MARGARITA FOODPAIRING

Today, it is National Margarita Day in US. Time to make a Foodpairing variation on the classic cocktail with tequila-triple sec-lime juice.
Below the dynamic Foodpairing tree of Tequila. What new combination can you come up with?
Click on the tree for the dynamic pop-up. Click on the different branches to unfold the category and find e.g. Cointreau into the category of the drinks.
The closer the better the match, so raspberry is a good idea. What about beer, tomato, basil...

VALENTIN FOODPAIRING: ROSES

If you want to surprise your loved ones with flowers, not in a bouquet of roses, but roses into a dish, this Foodpairing tree of rose can inspire you;

known combinations with roses are like Espahan by Pierre Hermé:rose-litchi-raspberry.

From the Foodpairing tree you see there are no better combinations with rose. No wonder this is a seller.

Want to make a raspberry-rose madeleine, here you can find a recipe by evan's kitchen

TURBOT-VIOLET-APRICOT-BUTTER OR WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT L'AIR DU TEMPS

As some of you know, one of the first chefs we started to cooperate with was Sang-Hoon Degeimbre of L'air du temps. He is one of those chefs who really understands the concept of Foodpairing and one of the few chefs who succeeds to surprise me time after time.
I was really blown away by some of the new dishes he proposed last Saterday.
One of them was a juicy turbot with violet

to be paired with a butter-apricot combination.

Absolutely fantastic!
I added also the Foodpairing tree of apricot, so you can see how they are linked together

PEANUT - BLACK CURRANT MACARON

This macaron was featured in Butter love and hard work combining peanut, black currant, vanilla.
And...no surprise black currant is one of the best fruit combinations. Have a look to the Foodpairing tree of roasted peanuts;

SUPER BOWL FOODPAIRING CHICKEN SKIN SNACKS

We asked some of our American friends their opinion about their most favorite Super bowl snack. Most of them claimed chicken wings. But crips, nachos also seems to be popular. So what about combining the two, taking the skin of chicken and turn it into a crispy fried texture.
Which Foodpairing combinations can you make with roasted chicken skin?

How do chefs interprete this?
Combine it with carrot puree by Kobe Desramault of In de wulf.

Or what about trying a hummus of chickpea with roasted chicken skin crisps and hibiscus?
Or make a chocolate  inspired by the Mexican Mole Poblano; chicken skin - hazelnut- dark chocolate(by Dominique Persoone of The Chocolate line)

Or another dessert version by Francois Geurds of The Ivy; pistacchio, pop-corn, chicken skin (source picture Elizabethonfood)

Other Super bowl restaurant combinations you can also find in a post by Starchefs featuring pig ears, pig tails and foie gras corn dogs.

TRENDS 2012: BASIC FOOD FOODPAIRING+

Comfort food is great, but we still want to experience thrills and new tastes. We see Foodpairing being used more and more frequent to uplift classical dishes, to give them a surprising twist.
Gourmet burgers are a nice example that there is no limit to add surprising great tasting ingredients; bone marrow, porcini, sesame oil aïoli... or rework cheese burgers

or chicken burgers. Find here some of the combinations you can make with e.g. chicken

Components like hummus will come in a dozen of more new flavors, Guacamole will be enhanced with surprising additions
These are some of the combinations you can make with Avocado to make your new version of Guacamole;

TRENDS 2012: NOSE TO TAIL

Use everything and use different parts on different moments.
For example; from elderberry you can use the green elderberries to pickle (example by the Flemish Foodies)

Or in early springtime you can eat bleached shoots of Jerusalem artichoke (source picture)

A nice example of using bycatch in a positive way, is what Northsealife is doing with e.g. swimming crabs; making fantastic tasting bisque with an ingredients fishermen were throwing away.

Or using different parts of the fish, giving great tasting products for gastronomy and a higher revenue for fishermen continuing what started at The Flemish Primitives (movie included in dutch).

TRENDS 2012: HAY

In 2011 we added a post on hay following MAD Food camp which was quite appreciated.
Examples of hay by Noma or by Kobe desramaults of In de wulf (pigeon in hay), are known for a while, but we expect to have more different combinations with hay this year.

Not only limited to meat or poultry (or cheese) anymore, but also with fish like Matthieu Beudaert of table d'amis is doing. Have a look at the Foodpairing tree of hay and come up with new variations of combinations with hay.

TRENDS 2012: PICKLED

Pickled vegetables complementing a dish with (less but better e.g. aged) meat or inserted into sandwiches, are already clearly present. In 2012 you will even see more of them; pickled shallots, beets,...but certainly more creative interpretations of this ancient technique. Home-made fruit and vegetable pickles will appear on more and more on chefs' menus.

Chefs like Gert De Mangeleer of Hertog Jan, Sang-Hoon Degeimbre of L'air du temps, Jonnie Boer of De Librije have their proper garden and are higly creative with their produce. This is an example of red cabbage fermented juice by Jonnie Boer as presented on ChefSache in 2012 (source pictures verygoodfood).

TRENDS 2012: UMAMI

There are several reasons why we think umami will become even more prominent.
Last year there was already a lot of talking about umami; we got several interviews, talks on television, but it will still increase;
1. umami interacts with salt and reduces the amount of salt needed. Consumers are looking for salt-reduced food without any concession on taste. Glutamate-added food can dramatically increase the acceptance of salt-reduced foods. Comparable results were shown across the cultures (US, Japan) and food categories, by using not only salts of glutamate but also other umami ingredients, such as dried bonito stock (source).

Here you can find a list of umami rich food.

2. Linked to Foodpairing, we see products containing umami like parmesan, tomato, cepes, marmite combined with even sweet ingredients like thi chocolate by Dominique Persoone of the chocolate line.

 

But also Paul A Young has for some years a chocolate-marmite truffle combination. We see combinations like this only increasing this year.

Next to umami, we see more asian foods enter the market and become more easy accessible even by comsumer (yuzu e.g.).

Since last year we started to analyze more and more asian foods. Not only different types of soy sauces or yuzu, but also more and more specific premium asian products.

So no wonder the website will extend this year in asian products and this year the site will also become available in Japanese.