all the tricks i know for building flavor

all the secrets revealed! indian grandmas hate him!

Apr 02, 2024

I won’t go into a lot of detail in this post. Those will come in later posts about each technique, and I’ll edit this one to link to them. But please ask questions in the comments if you want to know more!

prelude: you’re probably undersalting your food

I’ll write a whole-ass post about seasoning soon but before I get into the quote unquote tricks, I just want to point out that if you make some food and then think “hmm this tastes flat and lame”, the likeliest reason is that you didn’t add enough salt. So work on your seasoning skills before doing anything fancy. First things first. Providence rewards those who focus on fundamentals. Then why am I writing this post before the one on salt? Because some of the methods here transcend trickery and ascend to technique, so this will provide important context for more detailed technique posts to follow.

meta: systematizing tacit knowledge

I spent years figuring this stuff out and what’s in my head is much messier, much less organized than the words to follow. Physical reality is detailed and complicated. But I still find it helpful to come up with these abstractions. The simplified abstractions are easier to explain to others, and they also enable my own creativity: by thinking in these terms, I can come up with ideas that I might not otherwise.

But yeah. This is tacit knowledge and we should expect failure when trying to systematize it. I’m going to try anyway.

if the bag of tricks doesn’t work there’s always the spatula assault rifle which, i swear, the ai image generator decided to add completely unprompted

tempering whole spices in hot oil

Then cooking vegetables, especially aromatics, in this oil. This is typically used at the beginning of the cooking process and composes really well with most other techiques here.

tempering powdered spices in hot oil

Gotta be very careful to not burn the powder. Most commonly used with hing, and with powdered red chili peppers, especially when the oil will be used as a tadka.

tadka: pouring spiced oil on a liquid

Heat oil, temper whole and/or powdered spices, then pour on a dal, raita, chutney, beans or kadhi.

cooking powdered spices after adding to a bulk

After there’s a bunch of stuff in the pan, like aromatics, vegetables, meat or dal, you can safely add powdered spices without worrying about burning (fact 2 from the water post). Make sure to actually cook the dish after this: most spices don’t taste their best until they’ve been heated for a bit. Coriander powder, turmeric, powdered red chili peppers, and literally hundreds of other spices can be used like this.

browning of veg, meat or dairy

Maillard and caramelization reactions are classic flavor-builders in cuisines around the world. These reactions only happen after much of the water is gone (fact 2 again). Look for bubbling to be replaced with oil seeping out of the masala onto the pan. Listen for sputtering sounds. These are signs that the water content is going down and browning is, increasingly, a possibility. Conversely, if a piece of meat is wet or if you see steam, you know browning can’t be happening.

not what i mean by “browning meat to make it yummier”

Milk has proteins and carbs, the precursors of browning, and in fact it browns beautifully. The only caveat is that the milk solids capable of browning are often hanging out with a ton of water, and the water needs to go away before browning can happen (yup, good old fact 2). Butter is a good example: it’s about 16% water, which evaporates pretty quickly. You can brown butter by heating it, waiting for bubbles to appear and then subside (that’s the water evaporating), and then waiting for the color to change. But you can also brown milk solids directly, you just gotta wait longer! For example, classic ragù bolognese works by heating beef in milk until it cooks down and gives off fat (water gone). The milk solids brown and produce nutty, meaty flavors. You can do this in many Indian dishes as well. This technique often appears in Kashmiri (e.g. Wazwan) and more generally Muslim cuisines, in meat dishes. Yogurt is often the dairy being browned in Punjabi food, and in Mughlai kebabs.

cooking down aromatics

does this guy seriously need a substack for this?

Everybody’s doing it: mirepoix, soffrito, and the Cajun holy trinity. In Indian cooking, common aromatics are onion, shallots, ginger, garlic, fresh green chili peppers, and curry leaves. Usually cooked in spice-tempered oil. Often followed by an umami pulpy fruit.

umami pulpy fruit

Common ones are tomato, tamarind, and unripe mangoes. Can be chopped, grated, pureed, or smashed with a mortar and pestle. Often added after aromatics.

I sometimes do really weird stuff here. Mushrooms, while not traditionally used like this in any recipes I know, work quite well. Even more radical: chopped chicken livers. Fermented carrots also work, as do jarred commercial achars (Indian pickles in oil). Pomegranate molasses and date syrup are also great, and additionally promote caramelization because of their sugar content.

not the kind of weird mushroom technique i mean

herbs

Often added as a garnish, or pureed into a chutney. Cilantro and mint are the most common ones in the regions I’m most familiar with.

powdered toasted spices sprinkled at the end

do i get to repeat using some of these memes? if no, was this really the best use of salt bae in the entire history of this newsletter?

Usually a garam masala powder sprinkled on a dish at the very end, especially roasted or umami-heavy dishes like roast eggplant bharta. The garam masala is a blend of 5-10 whole spices that have been powdered after potentially roasting. Other common things in Punjabi cooking and Delhi chaat culture are chaat masala on pakoras (fried battered vegetables), and powdered roasted cumin sprinkled on yogurt-y dishes.

folding in a creamy fat

Also very common in French cooking. In Indian cooking, the fat is often yogurt, cream or coconut milk. Or a big dollop of butter on top of something hot, like a paratha, dal or saag.