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Building Flavor!
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Have you ever made a dinner and discovered that it lacked flavor and tasted plain and looked uninteresting? Did you know that you could make those dishes exciting and learn how to make flavorful, cutting edge dishes? The latest culinary trend encourages us to make some changes and add flavor highlights. This month, we thought it would be helpful to suggest a few cooking techniques and flavor boosting ingredients for you to try out.
Use some of these easy techniques and simple ingredients to create more depth and dimension to meals
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Build Flavor – Use Different Shapes or Cutting Techniques
Pom Pom Pancakes
Traditional pancake balls are served savory or as a dessert.
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About the Recipe: A traditional Scandinavian pancake dish, prepared in an Ebelskiver (Aebleskiver) pan, creates round pancake balls, flavored with cardamom or other spices. Jam, preserves, or chocolate are placed inside the pancake balls. Our recipe can be prepared as a savory or sweet pancake. Enjoy experimenting and adding your favorite jams or toppings using squirt bottles. This is one of those “have lots of fun” recipes.
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Build Favor – “Fat Gives Things Flavor” – Julia Child
Elegant Mushroom Steak Diane
A classic dish made new again with healthy fats.
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About the Recipe: Classic dishes like “Steak Diane” were amazingly delicious. After World War II, people began to go out to eat more regularly. Steak Diane became a popular entrée to order in fancy gourmet restaurants, where waiters prepared it at tableside with an elegant flair. This recipe captures the same classic flavor but lightens it with a vegetarian twist of mushroom steaks. It’s a perfect way to have a celebration dinner.
Build Flavor – Blend Vegetables Together
Mashed Veggie Trio
Transform mashed potatoes with flavorful carrots and parsnips.
About the Recipe: Mashing the parsnips, carrots, and red skinned potatoes blends the best of the vegetable world together. It’s simple and delicious. You can make them ahead, reheat, and even serve them later.
The parsnips add a light sweetness to the dotted golden mashed potatoes that are speckled with flecks of carrots. Make it fluffy smooth or a little chunky. What a wonderful comfort food!
See More – Mushroom Steak Diane & Mashed Veggie Trio
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Build Flavor – Complement with Creamy Vegetable Sauce
Cauliflower Risotto Style
Classic recipe gets a healthy update
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About the Recipe: Creamy cauliflower risotto highlights the magic that cauliflower creates when riced and combined with other ingredients. The cauliflower risotto is served with a crunchy bacon pecan topping that is dotted with sweet cherries or cranberries and minced chives. It uses almost the entire head of cauliflower and creates a main dish that is destined to be a hit with your family. One thing we know for sure is that cauliflower is a hands-down winning vegetable.
For Another Cauliflower “Risotto” – See Chef James Briscione, The Flavor Matrix, Recipe – Barley and Cauliflower “Risotto”
See More – Cauliflower Risotto Style
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Flavor and Taste
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Dishes that have only one flavor are boring, especially after eating them often. How can you change that? The challenge becomes how do know what ingredients can be combined. Should you use strawberries with your burger or garlic with honey?
To answer these questions, we connected with a chef, who is a flavor expert and understands how to make food taste better. Chef James Briscione spent four years working with the robot Watson and its team to help shape IBM’s Chef Watson. One of the things that Watson helped to reveal was the critical role aromatic compounds (the chemical structures in food) played in both creating flavor and influencing which ingredients paired well together.
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Chef James Briscione
– Cook Book Author and Executive Chef –
Angelena’s Ristorante Italiano – Pensacola, Florida
One of the most exciting books he and his wife have written is The Flavor Matrix, that unlocks a world of scientific information about flavor, ingredient pairing, and cooking. This is a perfect guide for chefs, students, and home cooks to understand ingredients, flavors, and textures. The book is filled with 58 unique matrices and sample recipes, illustrating how to combine the flavors.
We asked him to share some ideas about building flavor with us.
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The 2018 Award Winning book on Flavors and Taste
Chef James Briscione Interview on “The Flavor Matrix”
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Build Flavor – Pair Using Compound Ingredients Share
Pumpkin Spice Crumble with Pear and Cranberry
Uses a Flavor Matrix to pair flavor of ingredients.
