What's your secret ingredient that makes your version of a common dish better than anyone else's?
What's your secret ingredient that makes your version of a common dish better than anyone else's?
Mine probably isn't that secret these days, but almost every sauce I add nutritional yeast to. Curry, chilli, bolognese, it just makes them all better.
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Just like adding a pinch of salt can improve any dish, adding a dash of Worcestershire sauce can improve them for the same reasons but different taste group.
And more generally, if you taste something and feel like it's missing something, go through each of the taste groups and consider if that is what it's missing. Sweet, salty, acidic, umami are the main ones (I've never felt like a dish is missing bitterness, but maybe that's a weakness in my cooking). Spicy isn't a flavour group but can add to a dish and/or mask a lack of balance.
Also, do this balancing act after you've added all the ingredients because they can bring their own biases to the dish.
In my experience, when a dish tastes like it's missing something, most of the time it's acid. My go-to is a healthy squirt of yellow mustard.