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“Cooking is all about making a balance – Ben Kwong”
In my previous article, I shared some concepts of the basic 4 seasonings. I think some of you may need to combat with the over seasoned or what goes better in cooking.
Let’s start with the basic one, savory. This is just from my experience dealing with salt. It is the most love and hate flavor. If you add too much, it gets bitter and taste like water if not enough. Is there a way we get away with adding too much salt? Unfortunately, most of the time, no and I guess eating less salt to reduce the risk of high blood pressure and kidney problems is good too, right? We can easily sprinkle some later.
Bear in mind that salt only accumulate in the process of cooking. It just gets denser each time you add more.
Sour, as we mentioned before can be balance it with sugar. Honey is also good for the job. However, you are not actually cooking honey as it will destroy all the good factors in it.
Bitter? What food has the bitter taste? I am not talking about total bitter like the Chinese herbal tea here. In fact, food like bitter melon, squash, broccoli, spinach all has a little bit of unpleasant smell in comparison to lettuce. Got the idea? We can easily use sugar to neutralize this bitterness.
Hot and spicy? The most direct way is to use sweetness to bring down the hotness. No surprise the Japanese curry has a taste of honey to it. Add fruit, milk or cream can also tone down the hotness effect.
Cooking is all about making a balance. Like the Chinese philosophy, Yin and Yang idea is well adapting here. You many discover a set of your own rules.
Keep on exploring!
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