Mine probably isn’t that secret these days, but almost every sauce I add nutritional yeast to. Curry, chilli, bolognese, it just makes them all better.
Acid. Lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, and/or wine. Salt and acid make the existing flavors fucking pop.
For anything cheesy, add a touch of nutmeg. Not enough to identify it, but enough to know that something changed.
Taste as you go.
Funny story. My partner was making mince meat a little while back and instead of adding nutmeg they accidentally added cinnamon. Actually turned out really good!
Moroccans (and probably others) use cinnamon in savoury dishes like tagines and stuff, so not a terrible mistake to make!
Cinnamon is awesome on pepperoni pizza; throw it on before baking.
Agree with acid. Fuck nutmeg though, I’m tired of sauces with nutmeg. It does not give it a je ne sais quoi, it just makes it taste like fucking nutmeg.
That’s just too much nutmeg.
Correct, and that’s my problem with it: it gets abused too often, so it’s on my “this is why we can’t have nice things” list.
I had to learn to not go overboard with nutmeg, because it’s a very strong flavor that quickly overpowers a dish and when it does, it doesn’t taste nice. But in the correct quantity on the right dish, it’s brilliant.
Nutmeg is great in creamed spinach as well
I have a different secret ingredient in my creamed spinach.
MSG. It’s amazing.
Great minds… ;)
Honestly improves everything I add to any type of meat or sauce.
Put it on your popcorn too!
Try Greek Seasoning on popcorn. Has MSG, and a bunch of other goodness.
what’s MSG?
Metal Sear Golid
Monosodium glutamate. Makes things taste more savory. Also causes furries to make in-jokes about family unfriendly topics.
Mobile Suit Gundam
My sugary gonads
Make Shit Good
Basically a salt that triggers pure umami flavor. It’s an easy add for dishes where you don’t want to use another umami booster like worcestershire or fish sauce.
MSG is the king of flavor!
Along those same lines: Chicken bullion powder with MSG.
I really need to grab a pack next time I hit the local Asian supermarket.
Couldn’t tell you. Every time I make something really good that’s worth repeating, the recipe is immediately wiped from my mind forever. It’s like some monkey’s paw curse that I can only make the thing the most delicious way once.
Also, butter.
I have the same issue with seasonings. I can never remember how much of what i used to make a perfect dish. With all the smart things being made, what we need are smart seasoning containers, just think after a long cooking you sit down to eat and can pull up an app to see you used 2 grams of this 5 grams of that. You mark the dish then next time you’re cooking you pull up the app and it reminds you on how much to use.
You could weigh the containers before and after
Im to dumb and lazy too do that. Hence why smart containers would be nice.
I still pine for that ham bone soup I drunk-made after Christmas that one times.
The other secret ingredient is … time
Often I’ll make something and it doesn’t quite taste that great immediately after making it … especially tomato based recipes
Then when you let it sit for a day … it tastes a whole lot better the next day.
True. A lot of sauces are the best in leftovers, but every time, I’m like, “no, this doesn’t taste right, it’s not good, mom taste it and help me,” and then she’s like, “yeah dummy, it’s been on the stove for 5 minutes, give it some time.” I’m not patient.
Tomatoes are shy and take time to work into a dish. That’s why I like to have my sauce simmering before I start the water when making pasta.
Bolognese, i’ll have that simmering for 2-3 hours before i even think about starting the spaghetti,
I get the same. I make something that everyone says is delicious and I genuinely have no idea how much of what went in. I guess it just comes with knowing the basics well enough.
either that, or it only tastes so good the first time, even if your recreate it exactly.
the recipe is immediately wiped from my mind forever
You guys are getting recipes? Jk.
Smell, taste, and timing are the keys to great food. Take a whiff and add what’s missing.
Methodical testing is for sharing results after you have a solid grasp of what tastes good.
That’s why I’m designing a recipe app where I can keep notes etc for everything I make.
MSG
A few years ago I got a big shaker of just straight MSG crystals in the “ethnic foods” aisle of the grocery store, and I put it in so much stuff. It just makes everything taste better. Particularly anything umami
In Switerland you can get it by the kilogram and in some supermarkets there is an entire aisle just for MSG.
You can get that anywhere worldwide professional cooks shop. No, it’s often not in grocery store in English speaking countries, but it’s at the wholesaler in 3 lb jars and 10 kg buckets, and (one of the reasons) food tastes better in a restaurant. The other reasons are excessive sugar, fat, cream and butter of course.
King of Flavour
The magic spice
The MSG must flow!
Monosodium glutamate
Uncle Roger approved
Fuiyoh!
Generally, salt or MSG. I find people tend to under-season their dishes, and not layer flavors as they cook.
MSG comes in many forms: cheese, tomato, mushroom, fish sauce, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce… MSG powder.
I’m not taling Uncle Roger portions here. Just a teaspoon of the naturally occurring stuff, a couple splashes of the sauces, or just or a pinch of straight MSG is all it takes to add a bit of savory depth to a dish. I get good feedback about my cooking. Occasionally I overdo the salt, but no so much as to render it inedible. It helps to move the table wine along.
Back incollege, I was a waitress at an Italian restaurant. A lady came in ordered a dish with lots of tomato in it, then demanded I tell the chef she was allergic to MSG, in an accusatory way. What she didn’t know is that I was going to school for a medical based degree, and recently had a professor go off about how MSG is in tons of foods naturally and not to believe the craze about it being bad for you.
“Oh my gosh! You’re allergic to MSG!?! I’m sorry, but all tomatoes contain MSG. Please choose another dish” … “I’m sorry, ma’am but mushrooms have MSG in them too. I’ll talk to my chef and see what suggestions he might have.”
