter's water-in-oil emulsion (80-86% fat). She discusses different types including salted vs. unsalted, sweet cream butter (mild and uncultured), cultured butter (with varying levels of tang), and plant-based alternatives.
Temperature is crucial in baking with butter. Room-temperature butter (65-70F/18-21C) is essential for proper creaming-the process of mixing butter and sugar until light and doubled in volume. Proper creaming (4-6 minutes) transforms butter from merely smooth to pale, less gritty and glossy, making cookies light and crisp rather than dense, and cakes tender.
Sohla confesses that many bakers worry too much about overmixing, likely influenced by boxed mix instructions. The real concern is gluten development-when water activates the glutenin and gliadin proteins in flour, creating an elastic network. She explains three mixing methods: the muffin method (minimal mixing), the creaming method (moderate mixing), and the reverse-creamed method (extended mixing with minimal gluten development risk).
These principles come to life in recipes like her Walnut Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, which represent her perfect chocolate chip cookie-crisp, chewy, tender, and packed with salted walnuts and two kinds of chocolate. The unique method involves simmering walnuts and butter together, simultaneously toasting the nuts and browning the butter while infusing it with walnut flavor.
Her Rough Puff Pastry offers 90% of traditional puff pastry's flakiness with only 10% of the effort. The method involves incorporating butter cubes that form layers through several folds, creating a versatile dough that can be transformed into elegant cheese twists, sugar spirals, or her stunning Broccoli & Cheese Galette-a dish that combines trashy and classy elements in a nostalgic creation reminiscent of her childhood after-school snack.
Chapitre 7
The Silky World of Custards and Puddings
Custards and puddings are more about technique than precise measurements, making them adaptable and forgiving. Sohla encourages breaking free from strict definitions to create desserts that simply taste good, explaining that success comes from understanding thickening techniques rather than exact ingredient ratios.
She details five thickening methods: acid (as in possets, where citrus curdles cream), gelatin (refined collagen that forms a network to trap liquid when cooled), eggs (proteins that form a matrix when gently heated), starch (granules that swell and burst when heated), and combinations of eggs and starch for more stable results.
Her Lemon Thyme Posset demonstrates acid thickening, creating a barely-set curd with the texture of decadent yogurt, perfumed with woody thyme and lightly sweetened with honey. For gelatin-based desserts, her Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta features a wiggly, barely-set cream infused with vanilla bean and topped with an aged balsamic reduction.
Egg-thickened custards require careful temperature control to prevent proteins from tightening and squeezing out liquid. Her Burnt Basque Cheesecake breaks all traditional rules-no water bath, extremely hot oven, no crust-yet creates something extraordinary with a deeply caramelized exterior and silky pudding-like interior.
For starch-thickened puddings, her Fruit on the Bottom Coconut Mahalabia uses cornstarch to create a vegan adaptation of the Middle Eastern pudding, with a surprise layer of bright jam on the bottom adding contrasting flavor and sweetness.
Perhaps most versatile are custards thickened with both eggs and starch, like her Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream-a dense, pipable custard perfect for filling everything from eclairs to cream buns. The addition of cornstarch prevents curdling, allowing the pastry cream to reach a full simmer for exactly one minute (crucial for deactivating enzymes in the yolks).
These techniques culminate in her Chocolate Pudding Pie for Grown-Ups, inspired by childhood memories of Jell-O pudding but elevated for adult tastes. The pudding is essentially a pastry cream enriched with cream and chocolate, set in a classic Oreo cookie crust and finished with extra-virgin olive oil and flaky salt to enhance the chocolate's earthy flavor.
Chapitre 8
The Sweet Science of Caramelization
When heated, sugar develops complex, bitter flavors and creates a spectrum of textures from chewy to crunchy. Sohla explains that granulated sugar (sucrose) combines fructose (quick, intense sweetness) and glucose (milder, lingering sweetness), creating a balanced sweetener that caramelizes at high temperatures (320F/160C) without burning.
Two methods exist for making caramel: the dry method (heating sugar directly) works for small batches but requires vigilance; the wet method (dissolving sugar in water first) is more forgiving for larger quantities. The wet method's main challenge is crystallization, which occurs when sugar crystals form on the pan's sides and fall back into the mixture.
Sugar syrup temperature directly correlates to water content and determines candy texture. Thread Stage (230-235F) contains 20% water and creates thick syrup. Soft Ball Stage (235-240F) with 15% water forms soft balls in cold water, perfect for fudge. As temperatures increase and water content decreases, textures progress through firm ball, hard ball, soft crack, and hard crack stages, culminating in caramelization at 320F when no water remains.
These principles come alive in recipes like her Classic Peanut Brittle, where a spent vanilla bean pod adds rich flavor to a simple combination of sugar, corn syrup, and raw peanuts. For a vegan option, her Coconut Caramel sauce was created for dairy-free friends but tastes nostalgically like McDonald's caramel sundaes.
More complex applications include her Twice-Baked Caramelized Cashew Baklava, featuring tight coils of phyllo dough filled with cardamom-spiced cashews and orange zest. The addition of acid (orange juice) prevents crystallization in the sugar syrup, while a second bake caramelizes the syrup into a chewy glaze with deeper flavor.
