Bouzari's book Ingredient, is not a cookbook - there are no recipes - it can be defined as a manual on how food works.
Every aspect of each component is studied and explained. It truly is a valuable tool in any cook's arsenal - just as learning everything we can about spices and herbs and their uses, understanding how each building block brings a meal together is essential to furthering our culinary education.

Ali Bouzari’s new book breaks cooking down into eight “building blocks,” or what he calls the capital-I Ingredients that give the book its name: water, sugars, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, minerals, gases, and heat. Does that list make you interested and afraid all at once? Fear not. Ingredient is so chock full of fun illustrations like gummy bears and robotic, axe-wielding enzymes, that it’s easy to mistake the book for hardcover manga. In fact, it goes down easy enough that it may earn the go-to slot on your bedside table.

For chefs who are trying to grasp what goes on during cooking at the molecular level, it provides an entry point for further exploration. For those already wrist-deep in hydrocolloids and conversant with sous vide, it offers a new, playful way of thinking about food.