Season like you mean it

Watch a chef work and you will notice something unglamorous. They taste constantly. A spoon lives beside the stove and it visits the pot at every stage, because seasoning is a conversation with the food in front of you rather than a measurement you get right once.

Salt early and salt in layers. A pinch in the onions as they soften, a proper seasoning of the meat before it browns, a check of the sauce as it reduces. Each addition has a different job. Early salt builds flavour into the food, late salt sits on top and shouts.

The fix for undersalted food is obvious. The fix for oversalted food is usually acid, a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar that makes the salt read as brightness instead of brine. When a dish tastes flat and you are sure the salt is right, reach for acid next.

Before anything leaves your kitchen for the table, taste it one final time and ask one question. Would I order this again? If the answer is a shrug, it is nearly always salt or acid, and now you know which spoon to reach for.