#119 How to Season Your Food Amazingly - Adding Spices, Herbs, Zest, etc - Basic Cooking Skills Series

Today we're going to talk about seasoning. This is part of our series about skills that we should all learn in order to become better cooks. We’ll be talking about how to season different kinds of food, how to understand seasoning, and how to get the best results.  Understanding seasoning means knowing how to effectively use salt, spices, herbs, etc in your cooking; understanding the role of saltiness, fat, and acidity like citrus; using herbs; using spices; and knowing how to layer your seasoning throughout your cooking time. We’ll look at how to season your proteins, vegetables, starches, soup, and sauces correctly. You need to develop the skill of being able to taste food and then adjust it, knowing what needs to be added. We’ll also look at how to avoid some common seasoning mistakes.  So, what enhances flavor? The top five things are salt - that enhances your flavor, fat, which carries your flavor with it, acidity, which brightens and balances your flavor, heat or spiciness, which adds something exciting to the taste, and then aromatics, which build depth.  Let's chat more about seasoning!