Taste as you go
A recipe's salt amount is a starting guess, because your tomatoes, stock and salt differ from the writer's. Add a little, stir until it dissolves, taste, repeat. Small rounds let you stop at the right point, since you can add salt but can't easily take it out.
Four dials: salt, acid, fat, sweetness
Treat salt, acid, fat and sweetness as dials, not switches. Flat and dull? Salt first, then a little acid like lemon juice or vinegar. Too sharp? A little fat or a pinch of sugar rounds it off. Too heavy? Acid cuts through. Change one dial, taste, then decide.
A recipe is a starting point
You've met every dial: salt, acid, fat and sweetness. What ties them together is tasting at every stage and asking what the food needs next. Anyone can follow a recipe. Now you can correct one while it cooks.
Test yourself
Questions from the interactive lesson, with the answer and the why.
Your soup tastes flat and dull. What is the first adjustment?
A pinch of salt, stirred in, then taste again. Salt makes the other flavors easier to notice. Taste again after each pinch.
True or false: You can add the full amount of salt at the very start, because tasting later never changes anything.
False. Cooking reduces, browns and blends flavors, so the finished dish tastes different from the start.
Fill the blank: If a dish is salted enough but still tastes dull, a splash of ___ often fixes it.
If a dish is salted enough but still tastes dull, a splash of lemon juice often fixes it. Acid sharpens flavors that salt alone leaves flat.
What went wrong? You fully salt a pan sauce, then boil it down by half. It ends up harsh and far too salty.
Water boiled off, but the salt stayed behind. Reducing concentrates salt. Season lightly first, then adjust at the end.
Your tomato sauce tastes sour and sharp, and it already has enough salt. What next?
A pinch of sugar. Sweetness balances acidity. A little butter or olive oil also rounds it off.
True or false: It is much easier to add salt to a dish than to take it back out.
True. Salt dissolves into food and can't be filtered out, so go in small steps.