Part of the Kitchen Foundations track. Lesson 6 of 10.
Prerequisites: Module 6.
The sequence
Taste at the temperature it will be eaten.
Reset between tastes.
Split-sample before correcting.
And say what you taste in words.
The decisions
When to taste. At service temperature, per Module 6 — because cold suppresses perception substantially and a potato salad seasoned warm reads bland to every guest while the cook is certain it was correct.
What to add. Split-sample first, always. Two small portions, salt in one and acid in the other, taste both.
Because flat that salt does not fix is almost always acid — and a cook who keeps adding salt makes it salty and still flat.
And whether your palate is still working. Continuous tasting raises the threshold, so late in a shift everything reads mild and you will season heavier without knowing it.
What you are reading
Your own drift, which is the uncomfortable part.
What goes wrong here
Tasted warm, served cold.
Salt added on a guess.
And a full batch corrected without a split sample.
Verification
Season the same item at open and at close on the same night. Refrigerate both. Taste them blind the next day. That tells you something about yourself that nobody can tell you.
The boundary
None specific.