You can follow a recipe to the letter, but you don’t reallybegin to cook until you learn to play with your food. To beprecise, learn to play with a few key ingredients and cookingtechniques to boost the flavor of a dish, moving it from boring tobeautiful.

Consider a simmering pot of split pea soup we made the otherday. Followed the recipe to the letter. Didn’t need salt. Didn’tneed pepper. But it was downright dull. Try apple cider vinegar,suggested a friend. We stirred in a good splash. Beautiful. Withalmost zero effort and cost, we amped up the flavor.

Dull food can be saved. Just ask chef Lauren Braun Costello.

“Brighten with acid or salt. Enrich with fat. Restaurants useanimal fat and salt to enhance flavor. Vinegar, lemon juice,finishing oils, butter and sugar are all old standbys,” she writesin “Notes on Cooking: A Short Guide to an Essential Craft” (RCRCreative Press, $21.95), a tiny book written with Russell Reich andpacked with kitchen wisdom.

For more insight, we tracked down Braun Costello at her home inNew York.

Think flavors (and where to find them): Sweet (honey, sugar,agave, corn). Salty (Parmesan, capers, salt). Sour (vinegar,lemons, limes). Bitter (chocolate, coffee, Swiss chard).

Think balance: “Sometimes people throw hot sauce on something.That’s flavoring it, that’s making it spicy. But if you’re talkingabout a melody, that’s just one note. … Counterbalance that with alittle sweetness with honey or sugar,” she says.

“Balancing flavors is like writing a glorious song. It makes thedish, and the mind of the diner, dance.”

Think heat: “When you apply heat to something – whether to searit or fry it or grill it or roast it – before you add it intosomething, that’s what creates the depth of flavor,” Braun Costelloadds.

Ready to play with your food? Well, put all your senses (taste,touch, sense, smell) on alert. Then, as Braun Costello puts it,”mess with the recipe.”

Armed with a few of her ideas below, head into the kitchen withthis quote she offers from writer Ray Bradbury: “Life is tryingthings to see if they work.”

Acid: Vinegars and lemon. “You cannot go wrong most of the timewith adding acid to a dish,” she says. “It adds brightness.”

Toast: Toast spices before using them to bring out theiraromatic oils. “In Indian cuisine, they toast the cumin orcoriander seeds in a pan that’s dry or with a little oil, and thatreleases the flavors.”

Texture: Chop coarsely? Chop finely? Puree? “One always has thechoice when making a dish to sort of punctuate rusticity or worktoward a velvety texture.”

Sweet: “Sweetness is not to be forgotten in the savory canon.” Atouch of sugar, agave syrup or balsamic vinegar can boost a dulltomato sauce.

Specialty salt: “Maldon salt is particularly fun because it hasa textural component. It’s kind of flaky and chunky in a way, andit gives that textural element too,” she says. “There are manydifferent finishing salts that people can play with too, likesmoked alderwood salt.”

Salt: “Salt makes everything brighter and stronger,” she says”That doesn’t mean that things should taste salty. It’s just thatlittle pinch that completely transforms it.” Parmesan, capers andother foods are good ways to add salt.

Flavored oils: Think of seasoned oils – such as lemon oil,toasted nut oils or an herb oil – as finishing oils. “Just a littletouch not only adds great visual contrast, but it can brighten theflavor of a soup or a piece of protein,” she says.

Herbs: So a recipe uses fresh basil, oregano, thyme or cilantroin the dish. You can finish it with more. “Not just with a bigbunch of leaves, but chopped so they release the oils,” BraunCostello says.

Crunch: “We underestimate how fun and interesting and reallyflavorful and textural seeds and nuts can be,” she says, fromsunflower, pumpkin, poppy and sesame seeds to all sorts ofnuts.

Dairy: “There’s a reason why we work with butter and not oil incertain instances. Butter is fat but it’s also dairy, so there’s amouth feel to it, there’s a dairy flavor to it,” she says. Butterand cream bring a roundedness. And using just a little won’t have ahigh caloric toll (butter, 102 calories per tablespoon; cream, just52).

Bitter: Dark chocolate, coffee and many greens, such as Swisschard or dandelion.