Homework

Here's how to apply this information:

Think about the next meal you prepare in your kitchen or the next menu you write. How can you combine a few of the taste sensations? Sweet and sour? Umami and sodium? Bitter and sour? What about layering your flavors and including a few of the sensations with different ingredients.

Here are ideas using a combination of flavors:

• Mixed baby salad greens tossed with warm hazelnuts, rich olive oil, and a little red wine vinegar combines cold and hot, velvety and crunchy, bitter and sour. It is better than iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing.

• Grilled fish with a sweet and sour salsa: lime, mango, tomato, and hot pepper.

• Caramelized onions (sweet) with lentils (umami).

• Sour tomato sauce sweetened with shredded carrots.

Now that you have the flavor combinations down pat, it is time to learn all of the geographical or terroir flavor combinations. By using geographic flavoring profiles and themes, your skills with choosing herbs, spices, and seasoning blends, along with the sensation and depth of your palate, will develop and increase.

Organize your spice cabinet according to flavor profiles: Latin, Asian, Mediterranean, and baking so that it becomes easy to find and use these herbs and spices. 

Here is our list:

France

French and especially the Provencal region of France - the herbs and spices used by traditional French chefs are the some of the most popular and easy to use in every-day cooking. These herbs and spices, and their blends, would be used to roast a chicken, make a chicken noodle soup, season roasted vegetables, place in salads, and to season just about anything you bake, roast, grill, or poach.

• Herbes de Provence: There are many different blends but most of them contain some or all of these: thyme, savory, marjoram, oregano, and rosemary. Sometimes lavender is added.

• Or the fines herbes, which are summer herbs of chervil, chives, parsley and tarragon.

• Or bouquet garni: this bouquet is often a bunch of herbs tied with a string or a combination of herbs and spices placed in a cheesecloth and then bound with a string. It is used to flavor soups, broths, and stocks. The most common ones used are parsley, basil, burnet, chervil, rosemary, peppercorns, savory and tarragon. In the Provence it is not uncommon for orange peels to be added.

Mediterranean

Mediterranean countries use the same ingredients but they make different dishes. These Mediterranean dishes are featured on our site and they are fun to make and you can learn the flavor profiles that make them along the way. Start with Italy and especially Sicily and learn to make a variety of pasta dishes, soups, and grain salads. Go on to Greece and learn the dips like hummus, baba ganoush, and tzatziki. Then experience Spain with its delicious paella and torta. The Moroccan tagine is a hit. Here is a list of the herbs and spices used in this region.

• Basil

• Garlic

• Oregano

• Marjoram

• Thyme

• Rosemary

• Bay leaf

• Black pepper

• Lemon and preserved lemon

• Mint

• Olive oil

• Tomato pepper paste

• Sofrito

• Saffron

• Parsley

• Sage

• Cilantro

• Cinnamon

• Dill

Latin, South American, Central American, Mexican, Caribbean

These flavor profiles usually use a combination of chili powders, cumin, oregano, and garlic. Lime and lemon are often added. Here you use a combination of hot pepper with acid flavors and the sweetness of fruit or tomatoes. Often a bitter cocoa component is added.

The best place to start to use these herbs and spices for a Latin profile is by making chili, salsa, or pico de gallo. All of these recipes are found here on our site.

Consider experimenting with these herbs and spices:

• Chili peppers and powders - many kinds

• Garlic

• Oregano

• Cumin

• Culantro

• Turmeric

• Bay leaves

• Epazote

• Lime and Lemon

• Cilantro

• Annato or Achiote

• Vanilla

• Cocoa

• Adobo

• Ajilimójili

• Cajeta

• Curry

• Dende oil

• Epazote

• Ginger

• Huancaina Sauce

• Jerk Seasoning

• Huitlacoche

• Mojo - applies to any sauce that is made with garlic, olive oil, and a citrus juice

• Mole sauce

• Panela Sugar

• Rum

• Sofrito

• Sugar cane

• Sour oranges

• Tamarind Paste

Asia

Asian food is delicious. It can be highly seasoned as with Indian Cuisine or simple and fresh as with Thai food. The best way to learn to cook Asian is to buy an Asian cookbook. Or eat in a traditional restaurant and then be inspired to find the recipe on the internet.

Asian flavor profiles, from many countries in Asia are contained in a long laundry list:

• Garlic

• Sesame

• Lemon grass

• Soy

• Fish sauce

• Basil

• Ginger

• Sake

• Sichimi Tgarashi

• Shinshu Miso

• Soyu

• Soba

• Smen

• Su

• Teriyaki

• Wasabi

• Black bean sauce

• Back vinegar

• Chili oil

• Chili sauce

• Chinese Chives

• Dried red chiles

• Five spice mx

• Garlic chili sauce

• Hoisin sauce

• Lotus

• Oyster sauce

• Plum sauce

• Shrimp paste

• Star anise

• Sesame seeds

• Kim chi

• Cardamom

• Amchur

• Dry masala

• Fenugreek

• Fennel

• Mustard oil

• Mustard seed

• Rose water

• Turmeric

• Vindaloo

• Wet masala

• Bean paste

• Dry coconut milk powder

• Thai curry paste

• Thai bird chilies

• Cilantro