She changed her tone “I’m not allergic, I just don’t want it added… it’s bad for you… blah blah”
I didn’t get tipped, but it was hella satisfying to passive- aggressively educate her.
Yeah, I’ve a customer like that, absolutely convinced he’s allergic to MSG. Pours ketchup all over everything.
Based
^ Not this.
No, I think he’s using it as it was meant to be for once “Based on fact”
MSG in everything except eggs. Doesn’t go well with eggs for some reason.
In my experience it goes well with eggs too!
Bahaha someone else on here recommended MSG and I was like, “Oh yeah, I should go make some eggs and sprinkle some MSG on there.”
Dry yellow mustard powder in mac and cheese. Not the fiery English or Chinese stuff, just boring American yellow mustard.
I just add a bit of bottled mustard, about half a teaspoon to a box of mac I find to be good, too much more and you start to taste the mustard distinctly.
Adding a bunch of black pepper to it also does good things in my opinion
I use about 2 teaspoons of dijon, and then also something spicy, like Cayanne Pepper.
Nah man, Coleman’s is the one and only.
MSG.
🥰
Not an ingredient necessarily, but I toast rice with spices before cooking it. I throw some oil and garlic in the pot I’m going to cook the rice in, then put in the rice and (for mexican-like dishes) garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, cumin, a little oregano, a little cayenne pepper, and salt. I mix that all up continuously over medium heat for a couple minutes, then I add the water and cook the rice. It makes an incredible difference in taste
Not to discount your rice idea, but isn’t this essentially the directions for Rice-A-Roni?
It completely is and it completely works wonders.
You do similar with risotto too.
deleted by creator
Your “secret recipe” is risotto.
Just like adding a pinch of salt can improve any dish, adding a dash of Worcestershire sauce can improve them for the same reasons but different taste group.
And more generally, if you taste something and feel like it’s missing something, go through each of the taste groups and consider if that is what it’s missing. Sweet, salty, acidic, umami are the main ones (I’ve never felt like a dish is missing bitterness, but maybe that’s a weakness in my cooking). Spicy isn’t a flavour group but can add to a dish and/or mask a lack of balance.
Also, do this balancing act after you’ve added all the ingredients because they can bring their own biases to the dish.
In my experience, when a dish tastes like it’s missing something, most of the time it’s acid. My go-to is a healthy squirt of yellow mustard.
Smoked paprika. It throw it in a lot of stuff you wouldn’t guess it was in, as it adds a little bit of a smokey flavour.
Been on a huge S. Paprika kick lately. Not sure why I never thought to use it before. It’s basically works wonders on anything (where appropriate)
Even where you wouldn’t think it is appropriate. I make pizza crusts from scratch, and sometimes I put a bit in the dough to give it some flavour.
Sounds delicious (in dungeon) and wholly appropriate—really what I mean’t was savory things. I don’t think it’d be good in, say, lemonade (then again, maybe it would be?).
It’s quite good even just on popcorn.
Well as a Hispanic, I’m obligated to say adobo, sazon and or sofrito…
But cumin is fire in a lot of things too… Like wanna add flavor but no salt? Sprinkle in a lil cumin. Mac n cheese with cumin is a vibe.
Doesn’t taste Mexican without some Goya or at least some Knorr.
Vanilla pudding mix in the dough for cinnamon rolls.
For the brown sugar cinnamon filling, sub some of the sugar out for honey. If you pick a honey with a unique taste, anyone who has them will be unable to pinpoint what makes yours so good.
That sounds interesting!
How does the vanilla pudding mix work? What is it replacing?
I’m pretty sure boxed pudding mix is mostly cornstarch, sugar, maybe some powdered milk or powdered eggs, flavoring, and then dyes and preservatives. If you just dumped a box of pudding mix into a basic lean dough (just flour, water, salt, and yeast), you’d end up with something close to a typical enriched dough (lean dough plus stuff to make it sweeter, more tender, etc). Obviously the sugar and flavorings are gonna sweeten things, and the cornstarch might have a tangzhong-like effect where it traps water, leading to a softer, moister, more tender finished product. It’ll also probably interfere with gluten formation, which will also lead to a softer, more tender dough.
To figure out what it could replace, let’s consider what’s in a “normal” cinnamon roll dough first. Commonly a typical cinnamon roll dough is basically brioche dough, so a lean dough enriched with eggs, a touch of sugar, and a healthy amount of butter. Egg yolks, sugar, and butter all interfere with gluten formation and lead to a softer dough, while egg white might lend a bit of structure, but realistically is mostly just contributing water.
So the most obvious thing that’s being replaced is the sugar. If the pudding mix contains some sort of powdered dairy product, that might lend some dairy flavor, but you’d still need some sort of fat. If the pudding mix contains powdered egg, that might lend some egg flavor, but powdered egg has less fat than fresh, so again you may need to supplement there as well. If the pudding mix contains cornstarch, I’d consider lessening the amount of flour in the dough to make sure it’s still at the right hydration level.
Note: I’ve never done any of this myself, so this whole thing is basically just an educated guess 😅
This pretty much nails it, especially the bit about gluten development. You’d really have to work this dough to make it springy (which isn’t what I’m after in mine). They’re more moist than your typical dough. And a lot of dough recipes don’t call for vanilla, which is a good addition imo.
Heat, salt, fat, acid. Technique matters more than secret ingredients.
Using low and slow or high and fast where appropriate depending on the goal. Plenty of fat and salt on everything, and a little acid to brighten up the dish.
Yeah, most shit cooking is from people not understanding what heat does to food. Or… a lot. It’s hard to teach, as well.
