How to Create a Balance of Flavors in Your Cooking

you know when I build a dish for our spa I don't reinvent a classic anymore back in the 80s we talked about reinventing classics I really try to stay away from that because if I were to give you something that's reinvented and you already know what the original tastes like let me tell you the reinvention is not gonna be that good so when I build a dish we build it from the ground up so you really have no preconceived notions about what its gonna taste like and when we build a dish we talk about the balance of flavors which I have here in front of me we talk about sweet sour bitter and salty and we talk about incorporating each of those elements maybe in just a minor way into every dish that we build so when we do that we can avoid adding a lot of fat because fat while it's flavor it's also mouthfeel and it kind of gives you that satiated flavor in your mouth well I would argue that if I balance the food correctly using these elements I don't need as much fat and you're still gonna be very satiated as well so I just want to take you through very briefly because as you're building say salad dressing or maybe a soup or maybe a sauce or even an entree if you incorporate small amounts of these items in the dish you're gonna find that the dish really tastes much better and much more well balanced when we talk about sweet people immediately think oh my gosh do I have to add sugar to every one of my dishes no I'm specifically saying let's say you're making I don't know a marinara sauce well in a marinara sauce if you follow classic Italian recipes a lot of times you'll find a carrot in the marinara sauce why why would there be carrots in tomato sauce because it brings an element of natural sweet to the flavor of the sauce or if you're making a dressing we have a beautiful mango vinaigrette that we make okay mango has a very nice natural sweetness as well so that's a great way if we're in talking about Asian if I'm doing a something maybe a little ponzu sauce or something which has that sour and that salty kind of flavor I'm a balance it with mirin all right mirin is a sweet sake of course there is the option of balancing with just a pinch of evaporated cane juice just a natural form of sugar or maybe a little honey or even a little bit of molasses and molasses it's funny because molasses actually ties into a category down here that we're going to talk about in a second bitter moving on to sour and sour is kind of interesting because sour can can be in the form of course what you see here could be lime it could be lemon it could be vinegar but sour also kind of naturally enhances the sweet and it's a ying and yang thing so if you've got a little sweet in there you balance it with a little bit of sour or if you put a little sprinkle of lemon juice on something you know how that is you put it over a little fish it brings out the flavor so that's what I'm talking about there it may need your sauce or your soup may need just a hint of vinegar or a hint of lemon or lime juice and that's all that it needs to kind of bring those flavors around when we talk about bitter we kind of get into a little bit more difficult area we may be talking about the molasses which has not just the sweet but also that little bit of kind of bitter flavor in there we may be talking about something like an olive or we may even be talking about a green whether it's a salad green like radicchio or trivy spells men dive or even a regular or it may be something like the kale and if you're interested in seeing what to do with kale and rapini check out our other app because we talk there how to incorporate that not just that nice little bitter flavor but all the health benefits that come along with the dark leafy greens bitter in my world also maybe something concentrated like pomegranate juice it has that nice kind of fruity flavor yet it still has that astringency and a little tiny bit of bitterness I do a little drizzle over lamb chops and let me tell you that is absolutely delicious and when we talk about salty salty people go whoa I don't want to add too much salt and it's true you don't want to add too much salt you have to be very careful when you're adding things like soy sauce or you're adding things like sea salt but salty means properly seasoned and we're talking about hey if you're gonna grill a piece of fish it gets a little bit of salt a little bit of pepper before it goes on why because I don't have to add as much surface salt after and when we talk about salt too I really encourage you to use exclusively sea salt because sea salt actually has other minerals in there that act on the tongue opening up your perception of flavor that things like iodized salt and even kosher salt to some extent don't have so it gives you the increase of flavor like natural flavor enhancers that's sea salt and there's all different kinds of sea salt this happens to be a refined type and there's also the very natural type that we use which is the gray salt or fleur de sel which is great as well so in summary sweet sour bitter salty we incorporate little tiny bits of each in every dish for that balance of flavors so you don't need to add the fat to deaden that palate or to really create that satiated flavor the balance of these flavors will do great for you without adding the calories

Channel: Canyon Ranch

Views: 69,126

Rating: 4.8755021 out of 5

Keywords: Canyon Ranch, health resort, Tucson, Lenox, balance of flavors, chef interviews, chef scott uehlein, chef tips, cooking techniques, flavors in dishes

Id: S-flQSEgdWA

Length: 5min 4sec (304 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 04 2015