Monday, November 26, 2012

Tone Down Too Much Chili Powder In Spaghetti







Too much heat can ruin a spaghetti sauce; luckily, there are solutions.


All cooks are bound to come across this problem at some point: too much of one spice added to a dish by accident. This is a common mistake in the making of sauce, such as spaghetti sauce, as a spice's intensity may change throughout the cooking process. If that spice happens to be chili powder, it may seem impossible to tone down the overwhelming heat, but there are ways to do so. While many of those ways may drastically change the flavor, this method maintains the flavor while cooling it down.


Instructions


1. Divide the spaghetti sauce equally into two pots. One batch will be your "experimental group"; the other will be your "control group."


2. Add 1/2 cup of tomato sauce to experimental pot of spaghetti sauce, stir and gently heat until it is simmering. Taste the sauce.








3. Continue adding tomato sauce to the experimental pot in 1/2 cup increments until the spaghetti sauce is mild enough for your taste, keeping track of how much you have added.


4. Add milk or cream to the sauce in 1/4 cup increments if the sauce is still too spicy after using an entire can of tomato sauce. Keep track of this amount.


5. Add the same amount of tomato sauce, milk or cream to the control pot. If you've over-corrected the experimental pot and made it too bland, simply add small increments of the control group and mix, tasting as you go, until the spice is right.


6. Combine the two pots and bring to a gentle simmer.


7. Taste to ensure the correct seasoning. Add more tomato sauce or milk as necessary to balance out the flavors.

Tags: spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, control group, milk cream, sauce experimental, sauce milk, tomato sauce experimental