By Heart by Haley Catalano: First Look at a Calm, Practical Cookbook

Introduction

By Heart by Haley Catalano is a cookbook built around staying focused, calm, and happy in the kitchen, and it promises flavor upgrades hidden inside very approachable recipes. We cooked two of its dishes to find out whether that promise holds up: a BLT that swaps in a garlic-lemon emulsion called toum instead of mayo, and chicken fat mashed potatoes. The pairing sounds odd, but the book leans into exactly this kind of small, thoughtful upgrade, so it felt like the right test.

What Kind of Cookbook By Heart Is

Haley Catalano is a Midwest cook from Chicago who went straight from high school into culinary school in New York, worked in restaurants, and started making videos during the pandemic after industry burnout. Her whole focus with this book seems to be keeping things calm and organized. She includes a four-step section on staying calm in the kitchen, anchored by the idea that a clean counter is a clean mind, plus advice to read the whole recipe a couple of times before starting.

One structural choice stands out immediately. Several recipes get a spread where the pros, the recipe list, and a full-page step-by-step photo guide all sit together across a few pages, so you never have to flip back and forth mid-recipe. It is a genuinely smart layout, especially for techniques that benefit from a visual walkthrough.

The book uses metric measurements throughout, which helps with accuracy, and it gives you the exact amount to pour at each stage rather than vague instructions like “use a third here and two-thirds there.” It also favors dark brown sugar over light, toasts peppercorns before using them, and recommends pecorino over parmesan, reflecting her Sicilian family background and her grandma Tina, a major inspiration.

The book contains 108 recipes, 52 of them vegetarian and 14 vegan. There is a strong dill thread through the whole thing, and other recipes we flagged to try include the little gem salad with a garlicky white bean spread, celery root and potato pierogi, charred cumin beets, spicy carrot rigatoni, slow roasted salmon with vermouth fennel, and a lamb goulash pot pie.

Equipment and Pantry Opinions

Catalano prefers a six-inch petty knife over a classic eight-inch chef’s knife, arguing the smaller blade is easier to maneuver and more controlled, even to the point of deboning a chicken with it. That trade of a little efficiency for a lot of control is likely to help most home cooks.

Her pantry picks lean distinctive. She goes to smoked paprika, pepper flakes, bay leaves, and fennel seeds, and she is fond of celery vinegar, which she says is worth hunting down even though the small-batch brand she recommends has been hard to keep in stock. She also gives useful storage guidance for farmers market hauls, including a good method for keeping greens and herbs fresh longer.

Cooking the Chicken Fat Mashed Potatoes

The chicken fat mashed potatoes involve tearing the skin off chicken thighs, rendering the fat in a non-stick pan with a little water, and crisping the skin separately. A fine strainer, like the kind normally used for dissolving miso, turned out to be perfect for pouring the fat into a jar without skin bits. The book also tells you what to do with the leftover thighs, suggesting chicken broth or Tina’s chicken bake, which is a nice touch.

The mash itself was our weaker result. The potatoes came out dense and dry, needing more butter, salt, and liquid, and we would have preferred a bit more acid. The saving grace is that it is very easy to correct: keep extra buttermilk or sour cream on hand and adjust to taste before dressing the potatoes. The crispy chicken skin on top, however, was a real win, especially for a holiday table where it ties the side dish into the poultry.

Cooking the Tomato Sandwich

The BLT doubles down on texture and seasoning. The bacon is thick-cut and cooked at 425 on a wire rack, and the book specifically calls for pepper bacon rather than typical applewood, which turned out to be a genuine flavor upgrade. The toum comes together in a high-sided container with an immersion blender, streaming in canola oil drop by drop with garlic, lemon juice, and kosher salt.

The recipe also notes a food processor method with ice cubes, though it is described as not foolproof. Our toum came out slightly softer than the light and foamy texture we expected, and we found ourselves wanting a touch more oil, so trust your eye on the final consistency. The book recommends potato bread with rye or country white as alternatives.

Buying Advice

The BLT was the standout. Every detail felt upgraded: the pepper bacon, the garlic-forward toum, the dill, the potato bread. It may well be the best version of that sandwich we have made, and it earned top marks. The mashed potatoes were more mixed, but the corrections are simple.

Our overall read: the individual recipe names are unassuming and the dish descriptions do not grab you, but there is a lot of magic hiding under the surface, and much of it lives in the specific ingredients she calls out. If you already like Haley’s style, just get the book. If you are unsure whether her flavor profile matches yours, a few similar recipes are available on her website as variations you can test before committing to the roughly $35 book.

Conclusion

By Heart is a calm, detail-driven cookbook that rewards you for following its specific recommendations. The tomato sandwich alone justified the session, the chicken fat mash needed easy fixes but taught useful techniques, and the book’s no-page-flip layouts and storage tips make it genuinely pleasant to cook from. If you enjoy leveling up simple dishes with small, deliberate improvements, this one is worth a place on the shelf.