Too Much or Too Little

We asked Executive Chef Joey Edwards his thoughts on seasoning. Can you season too much or too little? How can seasoning make or break a dish?

The first thing to do is break the word "seasoning" down into two categories. The first, and maybe the most important, is seasoning something with the goal of enhancing its natural flavor. This is usually accomplished by adding salt to an ingredient. When we add an appropriate amount of salt to something, the goal is to intensify and enhance the flavor that is already there.

For example, take a slice of tomato and try it plain. Then, sprinkle a pinch of salt over a second slice of the same tomato, and try that seasoned slice. Is it more delicious? Does it taste like anything other than a tomato? If you've added the correct amount of salt, it should just taste like a more intensely flavored tomato. If you taste the salt itself (note that this is different than tasting the effect of salt), and it distracts from the flavor of the tomato, then you've added too much salt. The goal is to enhance, not distract. That's why chefs in restaurants almost always season everything with at least a little salt, but are also always tasting as they go.

Salt and pepper are often referred to as the basis for seasoning, but they each serve a different purpose. Salt is almost always necessary, in my opinion, to make things taste better. Pepper has a strong flavor that can complement or add contrast to lots of things, but it certainly isn't necessary, or even appropriate, for everything. At Three Sisters, salt touches almost everything, even if just a little, but black pepper is truly only used on a handful of ingredients. If we want to add spice to a dish, which is what black pepper does, there are so many different, and maybe more interesting, options that can be used in place of black pepper. When we think of the role each spice plays in a dish, our opportunities for creating something interesting and delicious really opens up.

We also sometimes use acid – most commonly some lemon juice or a little vinegar – or a sweetener to help enhance the flavor of an ingredient. But, these additions can also crossover into the second definition of seasoning, which is to add a different flavor that either compliments or contrasts the original ingredient, with the end goal of adding a broader or deeper flavor overall. The most common example of this type of "seasoning" is using dry spices like paprika or garlic powder.

In the restaurant, we differentiate these two practices by referring to the act of adding salt, acid or sometimes sweetener as "seasoning," and the addition of other flavors like spices or herbs as "flavoring."

We season our wild mushroom soup with salt and some sherry vinegar, and we flavor it with thyme and brown butter. Although, you could argue that the sherry vinegar seasons by adding acid that highlights and enhances the rich mushroom flavor and contributes to building a more complex flavor due to the complimentary nutty taste of the sherry itself.

In the Three Sisters kitchen, we talk a lot about perfect seasoning – finding the balance of adding enough salt to elevate the dish to the most flavor it can have, without over salting, which will quickly ruin a dish. With new cooks, there are times when they are unsure if something needs more salt or if a pinch more will be too much. Most folks can tell when something has too much salt, but it takes time to learn when something could use just a little more. What I will have that cook do is take spoonful of whatever they are seasoning and sprinkle a touch more salt over just that bite. Was it better than the taste you had before? Or, is it now too salty? If it's better, we'll season the whole batch of whatever we're making with a little more salt. We often repeat this process until the cook finds the point at which a bite has gotten too salty. They know then not to add anymore salt to the batch. This is a great practice to really learn when a dish is at its peak of flavor without risking over-seasoning the whole dish.

When it comes to flavoring a dish, that can be even more challenging, but also so much fun. Experimenting with new flavor combinations is one of my favorite things to do. But no matter how interesting something is, or how cool it sounds, the question I always ask myself is, "But is it delicious?" If the answer is no, then I file that away under the "cool for Instagram but not for eating" category and move on. If the answer is yes, then the question is, "Would someone want to eat an entire serving of this?" Too much of a good thing is real. There is a difference between a dish being so bold that you can't get enough, and so bold that you don't want any more after a bite or two. Finding harmony in a meal is one of the ultimate goals for making a dinner experience excellent. That often comes down to using restraint with additional flavors. But if an ingredient is in a dish, it should always serve a purpose. Why add a spice if you can't taste it?

At Three Sisters, we use seasoning and flavorings to build layers of flavor. Sometimes this starts days before a guests will enjoy a dish. Our Buttermilk Brined Grilled Chicken and our Sorghum Glazed Pork Belly are great examples of that. Each uses a specific technique that helps ensure the food comes out full of flavor.

For the chicken, the brine is one of the most important parts. The brine is a mix of buttermilk, salt and other aromatic flavorings. The chicken marinates in this overnight. The salt seasons the meat and helps with moisture retention. The buttermilk provides a tangy depth of flavor that caramelizes over the fire. This step makes one of the juiciest, most flavorful pieces of chicken I have ever had. Our general rule of thumb for making a brine is one cup of salt to one gallon of liquid. We will still season the outside of the chicken with little more salt, but creating this base is necessary for the meat to be seasoned throughout.

For the pork belly, we season the pork with salt the day before and let it airdry in the walk-in cooler before roasting. Doing this in advance helps the salt penetrate the meat, and starting with a dry piece of meat helps the outside brown and develop flavor quicker (therefore, we don't use the wet brining technique in this situation).

Both pieces of meat go on to be paired with complimentary and flavorful components to create a cohesive dish, but they wouldn't be nearly as great without the first step: seasoning.

– Joey Edwards, Executive Chef of Three Sisters at Blackberry Mountain