Her Bitter Mocha Honeycomb transforms traditional honeycomb candy by using coffee instead of water for an intensely bitter flavor that balances the sweetness. The science involves cooking sugar syrup to just above hard crack stage (310-315F) before adding baking soda, which creates carbon dioxide bubbles that set into an airy, crisp structure.
Chapitre 9
Bread: The Staff of Life
Sohla introduces accessible bread-making techniques that don't require extensive baking experience or sourdough starters. She explains the science of gluten formation-how water activates glutenin and gliadin proteins in wheat flour to create the elastic yet plastic structure that makes bread both chewy and tender.
Different grains have different protein ratios-common wheat (bread wheat) has the ideal ratio for bread, while durum wheat is better for pasta, and rye contains pentosans that interrupt gluten formation creating denser breads. Water is crucial: too little prevents proper protein bonding, while too much weakens the network.
For beginners, her Thin & Chewy Roti uses all-purpose flour rather than bread flour, mixed just enough to form a smooth dough. Warm water is crucial as it allows starches to absorb moisture before proteins can develop gluten. While traditional roti uses atta (a distinct South Asian whole wheat flour), this recipe approximates its texture and flavor by adding whole wheat flour to all-purpose flour.
Her Crusty No-Knead Focaccia relies on time rather than kneading to develop gluten. As yeasts slowly ferment, they create carbon dioxide bubbles that strengthen the gluten network, while occasional folding arranges these strands into interlocking structures that give the bread chew and structure. The process requires minimal active time but needs at least 13 hours total, making it an exercise in patience rather than technique.
For more ambitious bakers, her Flaky Brown Butter Lachha Paratha creates countless layers separated by fat, resulting in a texture that's flaky, crisp, and chewy all at once. The technique involves making both brown butter and ghee from the same batch of butter, then using the ghee in the dough and for cooking while the brown butter creates the flavorful layers.
Her Squishy No-Knead White Bread has the soft texture of brioche but uses oil instead of butter, making it versatile enough for sandwiches, French toast, rolls, steamed buns, or donuts. The dough develops gluten through slow fermentation, high moisture content, and strategic folding rather than kneading. This versatile dough can be transformed into Bacon Fat Rolls, Parker House Rolls, Spiced Potato-Filled Steamed Buns, or even Vanilla-Glazed Donuts.
Chapitre 10
From Fundamentals to Feasts: Putting It All Together
After building foundational skills, Sohla guides readers in combining techniques to create complete, harmonious meals that showcase the breadth of culinary possibilities. Her thoughtfully curated menu suggestions include themed collections that speak to different moods, occasions, and seasons. The "Comfort food you can cry into" menu features soul-warming dishes like Cheesy Macaroni Pomodoro with hand-crushed San Marzano tomatoes and three-cheese blend, a reimagined Waldorf Salad with honey-glazed walnuts and crisp apple matchsticks, and a sophisticated Chocolate Pudding Pie for Grown-Ups featuring dark chocolate and sea salt.
For warmer months, her "For steamy summer nights" collection offers refreshing combinations: Watermelon Chaat with mint, chile, and toasted cumin; Chilled Green Tahini Soba featuring buckwheat noodles in herb-rich sauce; Crispy-Skinned Salmon with citrus notes; and a silky Honey Vanilla Semifreddo that can be prepared days ahead.
The "Cocktail party for friends you want to impress" menu demonstrates Sohla's expertise in sophisticated entertaining. It begins with Gunpowder Spice-dusted crudites featuring seasonal vegetables, followed by perfectly poached Snappy Shrimp with house-made Cocktail Sauce, Broiler-Popped Oysters with compound butter, and a crowd-pleasing Deviled Egg Dip that transforms the classic appetizer. Homemade Cheese Twists using laminated dough complement carefully selected olives and cured meats. The detailed 26-step plan, beginning one month ahead, includes everything from testing recipes to strategic serving times, ensuring expensive items like oysters appear last when guests are most appreciative.
The ambitious "Ham's favorite meal" showcases cross-cultural influences and timing precision. The menu features Broiler Lamb Kofta with All the Fixin's (including homemade tzatziki and harissa), tangy Dill Pickle Cucumber Salad, Zhaleh's Classic Saffron-Stained Tahdig with its perfectly crispy bottom, fresh Perfectly Puffy Pitas, and cooling Fruit on the Bottom Coconut Mahalabia. The three-day preparation schedule ensures each component reaches the table at its peak, with detailed instructions for achieving the ideal crispy-fluffy pita texture and that coveted tahdig crust.
These menus serve as master classes in technique application and timing. Sohla emphasizes the crucial elements of temperature contrast (hot kofta with cool tzatziki), textural variety (crispy tahdig with soft mahalabia), and flavor balance (spicy harissa with cooling cucumber salad). Her approach teaches readers to think like professional chefs, considering not just individual recipes but complete dining experiences.
For entertaining success, Sohla presents a comprehensive three-step planning method. First, create an overhead view mapping all dishes and their interactions, transforming separate recipes into one coordinated plan. Second, maximize efficiency through smart prep work - for instance, chopping all vegetables at once or using oven time for multiple dishes. Finally, maintain flexibility with backup plans and time buffers for unexpected challenges.
Through these detailed menu frameworks and planning strategies, "Start Here" elevates home cooking from simple recipe execution to confident, creative meal orchestration. Readers learn not just how to cook individual dishes, but how to create memorable dining experiences that flow seamlessly from kitchen to table.
