Seasoning Quotes

“Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other things.

Love is the same way.

Use it to "season" people.”
― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“Movie without romance feels like food without flavor.”
― Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity

“Rivers don’t drink their own waters; trees don’t eat their own fruits. The salt seasons the soup in order to have its purpose fulfilled. Live for others!”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Leaders' Watchwords

“You are the salt that adds flavor to the earth, and the whole universe is waiting to savor your uniqueness.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“He is able to put aside personal feelings and see the broad strokes. Experience counts in these things.”
― Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Chord

“Real soy sauce is as complex as a fine wine- fruity, earthy, floral also can, lah." Uncle Robert pointed out the lively acidity of the light soy sauce in comparison to the rich, mellow sweetness of the dark one. Light soy, he explained, was used for seasoning and dipping; dark soy was used for cooking because its flavors developed under heat.”
― Kirstin Chen, Soy Sauce for Beginners

“In the kingdom of spices, garlic is the king.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“You don't mince words."
"Just garlic.”
― Joan Bauer

“Sprinkle a dash of madness into the vanity of your sanity, & keep cooking up genius while dishing out the creative divinity of your humanity.”
― Curtis Tyrone Jones, Sleeping With Enormity: The Art Of Seducing Your Dreams & Living With Passion

“How were you able to complete this dish?"
"Easy! I used honey.
I rubbed it on the meat before we cooked it...
... and I added it into the seasonings afterward too."
I see! Honey is rich in proteinase, an enzyme that breaks down proteins. By using it as a rub on the tough cut of beef...
... he was able to tenderize it in a short period of time!
"But how did you know honey would do that?"
"When I was little, I read in a cookbook that pineapple juice could tenderize meats. But we don't often get the chance to buy whole pineapples.
So I experimented with stuff to see if anything else could do the same thing.
Of all of them, honey keeps the best and it's by far the easiest to use! ”
― Yuto Tsukuda, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 1

“I sliced the chicken with my fingers and put it into a small skillet to warm, separate a couple of eggs, and whisk the yolks quickly until they have lightened and thickened. Pour in a healthy glug of cream, then grate a flurry of cheese over the top, mixing it in. I zest a lemon from the bowl into the mix, and then squeeze in the juice. Some salt and pepper. I go over to the pots in my window and, with the scissors I keep there, snip off some parsley and chives, which I chop roughly and add to the mix. When the pasta is al dente, I drain it quickly, reserving a bit of the cooking water, and add it to a large bowl with a knob of butter, mixing quickly to coat the pasta. I add in the lemon sauce, tossing with a pair of tongs. When the whole mass comes together in a slick velvet tumble of noodles, I taste for seasoning, add a bit more ground black pepper, and put the shredded chicken on top with a bit more grated cheese.
A fork and a cold beer out of the fridge, and I take the bowl out to the living room, tossing Simca a piece of chicken, and settle on the couch to watch TV, twirling long strands of the creamy lemony pasta onto my fork with pieces of the savory chicken, complete comfort food.”
― Stacey Ballis, How to Change a Life

“You are the salt of the earth.
And you are here to season the world.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Song of a Nature Lover

“My own feeling is that a taste for plain potatoes coincides with cultural antecedents I do not possess, and that in any case, the time for plain potatoes--if there is ever a time for plain potatoes--is never at the beginning of something. It is also, I should add, never at the end of something. Perhaps you can get away with plain potatoes in the middle, although I have never been able to.”
― Nora Ephron, Heartburn

“When the crab arrives, I realize I've barely given any thought to Ann and her ministrations. To my surprise she has added a few finishing touches of her own. The crab sits snugly in its pink shell, beside a neat mound of delicately green mayonnaise. How has she colored it green?
"This could be made into a curry," pronounces Mr. Arnott. "In Madras, curried sea oysters are considered the pinnacle of fine food. Anything can be curried... fish, fowl, even eggs."
"Eggs?" Again, he has intrigued me.
"Indeed eggs," he says. "Hard-boiled and placed in a hot curried gravy, they are quite delicious."
I taste the mayonnaise, trying to fathom how Ann has greened it. Simultaneously I try to commit Mr. Arnott's recipe for curried eggs to memory, while also checking the seasoning in the crab.
"Do you think the crab would benefit from a little more lemon juice?" I ask. "Or perhaps chili vinegar should have been used."
"It is certainly fresh." He slowly savors the crab upon his tongue. "It tastes of the sea.”
― Annabel Abbs, Miss Eliza's English Kitchen

“White people have been accused of not seasoning our chicken. But what about other poultry? I season duck with layered flavors of various aquatic spices, like swimming, splashing, and powdered saxophone music.”
― Jarod Kintz, Powdered Saxophone Music

“I sprinkled a dose of Momma's seasoning into my cupped hand and dipped my tongue into the tiny pool of memories I knew one taste would evoke. Salty, savory, smoky, full of earthy flavors that somehow blessed everything it showered.
As the flavor crystals and bits of dried herbs dissolved in my mouth, I closed my eyes and swallowed the heavenly fusion.”
― Michelle Stimpson, Sisters with a Side of Greens

