Cancelling out a cooking mistake

corblimey

I was making meatballs and tomato sauce today, and accidentally overdid the red wine vinegar, by quite a lot. I added some soy sauce to break it down a little and added more salt and pepper, but the result sauce was still VERY vinegary (not inedible, I like vinegar, but it was very noticeable).

For future reference, is there any other spice or anything that would alleviate an overdose of vinegar? Even better, is there a website or resource where I can look up something I've added too much of and the corresponding 'this will counteract it' pops up? Or is that just a pipe dream? Someone should totally make that website!

What do you other top chefs do when you mess up a recipe? Try and fix it (or mask it) or just dump it and start again?

FarmerGreen

If its too acid, take a sample and add sugar, just to try it.
As in sweet and sour sauce, or tinned tomatoes.
I havent tried this but you could try draining the sauce off, dilute with water and give it a fast boil to drive off the acetic. If youve ever made chutney you know the smell.
Too much salt or chilli in a sauce can be lessened by simmering with slices of potato.(they a make a nice sandwich after youve taken them out).

Minder

My first reaction would be to fish the meatballs out of the sauce and make the sauce again. Cook the new sauce without the vinegar and depending on how long the over vinegared sauce had cooked - the meatballs could have picked up a little or a lot of the acidic flavour. Fresh sauce - then taste and see as the meatballs cook.

rubadub

Instead of throwing it out you could drain it off and keep it as a base. e.g. I put too much chilli in a tomato based sauce, so poured half off and froze it, then "dilute" the rest with more tomato sauce. Now you can do the same with the frozen one another day.

Curry Addict

add sweet to balance the sour. so add some sugar.