Does the order of ingredients while cooking matter to an extent that it changes the overall taste of the food?

Question

Let's say I am making a meat curry. In first case, I boiled the meat in water, added the pepper first, let it cook for a while, then added some chilli powder. In the second case, I added chilli first, let it boil for some time, and then added pepper. Will there by a discernible change in the taste? I think what I am asking is the does the law of superposition hold in cooking? It may not be observable since the width of each flavor layer would be infinitely miniscule, but is it discernible in the overall taste of the food? Scientific, anecdotal, all answers are appreciated!

Edit: Following the suggestions, I will narrow it down. The sequence of ingredients should mean that the meat is first exposed to those chemical reactions and the flavor fog(that it will absorb) of one ingredient, then of the other ingredient. Do you think this results in a first-absorbed-last-tasted flavor stack that we may not always put our hand on, but taste subconsciously?

Answer 1

Yes, ingredient order matters because once you add water or other liquid (or extremely wet ingredients like crushed tomatoes), you have a temperature maximum (until the liquid boils off), so you change what sort of chemical reactions will happen.

Sometimes this is desired, like adding onions or tomatoes shortly after garlic to prevent it from burning, but in some cases it may not be desired, like adding water before alcohol has had a chance to reduce or ingredients have had a chance to brown.

Vinegar (and other acids) are another class of ingredients that can dramatically change how things cook. It reduces browning and prevents some items from breaking down… so if you want your onions to disappear into a tomato sauce, you want to cook them down before adding the tomatoes. And conversely, some acid can help prevent potatoes or pasta from overly breaking down, but must be in moderation or it may keeps things from softening entirely.

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In your particular case, you could cook the chili powder and other spices in a bit of oil to ‘bloom’ it first, then add the meat to get it coated in the spices and possibly brown a little bit, then add liquid to let it stew and become tender. This could make a noticeable difference in your dish if you’re using high heat.

Note: there are also times when you add ingredients WAY after another, like for a stewed dish where you may add herbs or garlic at the end because the long cooking time will mute those flavors too much. There are also a lot of times when we add vegetables at different times simply because they’d be over cooked if added at the beginning.

Answer 2

For your clarified question specifically about ‘layers’ of flavors:

Yes, but not quite as often and maybe not significantly as you might think.

In the case of a spice mix placed onto a object, whatever is on the top is what’s going to hit your tongue first, and then after you chew you will get the flavors that have been added earlier. I don’t know that adding one spice than another will show much of a difference, but adding spices to a breading mix (either the flour, egg, or breadcrumb part) will typically be less noticeable than a similar amount sprinkled on as soon as you’re finished frying.

However, because it hasn’t been heated, the flavors going to be different (although in some cases the spices will burn if in the breadcrumb part)

There are literal ‘layer’ when you’re dealing with some confectionary (coating in chocolate, caramel, or hard sugar), but I don’t think this is what you’re talking about.

When rolling things in spices, it’s typical to mix everything together instead of rolling into multiple separate containers of spices for two reasons: (1) it’s a lot less work and (2) you get a more consistent ratio of spices. If you roll in one first, there maybe not be moisture left for the subsequent spices to stick well.

When dealing with things being stewed, braised, or boiled, you get a similar issue… the first flavoring may absorb better than the subsequent flavorings, so you may need to add them in a specific order or all at once to get the proper balance. Chef Saito on NHK’s “Cooking with the Chef” had a recipe where be added sugar first, then salt a minute or so later so the larger compound had a better chance to absorb.

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But for much of this, I would suggest making two batches, try taking whatever shortcuts you want on one of them while following the recipe on the other, then decide for yourself if the extra work is worth it. It’s possible that your tastes might lean towards the easier version