“What has happen it will stay here The Seasoning house ( A film which a lot of people should have access).”
― Deyth Banger

“I lost Tomiko and her mother at the eel stall. It was the place to buy prepared fillets of unagi, as meltingly tender as a stick of soft butter. A spotlight shone down on the delicate fillets, gleaming under a varnish of sweet soy glaze. Every eel shop and restaurant makes its own special glaze, which eel purists often forgo. All eel lovers, however, sprinkle on sansho, the tingly tongue-numbing green powder from the ground dried seedpods of the prickly ash tree that lifts the dish from sumptuous to sensational.
At that particular eel shop, the fillets, priced according to their fatty succulence, were still warm and drenched with sauce.
The next few shops were a sashimi lover's paradise. Spiky forest-green sea urchins swollen with creamy yellow eggs sat in green plastic baskets beside huge steak-like sides of tuna, caught only hours ago from the icy waters off Japan. Gigantic octopuses with suction cups like the bottom of rubber bathtub mats rested on ice near sapphire-silver mackerel imbricated on round white platters.”
― Victoria Abbott Riccardi, Untangling My Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto

“SALSA VERDE.
A sauce made primarily of finely minced Italian parsley and cured anchovies... it is often a garnish for grilled meat or vegetable dishes... and is considered a staple sauce in Italian cuisine.
"What was he thinking? This was supposed to be a Japanese dish! Making something Italian means he automatically fails!"
"No, he does not. This salsa wasn't made from cured anchovies. Instead, it primarily uses uruka, a specific type of shiokara sauce made from sweetfish. *Shiokara is salted, fermented fish viscera.*
Uruka typically requires over a week to make. However, this is an "instant" version, is it not?"
"Correct! Wash sweetfish viscera and boil them in saké for two minutes. Then flavor with soy sauce, salt and mirin. The result is a quickly made, yet still rich and appropriately bitter, uruka.
"Instant uruka?!"
"I didn't know that was possible!"
"That wasn't the only place he was creative. Instead of parsley, he minced Japanese perilla leaves and green onion to give it a bright green color and refreshing kick. And since garlic is hardly used in traditional Japanese cuisine, he chose yuzukosho, a seasoning made from chili peppers, yuzu fruit peels and salt, to give it a distinctly Japanese flavor."
"Exactly. With instant uruka as its base...
... I made a Japanese-style salsa verde!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 3

“ Red pepper is the theme, but there's no sign of it in the noodles or broth.
Does that one little dollop of paste on the side really have the oomph to compensate for that?"
"It's harissa, a seasoning blend said to have originated in Northern Africa. The ingredients generally include paprika, caraway seeds, lemon juice and garlic, among other things.
But the biggest is a ton of peppers, which are mashed into a paste and blended with those other spices."
Oh! That's the same thing Dad made when he visited the dorm. I think I remember him saying it came from somewhere in Africa.
"The ramen's broth is based on Chicken Muamba, another African recipe, where chicken and nuts are stewed together with tomatoes and chilies. This broth forms a solid backbone for the entire dish. Its zesty flavor amplifies the super-spicy harissa to explosive proportions!"
"That's gotta be sooo spicy!
Whoa! Are you sure it's a good idea to dump that much of it in all at once?!"
"Hoooo!Thanks to the mellow, full-bodied and ever-so-slight astringency of that mountain of peanuts he infused into the broth...
... adding the harissa just makes the spiciness and richness of the overall dish grow deeper and more complex with each drop!
Extra-thick cuts of Char Siu Pork, rubbed with homemade peanut butter before simmering! And the slightly thicker-than-usual wavy noodles! They soak up the broth and envelop the ultra-spiciness of the harissa... all together, it's addicting!
Its deliciousness so intense that my body cries out from its heat!
African Ramen... how very intriguing! A dish that never before existed anywhere in the world, but he's brought it to vibrant life!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 27 [Shokugeki no Souma 27]

“I got up from the table and stepped to the cabinet above Mom's mixer, absently brushing off a layer of dust as I reached up. I found the jar I needed, musing that it was probably years old and tasteless---but still worth a try.
"What are you doing?"
"Hang on a sec." I clenched the jar in my fist and shook the spice into my hand, pinching a bit across his lasagna.
"What's that?"
"Trust me, it's just what it needs---a touch of earth and sweet to temper the tomato's bite. With fresh tomatoes you need less as summer approaches and they develop their own sugars. Taste it."
He took a bite. "It's fantastic. What'd you add?"
"Cinnamon." He didn't recognize it?
"Amazing. I'll have to tell Mary."
"Tell her a touch of milk tempers the acidity as well."
"Interesting.”
― Katherine Reay, Lizzy and Jane

