Asklemmy

Well, in a post covid world, you aren't the first person to have this problem. People that could taste and smell fully temporarily or permanently lost some degree of one or both senses.

And recipes are the answer. The handful of people I know that have dealt with it have managed to still make good food that way. And there's professional cooks that have allergies but still cook things like shellfish that way, and do just fine. The reason it works is that a well crafted recipe doesn't need tasting or smelling. Not all recipes are well crafted, but most of the ones you find at places like America's test kitchen, serious eats, or other sources that actively test and adjust their recipes are. Those two resources are going to get to what you need long enough to find other sources that you can trust to have tested things.

Now, there are still going to be problems. Some cooking directions rely on smell. The biggest one is garlic. Almost every single pan cooked recipe is going to tell you to add it and stir "until fragrant". But, again, there's a simple solution. Counting. Garlic will become at least mildly fragrant in a pan at a five count. After a ten count, it's mostly gone and the garlic starts becoming bitter. So, as long as you don't count absurdly slow, keep it between 5 and 8, and then add the next ingredients in the instructions of the recipe (it'll usually be a liquid or a larger amount of meats and/or veggies).

Now, that only really applies to pan cooking. Garlic in other techniques doesn't need that much attention.

However, you can even bypass the "until fragrant" via bypassing the pan cook entirely. Roast your garlic ahead of time. There's instructions on how to do it online, and it's very forgiving. So you just add roasted garlic in with any seasonings, and you'll get a nice result. Won't be exactly the same, but it's foolproof because it eliminates what can go wrong in the pan.

Another big one is the "to taste" instruction. That's almost always going to be with salt and pepper. When it's something else, you really end up needing a taster to help because it's unusual, and there's not much info out there on how at adapt each and every herb or spice.

But, people have worked out a kind of baseline https://www.thespruceeats.com/cooking-with-salt-1807478. You shouldn't skip those kinds of salt additions, ever. That's because they contribute more than taste. They contribute to the cooking process. The best example of that is when cooking meat or large pieces of vegetables via roasting. See, the Maillard reaction happens better and more evenly when the ingredients are salted before cooking.

So you can always add the rough amounts from that page and the handy little illustration it has until you memorize or write them down.

When you do that, you don't need to add anything "to taste" because the pain eating can do that better than you to begin with. Most of the time, the instruction "salt to taste" is towards the end, so all you're getting is flavor enhancement.

If you want to add some then, or the instruction is earlier in the recipe, you can usually add a half teaspoon to any recipe that doesn't already have salt or a heavily salty ingredient like soy sauce. Some folks will be fine if you add an entire teaspoon, as long as the recipe feeds at least 4 people.

Pepper though, that's a bit tougher. It's an ingredient that benefits a dish at any point in the cooking process, doesn't change that process, but does change the flavor depending on when it's added. So you definitely want to add some at the point in the process the recipe says. Generally, a half teaspoon is going to be enough that eaters can adjust at the table and it won't be too much for anyone not chemically sensitive to piperazine. If you know the people well enough, you can adjust to their preferences when a "pepper to taste" is included.

Most people, in a dish serving 4 are going to tolerate a full teaspoon, but it likely will dominate the dish more than is ideal overall. Tolerating isn't the same as liking, after all. So, as long as you don't dump more than that in, it's not going to ruin anything.

Another little trick for pepper, if you have control of your kitchen, is to keep two containers. One, you set aside for a year, the other you replace regularly. The old one is going to be milder, so it can work well for giving some pepper taste, without overwhelming things. Now, I don't prefer that method since it's easy enough to just reduce amounts. But one of the people I know that lost part of their taste to covid swears that is e reliable.

His explanation is that it gives enough pepper taste that he can make mistakes, and not have the end result be hot. A lot of the piperazine fades when you have preground pepper to begin with. The longer it sits, the closer it gets to the bare minimum it'll ever have.

Like I said, I don't advocate for that, because adjusting is easier, but that's me.