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BUILDING FLAVOR, BODY AND TEXTURE: PART 1

© Andrew A. Orr

There are two different kinds of cooking. One is the cooking of foods that are so good in themselves that nothing need be added—the broiled steak, the baked potato, the poached egg. All you have to do to such a food is cook it properly. The other kind of cooking is the blending together of several foods to make another kind of food—soup, a sauce, many kinds of main dishes. This kind of cooking requires an understanding of how such foods are built.

The process is something like the building of a house. There is a plan. Raw materials are put together according to this plan. Because of the way everything is combined, the finished product is more than just the raw materials added together. It has its own identity. The house has its own shape, size, and style. The dish has its own flavor, body, and texture. The raw materials the cook uses to build flavor in soups, sauces, and entrees are spices, herbs, vegetables, meat, and bones. For body you add a liquid. For texture you use another set of raw materials called thickening agents, which are mostly starches or starch-fat combi-nations. In this Topic we'll see how the cook puts together raw materials to build flavor, body, and texture. We'll also take a close look at the whole subject of flavor, the ingredients used to season and flavor, and how to use seasonings to bring out the natural flavors of foods. After completing this series you should be able to Understand and explain the concepts of building flavor, body, and texture in a dish. Describe or demonstrate how to prepare a sachet, an onion pique, and basic, light, and dark mirepoix. Describe or demonstrate how to prepare good-quality light and dark stocks, and ex-plain their uses and how they differ. Know how and when to use convenience products in making stocks. Explain how to build texture in a liquid us-ing various types of thickening agents. Explain the difference between seasoning, flavoring, and flavor building. Use seasonings to bring out the natural flavors of foods.

BUILDING FLAVOR: FLAVOR BUILDERS

Flavor is the way a food tastes. A carrot has a carrot flavor, an onion has an onion flavor, chicken tastes like chicken, and a stew is a blend of meat and vegetable flavors. People who like to analyze flavor will point out that there are only four basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, and salt. These are perceived by the taste buds on various regions of the tongue— sweet at the tip, sour and salt along the sides, bitter at the back. When you eat, these tastes combine with the aromas perceived by your nose to produce the flavor of the food you are eating.

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