“Forming an understanding of how flavors work together is like learning a language,” says Niki Segnit, the author of The Flavor Thesaurus and the new book Lateral Cooking. “It allows you to express yourself freely, to improvise, and to cook a dish the way you’d like to.”
The process begins with the ingredients, she says. It’s about experimenting, playing around, and discovering what foods complement one another, then preparing them in a way that brings out their best notes and balances the salt, sweet, sour, fat, and umami elements. “Once the balance of a dish is right, the flavors can really shine,” Segnit says.
Cooking Lessons
TASTE BEFORE ANYTHING
“Sample raw ingredients, like vegetables and herbs, to understand what they offer,” Segnit says. Chew slowly on a basil leaf,…
