acid - make food taste awake

acid add [--lemon | --lime | --vinegar | --wine | --dairy] DISH

acid add --squeeze lemon DISH

acid is the fix for food that is salted correctly and still tastes flat. A squeeze of lemon, a spoon of vinegar, or a splash of wine brightens rich food and makes the flavors taste distinct instead of muddy.

Add acid at the end for brightness. Acid added early, like wine boiled down in a sauce or tomatoes simmered for an hour, mellows into background depth.

If food tastes heavy, greasy, or one-note, try acid before you try more salt.

--lemon

Bright and fresh. Use the zest too: it carries the aroma without the sourness.

--lime

Same idea, more floral. Expected in a lot of dishes with chili, cilantro, or fish sauce.

--vinegar

Sharper and more stable than citrus. Sherry, red wine, and rice vinegar make a useful starter kit. Rice vinegar is the mildest.

--wine

Cook it down until the raw alcohol smell is gone. Used in pan sauces. See deglaze(1).

--dairy

Yogurt, buttermilk, sour cream. Acid and fat in one. Splits if boiled hard, so add it off the heat.

salt(1), taste(1), deglaze(1), butter(1)

Acidic sauces simmered for a long time in bare cast iron or aluminum can taste metallic and strip the pan's seasoning. Use stainless steel or enameled pans for tomato sauce that cooks for hours.

Acid curdles milk. Sometimes that is the recipe and sometimes it is an incident.