Recipes are guidelines, not exact formulas. You can follow a recipe perfectly and get a different result than the recipe creator. From ingredients varying in taste to using another type of salt, there are many factors at play!
Thatâs why you have to use your taste buds to be able to adjust or create a recipe on the fly.
Iâm here to help. There are 7 elements of taste that impact how we enjoy food: salt, sweet, sour, bitter, umami, fat, and spicy.
Just to clarify, these elements of taste are different from flavor.
While some of these elements have flavorless forms (think kosher salt or white sugar), sources of each will have their own flavor profiles. For example, soy sauce tastes different than Parmigiano cheese, but both bring saltiness. Fish sauce and mushrooms both add umami, but their flavors are quite different. Lemon and lime juice are great ways to add acid. But lemon is subtle and floral, lime is pungent and green.
Following?
So whether your tomatoes arenât as sweet as they were last week, you accidentally charred your Brussels sprouts a little too much, or they only have serranos instead of jalapenos, youâve got to be able to adjust these 7 elements to create a well-balanced dish.
Letâs break down each element of taste!
Salt enhances flavor and aromas around it. While the perfect level of salt is subjective, you need enough to bring out the flavor of ingredients you're cooking with.
Sources: kosher salt, anchovies, olives, Parmiggiano, feta, soy sauce, miso, etc.
Concepts to know:
â ď¸ Did it turn out too salty? Try to dilute the food by adding moreâmore tomatoes to a sauce, more veggies to a soup, or extra leaves to a salad. You can also amp up the sweetness or acidity to mask some of the saltiness.
Click here to get nerdy about salt with me!
Sweetness creates depth and also brings out other flavors, especially in desserts.
Sources: honey, maple syrup, caramelized vegetables, carrots, beets, etc.
Concepts to know:
â ď¸ Too much sweetness and a dish can turn overly heavy! Use it wisely!
Sourness (aka acidity) is often the perfect contrasting element to heavy or bland dishes. It adds that brightness and âoomphâ!
Sources: red wine vinegar, citrus juice, goat cheese, crème fraÎche, buttermilk, pickles, wine, sorrel, sumac, sour cherries, etc.
Concepts to know:
While evolutionarily used to help us avoid poisonous food, mild amounts of bitterness give a dish complexity when it might otherwise taste boring or bland.
Sources: bitter greens, eggplants, charred vegetables, coffee, tea, etc.
Concepts to know:
Umami is one of the newer qualities of flavor discovered by scientists. Itâs mostly about the intensity and concentration of flavors. Interestingly, in addition to coming from ârawâ ingredients, you can also create umami through cooking. The Maillard reaction, where you brown ingredients over high heat, creates new molecules, among which are elements of umami!
Sources: tomato paste, soy sauce, mushrooms, miso, aged cheeses, seared meats, etc.
Concepts to know:
â ď¸ Too much umami can make a dish overwhelming or overly intense. In fact, if a part of the dish is too high in umami, it can completely bury other flavors and ingredients around it.
You can mellow umami by turning to acid or diluting the dish.
Fat is a wonderful vehicle for flavor. It picks up flavor around it and carries it throughout the dish while enriching it.
Sources: oil, butter, animal fat, avocado, cream, cheese, almonds, pine nuts, etc.
â ď¸ Too much fat will cover up flavors around it. So you may need to aggressively season fatty foods!
Like bitterness or umami, spiciness adds complexity but in a more dynamic way. I love this quote from The Art of Flavor: â[Spiciness] can invigorate bland foods, alleviate richness, and bring excitement to otherwise homogeneous combinations.â
Sources: chiles, peppers, and hot sauces of course but also ginger, horseradish, mustard, etc.
â ď¸ Be careful not to go overboard! 𼾠If it turns a little too spicy, add sweet, sour, or fat elements to counteract the burn.
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I hope this serves as a good reference for you moving forward. If you want to bookmark it for the future, you can also bookmark this article on the Salt Sear Savor blog. Every newsletter issue I write is reposted there!
Catch you next week!
Luciano đ¨âđł
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