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.

FOODPAIRING 2011 short review

Next week we will post some trends for 2012. But before, a short overview of some Foodpairing moments in 2011.

we started the year with Madrid Fusion showing the first interactive Foodpairing trees (source picture) and dressed dishes on prints of Foodpairing trees;

In March we organised The Flemish Primitives




and launched the new foodpairing.com website.

We made presentations (quite a lot)  in Belgium, France, UK, Germany, Canada, Spain, Switserland, ...

Added loads of new ingredients and recipes to the database including brands like Belvedere, Havana Club, Cointreau, Grey Goose, loads of chocolate of Belcolade, Organic Italian apple vinegar, water to add to whisky (Ardaich), belgian strawberries,...

 We showed at BCB how to make lemon without using lemon (but lime, orange, basil,...we also do)

We launched the embed codes for interactive Foodpairing trees (video how to)

And launched a few weeks ago a lite version, a free registration which is growing quite fast.

That makes us long to what 2012 will bring :)

HOW TO EMBED A FOODPAIRING TREE IN YOUR OWN WEBSITE

How to integrate the tree in your own website?

The following tutorial will provide more information;


In the pop-up of the Foodpairing tree there is an 'Embed' button, if you click on it, the code will appear.
The static tree is scalable. Select one of the 5 preset dimensions.
Just copy and paste the code into your post (the html part).

CARDAMOM VEGETABLE COMBINATIONS

Possible vegetable combinations with cardamom?
Yotam Ottolenghi of Nopi pairs leek with cardamom ; leek-and-cardamom fritters

Shawn McClain of Sage combines carrot with orange juice, ginger and cardamom
recipe glazed carrots

Or a carrot cake, pineapple walnut dessert, a green chutney with green tomato, cardamom, ginger or a puree of parsnip, cardamom and celery root...

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES PART VI SNOWBALLS

Thanks to people like pastry chef Darren Purchese, we get more and more visitors from Australia on our foodpairing.com website. So, for the dessert we selected a dessert from one of the best restaurants from Australia (nr 26 in the top 50 best restaurants); Quay They have a famous dessert; Guava and custard apple snow egg. A nice Foodpairing combination around guava-custard apple-strawberry. Recipe you can find here at the site of Masterchef.

(source picture)

And Foodpairing tree of Custard apple (but apparently we lack some data as we cannot find a link to dairy products). Anyway be inspired to make new variations;

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES PART V CLOVES-PIGEON

Next dish is build around spices from Marocco. We have chermoula (combination of pickled lemon, garlic, coriander, cumin) and ras el hanout (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, chili) combined with pigeon, date fruit, orange

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES PART IV TURBOT-SALSIFY

4 dish is a combination build around salsify. Combination of Turbot, raw mushrooms, caviar, kelp

Click on the Foodpairing tree to see all these combinations popping up. Select + to unfold the category and select embed if you want to add the tree to your website.

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES PART III LOBSTER-COCONUT

After the foie gras and the scallop, time for lobster.
Combination of lobster, mandarin, artichoke, coconut, linked around coconut and artichoke (our chef builds recipes quite often starting from vegetables or fruits)

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES PART II SCALLOP

Continuing the Christmas menu, a combination of scallop and laurel, orange marmelade, leek and  jerusalem artichoke by Peter Coucquyt

NEW FREE APP 2: LITE

We started a few weeks ago to launch some new free applications;
First ,we launched a free interactive Foodpairing tree with embed codes to be integrated into your own website. To get the embed code, click on the Foodpairing trees - embed. You will get a pop-up like this one. Just copy the code into your site.

Now we added our Foodpairing explorer with 100 ingredients and their links. If you register as a free lite member, you can access the 100 ingredients unlimited and you can even store the combinations.

Find Foodpairing combinations with e.g. apple, anise, apricot, asparagus, bacon, basil, banana, basmati rice, beef, beijing duck, black olive, black tea, blackberry, crab, buckthorn, buckwheat, camembert, capers, cardamom, cashew apple juice, chaumes, chicken,... and many brands like Belvedere, Peterman jenever, Leffe, Cointreau, Passendale, Chavroux, Ardaich, Grey Goose, Mengazzolo aceto di mele biologico...

CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES: PART I FOIE GRAS

Approaching the end of the year, you can find here Foodpairing inspiration for some typical Christmas ingredients. Today Foie gras.
Combinations like almonds, grapefruit, chocolate, cherry,... you will also find into the Foodpairing tree. Copy the tree into your own site by clicking on 'embed'

Combinations like the sautéed foie gras, lobster, hazelnuts, sunchoke purée, and a coffee-chocolate emulsion of The French Laundry

(source picture)

Or this foie gras combination with grapefruit, campari, soy sauce of the Dining Room at Langham

(source picture)

Or this classic Foodpairing combination with foie; 'benzaldehyde' of The Fat Duck with foie, cherry, almond

AVOCADO PAIRING

As the end of the year is approaching, sites like Food&Wine start to launch 'lists' like the Top 10 restaurants dishes of 2011
One of the dishes is this salmon-sea beans-buckwheat-avocado by Salt of the Earth, Pittsburgh.

(source: Food&Wine - Laura Petrilla)

With avocado you can indeed do much more than making guacamole. Have a look at the Foodpairing tree of avocado;

So why not trying avocado, chicken and coconut sausage, yoghurt, white chocolate, mint (experiment by Peter Coucquyt)

GIN, TEA, ELDERFLOWER AND THE DRINKFACTORY

Recently I was invited to visit Tony C. his new location of the Drink factory in London. In Bruges we have a nice lab, but that is certainly true for Tony his lab and his location has an extra add-on; it is in the same room where Pink Floyd recorded their legendary album ‘The Wall’.
With that amount of inspiration, no wonder the next generation of cocktails are born there.
In Tony's team there is another fantastic bartender, Marcis Dzelzainis (a great guy by the way). In the next picture he is featured in the lab of the Drinkfactory.

 (source picture)


He was recently one of the 2 bartenders from UK reaching the finals of the Beefeater 24 G&Tea.
The recipe of his Tippy 24 cocktail with grapefruit, gin, tea (gin and tea infused on the Dave Arnold way), elderflower cordial, plum wine and lemon juice, you can find on the blog of the Drinkfactory.

As no gin company asked us yet to analyze their gin :(, I selected elderflower in the next interactive Foodpairing tree. In the tree you will find links to tea, gin, grapefruit as used in the cocktail. You can integrate the interactive Foodpairing tree by the embed code.

SINTERKLAAS FOODPAIRING INSPIRATION

Tomorrow morning Sinterklaas will hopefully bring sweets, toys and mandarin oranges.

That means eating chocolate, pepernoten, mandarins for a few weeks...But what about giving a Foodpairing twist to these products.

With the mandarin you can make a dessert like this combination by Peter Coucquyt; ginger-mandarin-jasmin-chestnut;

Or this course by chef Shields of Town House; Cured duck, bay scallops, kaffir lime, finger lime, mandarin, wild ginger, chestnut and onion

 Find these and other combinations with mandarin oranges in this Foodpairing interactive tree;