Layering flavors?

[CWS4322]

While waiting for files to upload the other day, I turned on the TV. The person was making a vegetable soup. What she did was start with the onions, sauteed those, and then added a pinch of salt. Then she added the carrots, another pinch of salt, the celery, another pinch of salt. At about this point, I was thinking--seems like a lot of salt. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind, and she went on to explain that by adding the pinch of salt after each vegetable, the salt would bring out the flavor of the veggies so you'd end up with the distinct flavors of each vegetable. I'd never heard this before. I am going to try this with the next soup I make.

On another show I watched last week, the person was making tomato sauce and offered if using fresh...blah-blah-blah, if using canned, add some sugar because canned tomatoes can be bitter and the sugar will draw the sweetness out of the tomatoes. I know a lot of people use canned tomatoes. I don't, I have enough jars/frozen/dehydrated that I don't need to use canned tomatoes. But, I thought that was interesting too--I don't usually add sugar to my tomato sauce. Do you? And if so, are you using canned tomatoes or fresh? And, why do you add the sugar?

 

[DaveSoMD]

Yes I have hear of both of those. I do season like that as I go along, a little at a time. Especially when I am making soup, stews, chili, and things like that. I know the sugar is supposed to cut down some of the acidic flavor of the tomatoes but it never really bothered me and I really don't like "sweet" tomato sauce.

 

[pacanis]

I've seen several TV chefs mention to add a pinch of salt after each ingredient.
And it was recently mentioned here a couple times that adding just a little salt will enhance the flavor of whatever you are adding it to.
I've never done a side by side taste test, with/without, but it is something I typically do.

I never noticed canned tomatoes tasting bitter. I do add some sugar though, as I was told a long time ago it helps with the tomatoes' acidity. I don't believe fresh tomatoes are acidic.

 

[CWS4322]

I've seen several TV chefs mention to add a pinch of salt after each ingredient.
And it was recently mentioned here a couple times that adding just a little salt will enhance the flavor of whatever you are adding it to.
I've never done a side by side taste test, with/without, but it is something I typically do.

I never noticed canned tomatoes tasting bitter. I do add some sugar though, as I was told a long time ago it helps with the tomatoes' acidity. I don't believe fresh tomatoes are acidic.

Actually, I read s/where that because of all the manipulation with tomato hybrids, today's garden variety tomatoes are more acidic than the heirloom varieties and have as much as 200x sodium than the heirlooms had. This was an article on canning. I'll see if I can find it--might have been in Mother Earth News or in Country Living. We grow mostly heirloom tomatoes...

 

[sparrowgrass]

I have seen the TV folks do that, and I have tried it--but I guess I got carried away, because my food is too salty if I do that. And I am not sure that my tastebuds are sophisticated enough to discern the difference between salting each thing and salting once or twice during the process.

 

[jennyema]

Yes, it's important to season ingredients as you add them.

Add sugar to canned or fresh tomatoes to your taste. Sugar obviously doesn't neutralize acidity but it helps mask it.

 

[GLC]

I've seen layering justified in ways that I find questionable. Sometimes, it's expressed as if adding salt with each ingredient is necessary because the ingredient will suffer if the dish is salted later. I've also seen it implied that the ingredients are in some kind of competition for the salt, again that they will be affected differently.

Both are kind of right, but it's often worded in a way that doesn't express why we really do it.

As already noted, a lot of good chefs are seen to do it. But remember that an important principle, often forgotten by some cooks, is to taste often. It's sensible to taste after each additional ingredient begins to be assimilated. And you're not going to get much of an idea of how the flavor is developing if the appropriate portion of salt isn't on board. You have to salt as you go. You can't load up in the beginning. That would throw off every taste along the way. You can't wait to the end, because then you might as well not taste until the end. So, it's really salting each stage, each intermediate combination of ingredients, to taste. No magic. No mystery. Just fundamental frequent tasting and the necessity of salting correctly for the stage you happen to be tasting.

"Layering" is a good term for it. By salting as you go, you can taste that layer or layers to that point. But, as pointed out, you have to make careful judgments at each stage, if you don't have a solid, experienced idea of about the right amount of salt each time. Good thing is that if you're over at one point, you can recover. Your tasting will be off for that stage, but you can recover with less salt as you go.

 

[Zhizara]

I often find a dish made with canned tomatoes is unpleasantly (to me) acidic. When it is, I add just a little sugar (less than a teaspoon) and the flavor is immediately corrected.

 

[pacanis]

Well said, GLC.

 

[Steve Kroll]

I save the salt for the end myself.

One thing to note with this salting technique is that it also draws water out of the vegetables you are sauteing, and can therefore interfere with the caramelization process. The veggies end up steaming in their own juice rather than browning nicely. This is especially true of mirepoix vegetables, such as onions, celery, and carrots.

Adding sugar, on the other hand, encourages caramelization. So rather than adding salt to onions when sauteing, I sometimes like to add just a pinch of sugar.

