Quotes from Claire Saffitz

Always deep fry in a nonreactive, heavy pot with high sides, like an enameled Dutch oven. A heavy pot ensures even heating which means more even cooking.

For a while I thought I would work in museums, so my first job after college was an internship at the 9/11 Museum. I quickly found out that I did not want to do that. So I signed up for culinary school, and directly following culinary school, I went to graduate school at McGill.

Of all the quirky, inexplicable, reindeer-embellished holiday traditions out there, making your own Yule log might take the cake.

In the height of summer, a ripe cantaloupe is one of the most intoxicating pieces of produce under the sun.

I know very little about my great grandparents, who came through Ellis Island in the early twentieth century, settled in Baltimore, and spoke only Yiddish.

As an adult, I use whole-milk cottage cheese anywhere you might use plain Greek yogurt or ricotta cheese.

Even as a little kid I knew that spinning a dreidel on the floor for literal pennies was a sad consolation for the joys of trimming a Christmas tree.

Lame blades can dull relatively quickly, so after slashing several loaves the blade won't slice through the dough with tremendous ease. (When this happens, don't throw it away - it's still sharp enough to score duck or pork skin, or shave paper-thin slices of garlic and chives, like a hot knife through butter).

I don't like a too-perfect cake. You want people to know it came from your kitchen and not the cake case in the bakery aisle.

I have made cassoulet more times than is advisable - first in culinary school, once with a friend for a dinner party, and at least half a dozen times in the BA Test Kitchen.

Only bake one type of thing at a time. Even when it seems like you're killing two birds with one stone, baking multiple recipes at the same time in one oven presents a tricky balancing act.

Always bake in the center of the oven. A pan placed too close to the bottom of the oven will receive more heat radiating from the oven floor, baking it faster from the bottom. The reverse is true of something baked on the top rack. Always bake in the center for the most even baking and browning all around.

Even though they have long shelf lives, chemical leaveners will lose potency over time. If the only box of baking soda you have around is the one that's been absorbing odors in your fridge for the last few years, it's probably a good idea to get a new box just for baking.

The mild creaminess of cottage cheese makes it a perfect blank canvas for almost any flavor combination, savory or sweet. Since it's so soft, I usually try to give it some textural contrast in the form of something crunchy. Brightening it up with acid is also a must.

Never met an egg I didn't like.

Generally I don't find that basting does a lot of anything! I think what makes the most difference is treating the turkey ahead of time with a dry brine. It really does provide a very moist result.

Usually, turkey burger recipes result in something so lifeless and tasteless that drowning one in ketchup (that most perfect and delicious of condiments) doesn't help much. Part of the problem is calling this food a 'burger' at all, because it's never going to satisfy the way juicy, salty, medium-rare beef will.

Turkey burgers receive a fair amount of disparagement, and it's not unfounded.

The main problems with cooked ground turkey are, one, it doesn't taste like much, and, two, it's dry.

Like turning potatoes or making a bearnaise sauce by hand, forming a cornet - essentially a DIY pastry bag - from parchment paper feels like one of those things culinary students do once or twice and then never again.

Hearty soups with relatively long cook times like minestrone, for example, are chock-full of aromatics and flavor-lending ingredients like bacon, onions, and garlic. These infuse the water with their flavor and produce a clean-tasting broth all on their own.

All cold brew coffee is more or less made the same way - by long-steeping coarse coffee grounds in unheated water - but it's not all created equal.

Can you braid three strands? Then you can make babkallah. The very idea of babkallah came about because the recipe avoids the complicating twisting technique that gives babka its signature swirl.

Cassoulet requires a few ingredients you won't find in the typical supermarket.