Make Perfect-Tasting Soup Every Time Using the FASS Method
There is something to be appreciated in a heaped bowl of your favorite soup. All great soups involve a painstaking process of tasting, enhancing or adjusting the flavor of the soup throughout the cooking process, and the correct use of fatty, acidic, salty and sweet (FASS) ingredients to make the soup excellent.
Remember this acronym FASS to give the soup a complex flavor. It looks like this:
Fat: Fat distributes flavor to taste and gives a feeling of fullness.
Acid: An acid such as lemon, lime, vinegar, or salsa draws out and brightens the flavor and balances out overly sweet or salty soup.
Salt: Salt enhances the flavor of the food and moves the aroma to the front of the tongue where the flavor is best tasted. If the scent is holding back, then you know you’ll need a pinch or two of salt to bring it to the front.
Sweet: My favorite sweetness is Grade A (formerly Grade B) dark maple syrup, so rich you only need a little to harmonize and complete the flavor.
In other words, don’t wait until the last minute to add salt. Keep trying on the go and be patient. A good soup is always worth it.