Claire Saffitz Quotes

Claire Saffitz

Profession : Editor

Birth : September 16, 1986

If anything betrays my Ashkenazi Jewish heritage - besides the Casper-the-friendly-ghost-like skin tone - it's my love of fishy fish.

Claire Saffitz

Whipped ganache is a great gateway icing if you're working your way slowly into the vast world of egg-based buttercreams. It's just a few ingredients and far superior in flavor to the basic butter/sugar/milk frosting.

Claire Saffitz

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.

Claire Saffitz

If you think about it, composed salads are like nachos (I'll explain). When you're eating a plate of nachos, it's always a bummer when you get to those naked, topping-less chips on the bottom of the pile. It's the same with salads. No one wants to find a naked leaf on the end of their fork.

Claire Saffitz

Quince may resemble pears and apples, but unlike their fruit brethren, raw quince are inedibly tannic and sour. This means you do have to cook them, but the transformation is dramatic, and well worth your efforts.

Claire Saffitz

The problem with traditional pie weights is you never have enough and they're expensive. Common substitutes like dried beans just aren't heavy enough to do the job. Our genius solution? Small steel balls that fit inside ball bearings and that can be purchased at any hardware store.

Claire Saffitz

Sometimes there is dogma in baking and sometimes there is not - you just have to know when to break the rules and when to follow them.

Claire Saffitz

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.

Claire Saffitz

Pierogies are textbook comfort food.

Claire Saffitz

The first time I ever deep-fried something, I was terrified. I was making yeasted jelly donuts, and I was so nervous that I fried them, unblinking, with a pounding heart and sweaty palms.

Claire Saffitz

I ate cottage cheese all the time growing up, but it wasn't until I was in college that I became aware of the stigma surrounding it.

Claire Saffitz

Pate a choux is a mixture of simple ingredients - flour, water, milk, eggs - but the proper technique is essential. Unlike other doughs, the pastry is pre-cooked on the stovetop before being enriched with eggs, piped, and baked.

Claire Saffitz

I've always just operated with the attitude that if I work just as hard as I can, everything will be fine.

Claire Saffitz

Deep-frying properly requires you to keep the oil at a precise temperature range depending on the food. If you're frying in more than an inch of oil you really should invest in a deep-fat thermometer so you can monitor the temperature and know when to adjust the heat.

Claire Saffitz

Home cooks are finding inspiration in the past, digging up centuries-old recipes more familiar to the likes of Thomas Jefferson than Thomas Keller.

Claire Saffitz

Having those people that you trust implicitly is so important.

Claire Saffitz

Simmering vegetables in a covered pot over low heat so that they steam in their own liquid - a French technique called a l'etouffee - is the ticket to achieving a soup with pronounced depth.

Claire Saffitz

No stuffing is complete without chopped onion and celery - they're the building blocks. If you want to deepen the flavor, consider adding leeks, sage, and/or hardy greens.

Claire Saffitz

The last time I ordered soup in a restaurant was - well, let me see - possibly never. That's because in my mind, soup is something to be made and eaten at home, ideally with a cuddly animal at your feet in front of a blazing fireplace while the wind whips outside.

Claire Saffitz

One thing I hear a lot is that people feel less stressed out after they watch 'Gourmet Makes.' There's a transference of their stress onto me.

Claire Saffitz