swoon-provoking
Finesse may just be one of the most very important skills of a chef, home cook or baker……
I’m no stranger to sweet and salty. Let me just admit that perhaps nothing sends me off into a heady swoon more than a scant teaspoonful of this Welsh Heather Honey that I discovered at Fortnum and Mason a few Januarys ago. (if you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I have written about it here before). To this day, just twisting the top off this jar sends that ethereal waft of incomparable aroma up into my nostrils and ignites a euphoria unlike any other (save but perhaps a Gardenia). It’s truly magical. But, after reading an article this morning – see link below; about the newest sugar substitute to come into favor for consideration, that of Coconut Sugar, I got to thinking about the whole realm and purpose of seasoning, or enhancing flavor. This is the point of sweetening and salting after all,isn’t it – to enhance the inherent flavor of the focal point ingredient(s) and to make clear the distinction, not to become a flavor unto itself?
Perhaps the adjunct and maybe even more pertinent question of choice of sweetener, is the one of quantity and profile. Of course, as with this particular honey and my coveted Italian-import Chestnut variety, they tend to be prize-worthy foodstuff-items unto themselves – either to be enjoyed alone or as a distinct background. Do I hear a “but” coming? Well, yes…………
Aside from the well-known health considerations of sweeteners and salt, there are issues of taste here to be held up and examined. The question becomes, quite frankly, one of the skillful finesse, or, the fine-tuning ability of the chef, cook or baker in calibrating elements and balance until they are “just right”.
Perhaps I first became attuned to this idea when I was a child, watching my Father sprinkle the tiniest bit of salt onto his wedge of honeydew melon in the height of Summer. At that point, I found this to be confounding if not slightly odd – not unlike the normal observance of the suspect behaviors of a parent by a curious child. But, as I grew to understand (and eventually to respect) the persnicketiness and acute on-targetness of his palate, I eventually gave over to the idea – the tiniest dusting of salt could indeed bring the flavor of the honeydew forward – but one or two grains extra and your first taste was of salt and not of that precious summertime gift and rarity that is the perfectly ripe melon. Of course, having a slice of Prosciutto de Parma with your perfectly ripe honeydew (or cantaloupe) achieves the exact same thing – as we all know. Later, I realized you could do something similar and perhaps even more effective with a drizzle of lemon or lime juice, (as he sometimes did as well) – that is, typically without the Prosciutto.
In my own little prism of sensibility of palate, I’m never one to appreciate the raw taste of sugar or, that other primary flavor-enhancer, that of salt. These days (and I did do a full review of the array of salt offerings yesterday with my daughter at Dean and Deluca on Prince and Broadway) it seems to read as perhaps yet another marketing gimmick, that we should at least consider each and every new source and treatment of salt. (She chose the Smoked Maldon Salt – I was impressed.)
another popular variety
Add salt to the issues “on the table” regarding the amount of sugar we Americans ingest yearly and it would seem to me worthy to consider whether the balance hasn’t perhaps tipped, in a weighty way, away from the flavor(s) of what we are making, to slightly-or-more over the “edge” provided to all dishes by adding sweeteners and salts. I don’t mean to allay the considerations of other flavorings such as but not limited to spices and extracts, I’m just trying to focus here on what are perhaps the two biggest go-to items that are at the very least, high on the list of rounding up the usual suspects in the over-indulgence category.
Having seen more than my fair share of Chopped contestants banished from the kitchen for “under-seasoning”, I have keenly awakened to the issue here of the individuality of palate-pleasing. Yes, everyone’s palate is different and what tastes great to one isn’t the same as to another. But, is there more than one way to achieve the goal of accentuating the flavor of a dish or baked good without upsetting that delicate balance and otherwise elusive target-range of what you’d calibrate as good taste? Is the goal ever to taste sugar, to taste salt? I don’t mean to confuse the taste sensation of sweet and sugar here – we all know the great flavor sensation that is a perfectly ripe mango, for instance – and herein lies the issue – we want to taste the mango flavor, part of which is it’s sweetness, but not the sugar in a cake.
As I cook and bake and spend a great deal of my time watching professional and novice cooks on tv and in other venues, I wonder if we aren’t too easily coaxed into over-using sugar and salt. I frequently see the addition of a “handful” of salt into the pasta water, and have tasted some very famous bakery cakes that to me taste of nothing other than sugar and not of the soft but vocal essence of Pure Vanilla that they are portrayed as being.
So the question becomes, what is the goal when we add sugar and salt to our food? In my constant iterations of scones so commonly found on this blog, I find that adding the lesser amount of sugar, often a scant 3 tablespoons to 3 cups of flour ratio will allow for the soft tones of a really good quality flour or the finely ground nuts or corn meal I added in to reveal themselves more effectively. I also endeavor to let the fruit selection shine on its own – after all we covet the fruit, don’t we? Here, the sugar is merely a flavor enhancer. And, I’ve found that the smallest quantity of salt, to just lift up, will suffice.
Alternatively, we find in many typical cake recipes that the quantity of flour is nearly or totally equal to the quantity of sugar. When I reflected on this ratio as compared to the scone ratio, I wondered at the huge differentiation in flavor profile. Obviously the cake would taste much sweeter than the scone, right? But, honestly, this isn’t really so – at least not really even close to the difference in their relative proportions. Yes cakes are sweet, but scones are, too.
In creating recipes I think it’s always a good idea to experiment with your palate. Even in the case of a very good grilled steak, just the right amount of salt brings the flavor up and heightens the awareness of that irreplaceable smokey beef flavor. But, if the first awareness on your palate when taking a bite is salt and not steak, then you’ve gone too far.
When thinking of the sensitivity and sensibility of the palate to sugar and salt, I call to mind the discipline of the wine connoisseur. They train, and often slowly, carefully and continually, to approach each tasting in small, well-honed steps, and work to identify the notes in the grape(s), the terroir, the processing and the aging. This is the approach I’d like to offer to employ in the sensibility around seasoning when it comes to sweet and salty. And, to this, I do mean sugar to be considered as a seasoning of the primary flavors and not to be meant as the forward taste.
Of course, I realize the importance of ratios in baking and that many, many recipes have been constructed around and are highly dependent upon the exact quantity of sugar as they are written, (especially cakes) some for structural and textural reasons . But, I’d like to suggest that perhaps we may want to try to deconstruct these recipes and re-work them with an eye toward reducing the total sugar quantity. I have found in my own baking that the use of an extract and/or some bright zests can enhance what I’m making even more than sugar. On the savory side, zests and herbs can do the trick in the place of some salt, too. And, as we all have been brought to consider from Ina, coffee added to chocolate is perhaps the more effective enhancer of chocolate flavor, calling its taste forward to shine – it’s not necessarily the overall quantity of sugar.
So, as you think about your cooking and baking today, I’d like to put out there to try to consider the incorporation of your sugars, no matter what the form, and your salt, as the flavor-enhancers whose end game is to express the right balance of “notes” as in a really good wine. I think the goal is to have the chicken be “chicken-forward” and the peach pie be “peach-forward”. Doesn’t this just make better sense, for taste and for health?