One of the things that seems to confuse a beginner cook is trying to figure out how to balance a dish. A recipe can only take you so far before you must learn to do things “to taste”. But when you can sense that something isn’t quite right, and aren’t sure what to add, or what you might have added too much of, what do you do? How do you learn that skill?
There are many qualities that make up our perception of flavor in a dish, and what it takes to make a dish enjoyable, and I thought I’d take the time to explore them. This post is long and likely in itself intimidating, but it is, I think, a thorough examination of what elements you have control over, whether you’re hunched over the stove or just mixing up a salad in a bowl.
Ingredients
Simply put, there is no substitute for quality ingredients, and quality ingredients speak for themselves. There is little you must do to make seasonal vegetables straight from the garden, or a nice cut of milk fed veal taste delicious. It is not a requirement in the kitchen, but the better the ingredients you’re working with, obviously the better the results, whether it is you or Ferran Adrià doing the cooking.
A Clean Palate
Your perception of flavor is altered by the flavor of whatever might already be in your mouth; the aftertaste of things you previously ate or drank. That sounds obvious, but it’s important to take note of this. It’s difficult to correctly season food if you’ve recently brushed your teeth, had a cigarette, drank a cup of coffee, wine, beer, etc. or even if you just recently took a bite of what you’re seasoning – if you’re repeatedly seasoning and tasting, seasoning and tasting, you need to cleanse your palate or you lose a sense of perspective for what you’re tasting and what would improve it, or if it even needs improvement at all.
Seasoning
What does it mean to season food? At its most basic, seasoning food is the act of improving its flavor. Improving the flavor of food is the essence of cooking. We might have evolved as cooks through reasons for preservation and digestibility, but whatever knowledge we’ve retained through the centuries is almost solely because of the simple fact that cooking makes most things taste better, and the better something tastes, the more we want to eat it.
When most people talk of seasoning food, they mean adding salt and pepper. No matter how old and underused the spice rack is in any home (if it exists at all) nearly everyone in a Westernized civilization has an easily accessible supply of salt and pepper, and make frequent use of them both. Both play important, but very different roles, in the seasoning of food.
Pepper is added to food simply because we like how it tastes. When pepper is first ground, it releases flavorful and aromatic oils, but then rapidly begins to lose its potency. This is why there is a stressed importance on buying whole peppercorns and grinding them for use with a pepper mill. Whole peppercorns retain their flavor for quite some time, but ground pepper has lost most of its nuance before you even pick it off the supermarket shelves.
Salt is added during the seasoning of food not to make food salty, but because salt is a flavor enhancer. What that means is that salt increases the intensity of other flavors. Although there are instances where we enjoy the taste of salt and have it shine on its own (such as on potato chips), salt’s primary role is to heighten flavor and make foods “taste more like themselves”. Conversely to black pepper, salt contains no essential oils and can be refined to varying degrees without detriment to its potency. For this reason, buying a salt grinder does not make your salt “better”, it simply provides a different texture than ordinary table salt. Which is not to say that salt grinders don’t have their uses, as texture plays an important role in the enjoyment of food as well. Large flakes of fleur de sel can offer a crunchy contrast to food, whereas refined table salt cannot. Similarly, I prefer using Kosher salt because of its larger grains, making it easier to control its distribution on food. If you’re simply dissolving salt into water, what salt you use makes little to no difference whatsoever.
There are many types of salts available, but gram for gram, one type of salt is typically no saltier than another. The difference in the flavor of salts are subtle, like the difference in still waters, and for many of the same reasons. That is, deposits of other minerals are what affect the taste of one salt to the next, with the exception of flavored salts, such as smoked and herb salts, which are purposefully infused with a specific flavor.
The (Four? Five?) Tastes
There are four basic tastes that can be perceived by the tongue: salty, sweet, sour and bitter. Umami, the “fifth taste”, is the perception of savoriness, which is not to be confused with the feel of something in the mouth, which is texture. We are typically attracted to salty, sweet and savory substances (salt, sugar and fat) and use bitter and sour (acidic) ingredients to compliment them.
Umami
Umami is a defining characteristic of “meaty” ingredients. Foods rich in proteins, such as meats and pulses, dairy products (especially aged cheeses) and certain types of vegetables (such as tomatoes and mushrooms) are rich in umami. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is often added to food because, like salt, it is a flavor enhancer, but also because it increase the umami of a dish, giving it an overall perception of savoriness in the mouth. Cooking food, especially caramelizing it, also adds a sense of savoriness to it.
