Kitchen first aid: how to rescue oversalted, burnt and curdled food

The popular tip is to drop a raw potato into the soup to "soak up the salt". Sadly, it's mostly a myth: the potato absorbs liquid together with its salt at the same concentration, so the soup stays just as salty. The only effect comes from eating the potato afterwards — and that doesn't change the soup.

Only one thing works: dilution. Add an unsalted base — water, unsalted stock, unsalted canned tomatoes, cream or milk for a cream soup. Every 10% more volume lowers the saltiness by roughly 10%.

Roast or fried meat: slice it thinly and serve with an unsalted side or a sauce based on sour cream or cream. Or use it as a filling — for pasta, pancakes, a pie — with plenty of unsalted ingredients.

Salad: add unsalted vegetables, boiled potato, rice or eggs. If you haven't dressed it yet, make the dressing salt-free with lemon and sour cream.

Mince for patties: add more unsalted mince, soaked bread or grated courgette until it tastes right.

Chilli's heat — capsaicin — dissolves in fat, not water. So water doesn't help, and dairy helps a lot.

Sourness is tamed by sweetness and fat: a pinch of sugar, a spoon of honey, a knob of butter or some cream. For tomato sauce you can add a pinch of baking soda (no more than ¼ tsp per litre) to neutralise some of the acid. Too much soda tastes soapy, so add a little at a time and taste.

Cloying sweetness is fixed with acid and salt: lemon juice, vinegar, a pinch of salt. Salt doesn't make a dessert salty, but it switches off excess sweetness and lifts the other flavours.

The main thing: don't stir! As soon as you smell burning, take the pot off the heat and, without scraping the bottom, carefully transfer the top part into a clean pan. Leave the burnt layer behind.

Taste it. If a faint smell remains, lay a slice of white bread or a halved onion on top for 10–15 minutes to absorb some of it, then discard. If it tastes strongly burnt, better not to risk it.

Lumpy sauce: push it through a sieve or give it 20 seconds with a stick blender and it's smooth again. To avoid lumps next time, cook the flour in fat first or mix it with a little cold liquid before adding it to hot.

Lumpy porridge or mash: break it up with a masher or beat with a mixer, adding a little hot milk.

Lumpy pancake batter: leave it for 15–20 minutes — the flour swells and the lumps whisk out easily. Or blitz it with a blender.

The easiest way to thicken a thin sauce is starch: per 250 ml of sauce, 1 tsp starch mixed with 2 tbsp cold water. Pour into the boiling sauce while stirring and cook for 1 minute — it thickens before your eyes. Cornflour gives a clear glossy sauce, potato starch a slightly stretchier one.

The second way is to reduce the sauce uncovered over high heat. The flavour intensifies — but so does the salt, so season after reducing.

For creamy sauces use butter and flour 1:1 (the French beurre manié): mash 1 tsp soft butter with 1 tsp flour and whisk it into the hot sauce.

Thin a thick sauce with the liquid it was made with: stock, cream, pasta water.

Buttercream that has split and looks like cottage cheese means the butter and the other ingredients were at different temperatures. If the cream is cold, warm the sides of the bowl with a hairdryer or over steam for 10–15 seconds and beat again. If it's warm and runny, chill it for 15 minutes, then beat.

Custard that has gone grainy — the eggs overheated. Take it off the heat at once, pour into a cold bowl and blitz with a blender, then pass through a sieve. If the lumps are small, it can be saved.

Ganache that has split — the fat has leaked and the chocolate looks grainy. Add 1–2 tbsp warm milk or cream and stir with a spatula from the centre in small circles — the emulsion will come back.

Rice is undercooked and the water has gone: add 3–4 tbsp boiling water, cover tightly and leave on the lowest heat for 5–7 minutes. Or take it off the heat and wrap in a towel for 10–15 minutes — it will finish in the steam.

Pasta is overcooked: fry it in oil with garlic until the edges are golden, or bake it with cheese and sauce — nobody notices softness in a bake.

Meat is dry: slice it thinly across the grain and cover with hot sauce or stock for 5 minutes. Dry chicken is perfect in a dressed salad or as a pancake filling.