Salting to draw the water out

How to tell it is going right

• Salted evenly over every surface rather than tipped on in one place and tossed once.
• Laid out so the water has somewhere to go: a colander, a rack, or a sieve over a bowl, never a flat dish where it sits back in what it gave up.
• Given real time, and there is visible liquid to show for it: a pool underneath, a drip, or a wrung handful.
• That liquid is removed. It is squeezed, blotted or poured away, and the food is dry to the touch before it goes anywhere near heat.
• The dish is seasoned knowing salt has already gone on, tasted before any more is added.

Where it goes wrong It went into the dish still wet, and was salted again out of habit. The water it was carrying dilutes and steams whatever it meets, so the result is watery and over-seasoned at once, and those are two faults that cannot be corrected in the same direction.