Adjust the Seasoning

Yes another cooking blog.  As it is a part of my daily routine (at least once a day), I find myself often cooking, or planning on what to cook, or buying food in order to cook it, or simply eating. 

I have several recipes memorized – you know the ones, the weekly rotating few, and I prefer to cook from memory or make it up.  I often find myself perusing the cooking book aisle at Borders for ideas that I then attempt to make faster and less expensively – sometimes to the detriment of flavor and edible nature.  Oh well, sorry Brandon.

When I do use a recipe, I am often terrified.  This is because if I use a recipe and it tastes terrible its all my fault.  I can’t use an excuse like, “must have forgotten an ingredient” or “that didn’t work the way I expected,” a failed recipe is a personal affront on my literacy. 

Thus brings me to my least favorite words in cooking: adjust the seasoning.  Often I have just added a long list of spices I am not honestly all that familiar with and I’m supposed to somehow know how to adjust to taste?  I struggle with adjusting salt and pepper – which has led me to often omit both and resolve to do it yourself seasoning adjustment. 

Last evening I decided to attempt a Moroccan stew recipe my mother in law made for us while we were in Bend.  I figured, stew, it must be pretty straightforward.  Little did I know… I found myself day two on a three day process.   

I did modify the list of spices a bit (hoping ground spices are equal in worth to the seeds, and hoping that saffron doesn’t add too much to a dish).  As I added the spices to the pot, browning them alongside their friend’s onion and garlic, I added a heaping teaspoon of cayenne.  Brandon immediately said, “something’s wrong, have you cooked with all these spices before, I feel funny.”  

Yes, we are both sitting in our little apartment, throats itchy, eyes watering, an increased frequency in both cough and sneeze from the two of us.  I turned back to the recipe, had I done something wrong?!?!  No, recipe called for 2 heaping teaspoons cayenne, I halved it because I know Brandon is sensitive to spice.  Next step.  And then those dreaded words: adjust seasoning. 

Well, let me tell you that the seasoning that the recipe originally called for is what exists in that stew pot, and is what is stewing.  Perhaps I should lie out the sleuth of spices alongside the salt and pepper tomorrow for the ever popular do it yourself seasoning adjustment.