KITCHEN PRACTICE 1 — Taste and Fix a Deliberately Flat Dish
====================================================================

TASK
Make a simple soup or sauce, but hold back seasoning entirely at
first. Taste it plain, then use this chapter's own balancing-act table
to diagnose and fix it step by step — salt, taste, then acid, taste —
rather than guessing.

WALKTHROUGH

Step 1 — Make something simple, unseasoned.
A basic vegetable soup or a plain tomato sauce works well — something
with real ingredients but genuinely no salt, acid, or seasoning added
yet.

Step 2 — Taste it plain first.
Use a clean spoon. It should taste noticeably flat and one-dimensional
— this is the deliberate baseline you're comparing everything against.

Step 3 — Add salt, a little at a time.
Add a small pinch, stir it in fully, then taste again with a clean
spoon. Repeat in small increments. Notice how the existing flavours
start sounding more like themselves — that's salt amplifying what's
already there, not just adding "saltiness."

Step 4 — Stop and assess.
Once it tastes reasonably seasoned but still slightly flat or heavy,
that's your cue this chapter's table points to: try acid next rather
than more salt.

Step 5 — Add acid, a little at a time.
A small squeeze of lemon juice or a splash of vinegar, stirred in and
tasted the same way — small increments, clean spoon, taste after each
addition.

Step 6 — Notice the shift.
The acid should genuinely brighten the dish in a way more salt alone
never would — flavours that felt muddy or heavy should feel clearer
and more distinct.

Step 7 — Write down (mentally or literally) what actually fixed it.
Was it salt alone? Salt then acid? This is the real diagnostic skill —
learning which fix a given kind of "off" dish usually needs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY THIS WORKS AS A DEMONSTRATION
Deliberately starting from an unseasoned baseline removes the guessing
that normally happens when you season instinctively from habit. Adding
salt and acid separately, tasting after each, lets you actually
witness the specific effect each one has — which is the whole point of
this chapter's own diagnostic table, made concrete instead of abstract.