 

[Steve Kroll]

The other problem with salting "as you go" is that if you are making a sauce that requires a reduction, you can end up with something that tastes too salty when it's finished. I don't see a problem per se with seasoning a little as you go, but I would rather under-salt and then "correct the seasoning" at the end before serving.

 

[CWS4322]

Having cooked for years for my mom (she's been on a low-sodium diet almost since I can remember), I tend to go light on the salt, leaving it to the end or for each person to add. I just thought two twists of the salt grinder was a lot, considering there were about 6 different veggies and salt added after each one was added to be sauteed...

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Layering means something entirely different to me. The addition of additional flavors is often called layering, be it herbs and spices, or veggies, or sauces, or whatever. This Each flavor added to the dish must complement the other ingredients, or enhance them. This creates complex flavor combinations on the palate that give us the end result we are looking for.

For instance, adding a touch of rosemary to a beef gravy adds another element, or layer of flavor.

over the years, I've taught myself to deconstruct, or identify the indevidual flavors in my mouth and sinuses, so that I can often recreate foods that I've tasted outside of my own home. This has also given me a wide base of flavor knowldege to draw from when experimenting, or creating a new recipe.

Layoring is just a convenient term that describes the act of adding complimentary flavors to a food, and can pertain just as easily to an actual layerd food, such as a parfait, or multi-layerd jellow, as it can to a rich marinara sauce, or a braised leg of lamb.

In the world of technology, we call these terms, jargon.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North My new DC name, as there are some who feel that Goodweed is too misleading as to who I am, as I do not partake of any good-weed, and never have. So to quiet the dissenting voices, I will be heretofore known as Chief Longwind of the North (thanks B.T. for the alternate name.)

 

[PPoppy]

I put salt like 2 to 4 times during cooking, not all at the same time, but I don't put it after each ingredients either...
It depends what you cook, you cook meet, you season it, then you add vegetables, you season it again, then you will add a sauce with tomatoes and mushroom, one more hint of salt... At the end it's not that salty but you can distinguish each ingredient pretty well.
If you put all the salt at the end, it mostly tastes salt, not the ingredient... That's my taste anyway...

For the tomato, I use can tomatoes for sauce, I don't add sugar, but water, light cream and herbs, sometimes olive oil
I never had an acidic problem, I just season it and taste it, when diluted in some cream/milk or water, the taste is less strong...

 

[Zhizara]

The other problem with salting "as you go" is that if you are making a sauce that requires a reduction, you can end up with something that tastes too salty when it's finished. I don't see a problem per se with seasoning a little as you go, but I would rather under-salt and then "correct the seasoning" at the end before serving.

I'm with you. I've learned the hard way to salt at the very end of cooking.

 

[jpe]

I could never imagine (chemically) that adding salt with each flavor is going to have any effect except to possibly allow one to correct along the way. Salting at the end is going to have every possibility to produce the same final flavor - but of course adding too much at that stage is going to be hard to correct.

Adding a bit at a time can also result in over-salting - depending on the time scale of adding - because one will become accustomed to the increasing salt level as you go along - much as one will end up with hotter bath water if you add hot while in the tub - rather than getting into a ready-drawn full tub.

 

[spork]

I've been salting as I go, as a matter of blind habit. Yes, sometimes, I mess up and the final dish gets over-salted, but I'm pretty good at restraint. When I watch TV chefs, I'm always a bit taken back by what looks like a showering fistful of salt they use. In contrast, I usually use less than "a pinch," as I "layer."

An answer to this question would help me understand... when you salt something as you're cooking, doesn't some/most of the sodium chloride get absorbed into the food, or is it just an exterior coating (that uselessly washes off, if say, you add chicken stock)?

 

[PrincessFiona60]

I take anything I see on the TV, read in a magazine or read online with a grain of salt.

I salt to my taste, which is very little, those I cook for can finish the job at the table. I do salt as I go, but never saw it a layering flavor.

 

[TATTRAT]

Actually, I read s/where that because of all the manipulation with tomato hybrids, today's garden variety tomatoes are more acidic than the heirloom varieties and have as much as 200x sodium than the heirlooms had.

Quite the contrary, the acid has been bred out of consumer grade "bulk" tomatoes. The acid levels are low enough now that the FDA considers them (sliced tomatoes)potentially hazardous. The ph level no longer inhibit pathogen growth.

 

[TATTRAT]

The other problem with salting "as you go" is that if you are making a sauce that requires a reduction, you can end up with something that tastes too salty when it's finished. I don't see a problem per se with seasoning a little as you go, but I would rather under-salt and then "correct the seasoning" at the end before serving.

This pretty much sums up what I was gonna say.

I think when building a pot of soup, seasoning as you go is crucial. Doing a Stock to make demi or something, salt at the end.

I guess reduction is the deciding factor in salting as ya go.