Flavor Balance Quotes

It’s just like when you’ve got some coffee that’s too black, which means it’s too strong. What you do? You integrate it with cream; you make it weak. If you pour too much cream in, you won’t even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it’ll put you to sleep.

People under-salt their food, and they think it's bland, but salt brings out flavor.

There are very few chefs both in Britain and the States that really identify the secret of being consistent. And combine consistency with flavor.

No one wants a cherry pie that bites back.

Dragon fruit is very subtle, very delicate. So you want to be careful not to kill it with things that have very strong flavor.

I dislike cloyingly sweet desserts - sweet is not a flavor - so I suggest dialing back the sweetness and focusing on what the dessert is about, whether it is a ripe fruit, chocolate, etc.

A plate of food has to have balance. For example, a mild fish like skate mustn't be overwhelmed by the side dishes. They should have personality and color, but they also have to be subtle.

Taste as you go. When you taste the food throughout the cooking process you can make adjustments as you go.

Barbecue sauce is like a beautiful woman. If it's too sweet, it's bound to be hiding something.

Salt's relationship to flavor is multidimensional: It has its own particular taste, and it both balances and enhances the flavor of other ingredients.

I think there's a tendency to over-jack and over-umami food these days.

The biggest hits - be they Coca-Cola or Doritos - owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don't have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating.

If you don't treat an ingredient and its flavors with respect - if you drown it in oil, for instance - you'll spoil it.

Habaneros have a great fruity flavor, but the challenge is that you have to deflect the heat in order to taste the flavor. If you don't, you're dead. They should really have a warning sign on them. Deflect the habanero's heat by pairing it with sweet food.

The sour quality is set opposite to the bitter and the sweet, and is a good temper to all, a refreshing and cooling when the bitter and the sweet qualities are too much elevated or too preponderant.

You always want to walk a tight-rope of flavor

Take a cup of coffee, keep adding sugar until you reach the point that you like it the most, and then when you add more sugar, you actually like it less. Well, the food industry knows that, and they spend huge amounts of effort finding the perfect spot, not just for sugar, but for fat and salt, as well.

Adding salt to desserts helps to balance and pronounce flavors. Almost all of my desserts have salt in them. They don't taste salty per se, but if I gave you two of the same item - one with salt and one without - side by side, you would realize something was missing.

I've always been known for bold flavors and rustic cooking, but there is another side to me. As you evolve as a cook, you understand life and how serious it is. There comes a point where there's got to be a better balance.

I never try to marry more than three flavors in one dish.

A splash of red wine vinegar can pull things together like a pinch of salt.

Sugar is my friend, not my love. I always season sugar with a bit of acid or salt. Listen to your tongue.

Chili is one of the great peasant foods. It is one of the few contributions America has made to world cuisine. Eaten with corn bread, sweet onion, sour cream, it contains all five of the elements deemed essential by the sages of the Orient: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, and bitter.

A great ratatouille is one in which the vegetables interact with each other but are still discernible from each other. The trick is to cook them just right: not over, not under.

Persian cuisine is, above all, about balance - of tastes and flavors, textures and temperatures. In every meal, even on every plate, you'll find both sweet and sour, soft and crunchy, cooked and raw, hot and cold.