How to build flavour

Flavour is made, not added

Raw onion, raw garlic, raw tomato and stock, simmered together, taste of raw onion, raw garlic and tomato. The same ingredients browned, bloomed and deglazed in sequence taste of something none of them contained.

What happens in between is chemistry. Browning generates hundreds of aromatic compounds from proteins and sugars. Heating spices in fat pulls fat-soluble aromatics out of dry powder and cooks off raw notes. Deglazing recovers the most concentrated of those compounds from the pan. Reduction concentrates what is left.

None of these steps takes long. Together they are the difference between a dish that tastes of its ingredients and one that tastes of itself.

The standard order

It varies by cuisine and dish, and the logic is consistent: hardest and slowest first, most fragile last.

1. Fat first, heated. Everything that follows needs a medium.
2. Brown the protein, if there is one, in batches and hard. Take it out and keep the fond.
3. Sweat or brown the aromatic base — onion, carrot, celery, or whatever the cuisine uses. This takes longer than recipes say. Salt it.
4. Add garlic and ginger for under a minute. They burn fast.
5. Bloom the dry spices in the fat for thirty to sixty seconds until fragrant. Never stir them into liquid.
6. Fry the tomato purée or paste until it darkens. A minute or two, and one of the largest returns for the least effort.
7. Deglaze with wine, stock or water, scraping the base clean.
8. Add the liquid and the long-cooking ingredients, and simmer.
9. Finish with acid, fat, fresh herbs and a final seasoning check.

The savoury ingredients that add depth

Small amounts, and used so that nobody identifies them.

Anchovy

Melts into oil and disappears. Adds savoury depth to lamb, tomato sauce, greens and dressings without tasting of fish.

Soy sauce

A teaspoon in a beef stew or a gravy. Salt plus savoury depth.

Parmesan rind

Dropped into a soup or a sauce and fished out. Free, and it does a great deal.

Dried mushrooms

Soaked, chopped, and the liquid used. Intensely savoury.

Miso

A spoonful in a braise, a dressing or a butter.

Tomato purée, fried

Not the same ingredient as tomato purée stirred in.

Worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, Marmite

All doing the same job by different routes.

The finishing layer

Depth is built at the start; brightness is added at the end, and a dish needs both.

• Acid — lemon, vinegar, a splash of wine. Cuts through the depth so it does not read as heavy.
• Fresh herbs — parsley, coriander, basil, dill. Their aroma is volatile and is destroyed by cooking, so they go in off the heat.
• Zest — lemon, lime, orange. Aroma with no acidity.
• Raw allium — spring onion, shallot, chive. A sharp note against a soft base.
• Fat — a knob of butter, a swirl of good olive oil, a spoonful of cream. Carries everything else.
• Texture — toasted nuts, breadcrumbs, crisp shallots. Not flavour, and it changes how flavour reads.

Common questions