Saltiness
As previously mentioned, salt’s role in flavor is integral, as it helps to bring out the flavor of other ingredients. Salt decreases the perception of bitterness. This makes salt a welcome ingredient in both sweet and savory applications, such as caramel, cocoa and coffee, and to bitter greens such as escarole and arugula, as well as nuts. Salt is added in many forms other than straight salt itself, most of which also add another element of umami. Soy sauce, fish sauce, bouillon, cheese and charcuterie (cured meats) are examples of more flavorful ways to add salt to food and increase the perception of savoriness in a dish.
Bitterness
Bitterness is not a commonly welcomed ingredient to the human palate, and is a taste that we are quite sensitive to. Supertasters in particular perceive bitterness even more distinctly than the rest of us, which is a shame really, as bitter foods are typically loaded with antioxidants. Nonetheless, bitterness is a taste that has an important role in food and can be widely appreciated, such as in coffee, beer, wine and chocolate, for example.
Salt reduces the perception of bitterness, which is why we almost exclusively find salt accompanying olives and members of the brassicas family, such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower. Many nuts and certain types of salad greens and herbs also have a natural bitterness to them, which can be curbed by an addition of salt, or balanced with fat and acid (sourness). Burnt food also tastes bitter, so barbecued, grilled and smoked foods are well complimented by salt, vinegars and citrus.
Sourness
Sourness, or acidity, promotes salivation, which can increase the overall savoriness of a dish since it literally gets your mouth watering. Acidity also helps to “brighten” a dish, add an element of freshness or contrast. Acidity is primarily found in fruit, especially citrus and tomatoes, as well as in vinegars, as well as fermented products, such as sauerkraut, yogurt and sourdough bread. Acidity helps reduce the perception of saltiness, such as a lemon wedge squeezed over saganaki (salty, fried cheese) or a lime wedge as part of a ritualistic tequila shot. The balance for sourness is sweetness, such as in lemonade. Fat, such as olive oil, coconut milk or cream, can also help to balance too much acidity.
Sweetness
Sweetness is found in a wide variety of sweeteners, such as various sugars, maple syrup and honey, as well as most fruits and root vegetables. Generally in cooking, sweetness should have a muted intensity or the dish ends up being too cloying. Sweetness can be balanced with salt, like in caramel, or acid, like in sweet and sour sauce, but in many cases, too sweet is simply too sweet. Subtly is key when using sweetness in cooking, and is used extensively in combination with acidic ingredients, such as a pinch of sugar in a tomato sauce, or balsamic vinegar drizzled over strawberries.
Intensity
As much as it is possible to balance acidity with sugar, there comes a point when even in balance with each other, you can have too much of each. You want ingredients to be recognized, but not attack your mouth. Just because you can understand two people yelling at you simultaneously, doesn’t mean their words wouldn’t be better delivered in turns at a lower volume, and that’s precisely what you should also try to achieve with food. If something is strongly flavored, you’d want to use it sparingly, whereas if something is mild, you can likely use it liberally. Sometimes seasoning can get carried away and you have to mute everything a bit, in which case you would want to add more of the unseasoned ingredients you had started with, or neutral flavors as appropriate, such as plain starches (potatoes, white rice and bread, etc.) or simply water to dilute the concentration of flavor.
Engaging The Five Senses
There is more to our enjoyment of food than just what the tongue perceives. Food engages all of our senses. Flavor alone is perceived not only through the tongue, but equally through the nose as well. This is why the flavor of food is muted when you are sick. When the nose is plugged, the perception of flavor is altered. Texture also plays a big part in how we perceive food. Crisp and crunchy things are generally more appealing than soft and slimy ones. The feel of things in our mouth and how we hear them when they’re being chewed alters what we think of it. Finally, the visual presentation of food can often be the difference between an amazing meal and an average one. You want to keep all of these factors in mind when composing a dish. Contrast between textures, shapes and colors often add an extra element to a dish that the adjustment of taste alone cannot.
Aromatics
As I mentioned before, the olfactory system plays an important part in our perception of flavor. Naturally, we want to eat things that smell good, but aromatics aren’t strictly about aroma. The role aromatics play in food is to provide a bouquet of complimentary flavor compounds without becoming dominant forces in a dish. This includes, among other things, the alium family (garlic, chives, onions, etc.), peppers, citrus zest, herbs, spices and essences. Flavor bases are also called aromatics, such as sweating a mirepoix (onions, carrots and celery) to start a soup. They help to give depth to a dish.