Recipe from: Chef James Briscione
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About the Recipe: Adding a touch of citrus is a perfect flavor match for the sweet fall pears in this fruit dessert. The melt-away tender pears are seasoned with addictive, pumpkin pie spices and are spiked with brightly flavored cranberries. An oat crumble crust covers the top with a delightful brown sugar crunch. Add some Pumpkin Spiced Whipped Cream for a delightful creamy topping. The bonus is that it is so easy to prepare. Celebrate Fall and have fun using a Flavor Matrix to pair ingredients.
See More – Pumpkin Spice Crumble
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Build Flavor – Enhance with a Splash of Wine or Beer
Crusty Midwestern Pork Tenderloin Cutlets
Crisp on the outside: moist and tender on the inside.
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About the Recipe: Breaded Pork Cutlets are sautéed until crusty and golden. They cook quickly and are very tender. The bacon drippings add a smoky flavor to the finished dish. Add a rich lemon butter sauce for an elegant dinner dish.
See More – Pork Tenderloin Cutlets
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Build Flavor – Stir in Fermented Ingredients
Sweet ‘n Sour Wild Pink Cabbage
Its flavor is enhanced by bacon and sauerkraut
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About the Recipe: This recipe is full of surprises. It is the easiest way to prepare a cabbage side dish. The sauerkraut cabbage explodes with hot pink color, smoky flavor, and a light touch sweetness from the apples and maple syrup. It’s so easy to prepare and you can serve it warm or chilled.
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Build Flavor – Add Unami Ingredients
Stone Baked 4 Cheese Sandwich Pizza
Double your pleasure – double your pizza
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About the Recipe: Just imagine two pizzas sandwiched together with a warm salad in the middle. Yes – Molto delizioso! It’s easy to make since it uses two frozen pizzas as main ingredients. Just make sure that you have lots of napkins for this juicy cheese-filled pizza sandwich.
See More – 4 Cheese Sandwich Pizza
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Build Flavor – Sear Meat, Deglaze the Pan
Italian Prosciutto – Wrapped Pork Tenderloin
Drizzled with spicy, white balsamic vinegar glaze
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About the Recipe: This delicious Italian pork tenderloin combines simple ingredients using easy techniques. The prosciutto slices form a crisp bacon-like coating around the tender Italian flavored pork. It’s served on crisp, green spinach with roasted red peppers and savory black olives. A light pepper flavored glaze combines reduced white balsamic vinegar and white wine deglazed pork drippings, forming an addictive glaze as well as a flavorful dressing for the spinach.
See More – Prosciutto – Wrapped Pork Tenderloin
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Build Flavor – Highlight with a Splash of Catsup
Southwest Baked Bean Dip
Leftover ingredients create dip, spread or spicy dinner filling
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About the Recipe: Most people have a can of beans on the shelf that be a real flavor enhancer, even when mixed with party leftovers. Here’s one to try! Serve this dish as a snack, sandwich spread, or even filling for a Tex- Mex dinner dish. Beans can flavor appetizers, main dishes, salads, soup, and even desserts. Don’t you love those easy recipes that taste delicious?
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Build Flavor – Toasting the Spices
Golden Quinoa Butternut Squash Soup
A nutritional powerhouse soup packed with fiber, protein, and lots of flavor.
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About the Recipe: It must be September because here I am mixing up some creamy butternut squash soup. It’s the essence of good health with golden squash swirled with curry seasonings, and chopped apples, that adds a natural sweet flavor. Simply use your immersion blender or food processor to create a velvet smooth texture. Quinoa, a nutty flavored ancient grain, packs the soup with lots of fiber and protein. A real nutritional powerhouse! Garnish with swirls of colorful red roasted peppers, chopped cilantro and a crunchy sprinkle of croutons.
See More – Quinoa Butternut Squash Soup
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Build Flavor – Use Fruit Jams or Spreads
Fig-Filled Golden Corn Muffins
Surprise filling and topping is over the top in flavor.
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About the Recipe: Fig Filled Corn Muffins combine savory and sweet, so they are perfect for the morning breakfast, tea, or anytime you want a snack. The wholesome corn muffins, flavored with fresh orange juice, will delight you with two surprises, a fig walnut filling and an attractive fig glazed topping. They are quick and easy to make for a “Good Morning” start.
See More – Fig-Filled Corn Muffins
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