When you season your food, think about how the basic tastes balance. For instance, that sweet balances sour – and the other way around. That acid balances salt – and the other way around. If you for instance have a dish with baked (sweet) roots, you can use a little vinegar (acid) to promote the total taste.

We have asked Ronny Emborg, chef at top restaurant Atera in New York, how you create the good taste.

And it’s not necessarily the salt jar you need, when you season the food:

Most people know that soy, capers and for instance anchovy can be used to salt the food. But in my opinion, you should have salted lemons in the fridge, too, to use chopped in the food. They can last many weeks in the fridge, he says.

But what about the fifth taste – umami? You can’t find it on the spice rack, and it is usually when umami is missing that you can taste it.

Many are of course not used to working with umami as a taste, but all I can say is try it out. For example, with mushrooms, reduced tomatoes, seaweed and then of course miso. Try a bit of white miso in the creamed vegetables. Then something happens, Ronny Emborg states.

Miso is known from the Japanese kitchen. Miso is made of fermented soybeans and different shares of rice, barley or other kinds of grain.

There are many different kinds of miso, and you need to try them out. The light miso is in general sweeter than the dark one. They all have the umami taste.