good food takes time (usually)

I’m a baker at heart, so I often have a dough that has to rise on the counter or a crust that needs to rest in the fridge. These waiting games have taught me a lot about patience and the importance of letting things settle and work on their own time, because y'all, on the real...that yeast is working to get that dough to rise. 

I’ve learned the necessity of patience from successes and losses while baking and cooking: Challah bread with a smooth exterior and pillowy interior after the perfect second rise AND dry-ass biscuits due to butter that melted too quickly from not being cold enough. Soups that inspire a shoulder dance with their ~levels~ of flavors AND consumé that was more akin to dirty water than a broth for dipping tacos.

While it can be hard, patience is often the difference bewteen good food and good food. Just like many of us, time is key for true flavors to develop 👀

A lil tip within a tip for ya 😚, think about your order of events—PEMDAS, but for cooking. If you want to a sauce or dip like a chimchurri, homemade ranch, guacamole, etc. as a part of your meal, then it might be best to make that first so that the flavors (specifically those of herbs) have time to essentially steep like tea into the rest of the mixture.

Okay caveat time! There are some ingredients that will indeed have flavor dissipation over time womp womp. For instance, this past August for kay’s birthday, I made a coconut cake, and after the second day kay took a bite and looked at me to ask “is there even any coconut in this?” All I could say was “bruh.” Because the way there was both coconut milk and coconut oil in both the cake and icing, but that’s what coconut tends to do,,,,lose flavor over time. I also think of curries with coconut milk as the base, for the first 10-30 minutes there will be a strong coconut flavor, but it will quickly fade and be overtaken by other flavors. 

In any case, if you're noticing that your food tends to be bland or one-note, a bit of salt will always be the first thing I suggest. I'mma actually do a mini deep dive on salt next week! If you’d like more insight on the importance of patience in the kitchen or have other cooking/baking questions, book a cooking fulla joy convo with me or join the Cardamom Pod!

happy cooking my friends,

erica joy

Thank you for being a part of the Cooking Fulla Joy Comradery! These posts are for living, laughing, and learning™️. Alongside my one-on-one offerings, I wanted to share about my experiences (emotional + otherwise), inner-workings, and knowledge of all things food(-related). If you would like to work one-on-one to shift your relationship to food and the kitchen, you can book a vibe check with me here!

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