Repairing Food

I. Always taste the food before you serve it. You carefully planned a menu. Studied the recipes. Hand-selected the finest ingredients. Washed and stored them with the utmost care. Prepared your mise en place. Cooked with focus, skill and joy--but you are not done. Before presenting, taste the food. Confirm your result, or take the needed action to improve it.

II. Correct the seasoning. The professional use of "correct" is misleading. It does not mean that something needs fixing in that it was ruined or executed poorly. It means it has to be made right, not from a state of wrong, just from a state of "not right yet." "Adjust" is a better word. Expect that the seasoning you added earlier has been absorbed into the dish. Remember: season as you go and then re-season with salt and pepper one last time before serving your food. Spices are normally added during the cooking process, not after, to integrate their flavors into the dish. Adding them raw at the end can be bitter and unpleasant. Ensure the salt and pepper are in balance with the dish before you add more spice.

III. Nothing is a lost cause. Unless it is burnt or salted beyond rescue, you can always bump up others flavors to balance the dish.

IV. Acidic Food. Season with salt and pepper. Or tone it down with something smooth like dairy or fat. Or add sweetness to counter the excessive acidity.

V. Dull Food. Brighten with acid or salt. Enrich with fat. Restaurants use animal fat and salt to enhance flavor. Vinegar, lemon juice, finishing oils, butter, and sugar are old standbys.

VI. Bitter or Spicy Food. Salt inhibits bitterness. Honey counterbalances spice.

VII. Salty Food. For solid food, such as finished rice, add more finished but unsalted food to de-concentrate the saltiness. For liquid food; dilute. This might weaken the other flavors and affect texture, so dilute with whatever liquid you started with--milk, juice, stock, tomato sauce--and re-season. Do not add cold ingredients to hot foods, or vice versa.