What You Need
- Two small bowls
- About 2 tablespoons of plain yogurt in each bowl
- One lemon
- Ground cardamom
- A small pinch of salt for each bowl
The Exercise
1
Add a small pinch of salt to each bowl and stir. Then squeeze about half a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice into each bowl. Stir to combine. Taste Bowl A.
2
Add a very small pinch of ground cardamom to Bowl B. Not a measured amount. Just a dusting, barely enough to see. Stir once. Taste.
3
Go back to Bowl A. Taste it again immediately after tasting Bowl B.
A dish that feels too sharp, too smoky, too hot, or too heavy is usually not a dish with too much of something. It is a dish missing the counterpart that would allow that assertive element to express without dominating. The correction is addition, not subtraction. The cardamom did not compete with the lemon. It completed it.