“As soon as she bit into it the lemon flavor burst in her mouth, immediately sweetened by the rosemary. The cornmeal didn't make the doughnut heavy or gritty, but gave it a light earthiness. It was so perfect in its lack of pretension, obviously designed not to impress but to comfort, to extend to the eater a genuine piece of affection.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, Other Birds: A Novel

“Hm. A dal bean curry, eh? It looks similar to Chana Masala, a Punjabi dish that uses chickpeas...
!
This viscous stickiness...!"
"It's Natto!"
Gooey texture and savory flavor are melding together inside my mouth! Was natto ever this delicious?
"Wait... this is no normal natto! Could it be..."
"Yes, sir. This natto I made by hand using charcoal smoke. It's charcoal-aged natto.
After I added the natto spores to a batch of soybeans, I stored them in an underground room. There I lit a charcoal fire and then kept the room at just the right temperature and humidity to ferment the soybeans.
As this process takes several days to complete, I prepared it ahead of time, over my summer break."
"The carbon dioxide generated by the charcoal fire impacts the maturation of the soy proteins. It gives the natto a richer flavor. It also halts bacteria death in the beans, preventing the typical smell of ammonia from developing!"
"Did you know all that?"
"I heard a little about it once. It's supposed to be a really hard process that takes loads of time to finish!"
"And she made it by herself?!"
"But that isn't all.
There's another flavor--- a deeper, more savory one that resonates across the tongue like a deep bass chord."
"Oh, that?
As a special hidden seasoning, I added shoyu koji."

SHOYU KOJI
Instead of salt, soy sauce is added to the koji bacteria and mixed with the rice until thick. Then it is left to ferment at a constant temperature for several weeks.

So that's the black stuff that was in that jar!
Shoyu koji has over ten times glutamic acid---an umami component--- than shio koji does.
I see. While the strong flavor of curry spices drowns out most other seasonings, shoyu koji's flavor is powerful enough to that it is instead a savory magnifier!
Her curry takes full advantage of her detailed knowledge of fermentation techniques! It is truly a magnificent dish!
"The creamy Japanese-style curry roux has blended in with the natto's gooeyness beautifully!"
"The mound of crisp, minced green onion on top is hard to resist as well!"”
― Yūto Tsukuda, 食戟のソーマ 7 [Shokugeki no Souma 7]

“Afterward, Marvina and I fried the chicken, and, I tell you, all hell broke loose when Kerresha tasted the meat.
"Oh my God! Holy Jesus and Guadalupe Mary!"
Before Marvina could ask her to stop using the Lord's name in vain, Kerresha leaned back in her chair and feigned a heart attack. "Oh my God! Mmm, mmm mmmmm! Where? What kind of voodoo did you put in this chicken?"
"Ain't no voodoo here in this house," Marvina bucked.
"Yes! There is!" Kerresha licked her fingers. "I promise you. On God." She put a hand on her heart. "This chicken just took me back to the spiritual power of the ancestors."
Marvina was so flattered she couldn't be mad. We both looked at each other and laughed, because, truth be told, this was exactly the reaction people gave the first time they tasted Momma's seasoning on expertly fried chicken.
"Y'all." Kerresha raised both hands in the air like she was getting happy in a holiness church. "Is it the grease? The seasoning? Chickens raised by unicorns?"
"It's the seasoning," my sister and I said simultaneously.
Kerresha swallowed another bite. "Whatever y'all put in that seasoning is a miracle. A double miracle, since it also has the power to make y'all finally both agree on something.”
― Michelle Stimpson, Sisters with a Side of Greens

“The pink ingredient in your fried rice: it had to be these." Nagare produced a packet of fish sausages from a plastic bag at his side. "You must have noticed them in the rice?"
"Oh yes," said Hatsuko. "You know, I think I remember seeing something like that in our fridge."
"I picked these up in Yawatahama. A local butcher told me this brand was the closest you could get to the type Aihachi Foods used to make." Nagare set the sausages to one side, then produced another packet from his bag. "Now, this was the other reason for that pink color."
"What's that?" asked Hatsuko.
"A Yawatahama specialty. Kamaboko flakes. Just like bonito flakes, except made from kamaboko fish cake instead of tuna. They were invented back before people had fridges, as a way of making kamaboko last longer. Normally you'd sprinkle them over things like chirashi-zushi, but your mother decided they'd be a good addition to her fried rice. They make a pretty decent drinking snack too, by the way." Nagare opened the packet and retrieved a handful of the flakes, which he began to nibble on.
"So it wasn't just the fish sausage, then," said Hatsuko, also sampling the flakes.
"That's right," said Koishi, grabbing a handful for herself. "Given what they're both made from, it's no wonder you remembered the fried rice having a fishy flavor."
"As for the all-important seasoning," continued Nagare, "I imagine she used a mix of shredded shio-kombu and sour plum. That's where that tart aftertaste you mentioned came from. Then I realized: sour plum is pink too. It all fits the color scheme, see?" He showed her a can of the shredded kelp and sour plum mix. Hatsuko gave a deep, appreciative nod.”
― Jesse Kirkwood, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes