Go Deep, With Levels of Flavor!

Have I ever enlarged upon my "levels of flavor" rule? It's like my "pyramid theory" of food construction, an abstract concept I hatched last year, and which prompted a huge wave of silence among our readers. That one was something of a stretch, I'll grant you. But this one is so palpably true that once you read it, think about it, and then internalize it, your cooking will IMMEDIATELY become 100% better, or I don't know how to use the cap lock button.

The basic idea of "levels of flavor" is this: you can't get flavor from top to bottom, unless you add it from top to bottom. It's as simple as that. Imagine you are eating a slice of pizza. You can sprinkle red pepper flakes on it, and then it will be hot. You have added hotness to the pizza. Eat a slice with it, and a slice without it: the difference is what you added. Now imagine a slice of pizza that has a little heat in its sauce. Let's say that someone threw some of those same peppers in the sauce as it was cooking. The taste isn't the same as if you added more peppers from the little glass shaker; it goes deeper. It interacts with everything else; it melts into the cheese. You feel me? Now let's say that you also had some fresh red pepper in the sauce too. That also changes it. Now you have three levels of the same flavor, three dimensions, and a fuller taste.

I do this trick all the time, and it always works. I cook garlic in the olive oil, and then when it has turned a light brown, and given its all to the oil, I throw a little bit more in with the meat. Then at the very end, I throw some raw garlic in for a few minutes, just so that it wilts and warms. Voila! Three dimensions of garlic flavor. It makes sense, if you think about it. Things taste different when they are cooked a lot, vs. cooked a little, vs. not cooked at all. It sounds like it might be overwhelming to add the same flavor at three different stages. And it will say that this is not the most subtle of techniques. I wouldn't do it with bay leaves. (I've learned my lesson with those things.) But there are some flavors that are so fundamental that you really need them to stand up and start breathing. Garlic is like that. Salt is like that. Heat is like that. Pork fat is like that.

I'm not saying you should just do this indiscriminately. But try it out the next time you do something that takes a while to cook. You won't be sorry, and you won't go back.