Texture
Words that describe the texture of foods are those that often show up as descriptors on restaurant menus. We tend to gravitate towards the dishes described as crispy, crunchy, tender and creamy. Texture is a visual as much as it is a tactile thing. You can see as well as feel texture. A contrast in textures is often welcome in the composition of even the simplest dishes, such as creamy and chunky guacamole with crisp and crunchy tortilla chips. Contrast not only increases the variety of textures, but enables a relative comparison to be made. The consistency of ingredients, whether firm or soft, liquid or solid, thick or watery, oily, gelatinous or fibrous can all be used in a complimentary way depending on the circumstances.
Appearance
Although it is obvious that food that looks good is generally more appealing than food that doesn’t, numerous psychological studies have proven that people prefer the flavor of foods presented artistically or that come in an appealing package, when compared to identical foods in all respects but appearance. Appearance in this sense is not solely about how food looks on the plate and how it is presented, but also the descriptions attributed to them, such as in a restaurant menu. Too much fluffing can have an opposite effect as well though, either by becoming pretentious or disappointing expectations. There are many ways to increase the appeal of a plate, which at minimum requires a separate post, and a topic which has been covered extensively as a subject of entire books.
Temperature
Temperature has various contexts in food. It refers of course to whether a dish is served hot or cold, but also whether ingredients have a warming or cooling effect and level of piquance or spiciness. Cooking itself, defined by the application of heat to food, also has a profound effect on flavor, such as bringing out the sweetness in roasted vegetables and similarly reducing the perceived acidity in tomatoes, or increasing the savoriness of grilled meat or mushrooms.
Hot or Cold
Foods that are to be served hot must be seasoned differently than food that is to be served cold, as flavors tend to be more pronounced in warm food and muted when cold. The perception of flavor for otherwise identical dishes can be quite different, dependent on the temperature at which they’re served. An iced cappuccino is far sweeter than most would sweeten their hot coffee, while chilling beer reduces the perceived bitterness of the hops. The same applies when seasoning food, whether it be a cold soup like vichyssoise, or a potato salad.
Warming or Cooling
We perceive some ingredients as warming or cooling, regardless of their context. Cinnamon, for example, is a warming ingredient, whether we add it to oatmeal or ice cream. Conversely, yogurt is a cooling ingredient, whether it be part of tzatziki or a curry. Often a warming ingredient can be used in a cold dish and vice versa, but it’s important to note these qualities and their flavor associations.
Piquance
Heat in the sense of spiciness can come in many forms. Capsaicin, such as in chili peppers and their derivatives (such as paprika) is one example, while peppercorns, mustard and radishes offer their own element of piquancy. Adding chili peppers to a dish is a great way to make a blander dish bold and giving it a warming quality, but too much heat can outshine other flavors entirely. Sweetness and saltiness can balance heat on the tongue, but only dairy can really diminish the burning effect in the mouth. For this reason, yogurt, milk, as well as coconut milk, and cheese are often a component or accompaniment to spicy dishes in some form.
Fat
Fat is an essential component of many dishes, and it’s role in the enjoyment of food is often under appreciated, no doubt in large part due to how demonized it has been in our culture. Fat as an ingredient added to cooking is primarily made up of oils and butter, but fat is an important component of dairy products, meat and seafood, and even avocados. Different fats can be used to impart a flavor on their own, such as sesame oil, or be completely neutral, such as canola oil. In the case of neutrality, a fat is used to balance or carry flavors, such as acidity in a salad dressing, or to release fat soluble flavors, such as cooking garlic and tomatoes in olive oil. Although it is not important to the flavor of foods, fat also enables to absorption of fat soluble vitamins, notably vitamin A, D, E and K.
Summary
For the foundation of something savory, there is always salt (the essence of “savory”), for something sweet, of course, sugar. “Depth” can be achieved not only through the addition of more ingredients, but simply in the cooking preparation of them as well. Although complexity of flavors is often enjoyable, too much intensity or conflicting flavors is undesirable. Ultimately, your familiarity with the ingredients you choose to use will ease the process of learning to cook with them. It’s easier to learn how to cook a tomato sauce when you’ve grown up eating it, than it is to dive in and throw together a beef vindaloo when you’ve never stepped foot inside an Indian restaurant. But then, part of the excitement of cooking can come from discovering something you’ve never eaten before, so experiment to an extent that doesn’t stress your psyche.
If a dish is bland, add something salty. If it becomes too salty, add something acidic. If it becomes too acidic, add something sweet. If it becomes too sweet, add something sour. If it is too bitter, add something salty. Add heat where it is welcome, but if becomes too hot, add sweetness or cream. Remember aromatics (as aroma is as crucial as taste), use various textures from tender to crunchy to appease the ear and sense of touch, and never forget the importance of appearances, as it can be what makes a dish before it even enters your mouth. Above all things, cook with love and without fear, because these things too can be tasted in your food.
Read this for how similar rules also apply to wine.
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