Opposites attract...

Ever wondered why the right way to eat gathiya-jalebi is to take one bite of each until you've gobbled it up? Or why sweet chocolate spread translates into a decadent snack when applied on buttered bread? And why salty almonds are addictive, or why fenugreek turns palatable the moment it hits lemon juice? Welcome to the befuddling world of tastes. To cook an epicurean meal is to take into consideration all these flavours and work them in cohesion. Here is our fool proof guide to matching core flavours with one another:

Sweet+ Salty

Watermelon and feta, salt and caramel, blue cheese and chocolate – though these combinations sound odd at first, there are no two flavours that work as well as sweet and salt. Salt enhances the effect of whatever it is added to — bitter, sour, spicy or salty foods. Added to a naturally-sweet ingredient like sweet corn, sweet potato, caramel, jelly or almonds, salt cuts through the extra saccharine-ness, balancing the flavour by giving it a saline edge.

Sour + bitter

Ever watched your mother squeeze lemon juice on karela (bitter gourd) sabzi? Sour helps reduce the bitterness of a food. Sourness is a strong flavour and when released on something that's bitter, it reduces its effect and makes it more fine-textured. Take for example a salad of sour green apples teamed with walnuts, or lemon spaghetti
topped with pecan nuts. Apart from nuts, vegetables such as bell pepper and salad greens like arugula and radicchio also fall under the bitter category — but add to them a touch of vinegar, and you have yourself a proportionate flavour profile.

Salty + Spicy

For an Indian palate, this combination works best. Spicy is like an advanced version of salty — with more intricacies and dimensions. Salt enhances the spice quotient of an ingredient and makes it more palatable. Take for example Kerala's masala-coated chips or jalapeno bread rolls and wasabi-hinted mayonnaise. The spicy elements in these
combinations work to enhance the flavour of the overall dish. Most chefs balance out this duo by adding a touch of honey or a pinch of sugar to create well-roundedness.

Bitter+ Sweet

Bitter can be controlled if a dash of sweetness is added to it. This gives you the health benefits of consuming bitter foods without having to ingest the horrible taste! Add a drop of honey to a spinach smoothie or mix sweet chunks of pineapple to a kale salad. Innately-bitter ingredients such as brinjal can be countered with a touch of sweet saffron.

Umami+anything

Umami, the fifth taste, is hard to describe, but easy to detect once it's on your tongue. The rich savoury taste that feels like it has the right amount of sweet, sour, salty and bitter is umami. Commonly found in ingredients such as mushrooms, certain cheeses and soy sauce, umami flavour goes well with anything. Combinations such as chilli sauce and shiitake mushroom, bamboo shoot with sambal, truffle and parmesan, tofu/seaweed and green tea show how umami flavours can be paired with almost anything!

Did you know?

- Our tongue is covered with thousands of bumps called papillae and each of these carries hundreds of taste buds
- Our taste perceptions fade as we age
- Apart from taste, our tongue can also feel other sensations such as coolness, pungency, fattiness, astringency, etc
- A supertaster is a someone who has a heightened sense of taste compared other average people