By Margaret Malsam
Cooking is really about combining flavors as well as applying different techniques to get your senses and taste buds tingling. Chefs Robert and Molly Krause share their secrets of combining foods and spices to create more cooking excitement in their new book, The Cook’s Book of Intense Flavors.
This husband-wife team have headed several restaurants and got their Krause Dining restaurant on the Food and Wine magazine’s list of “100 best” recipes, restaurants and wines. Their awarding-winning restaurant in Lawrence, Kan., has attracted attention for its unexpected twists to traditional food combinations.
They have a chapter on making timeless foods with a new twist, such as a savory shortbread made with real butter and spiced with peppercorns, cardamom and coriander seeds The peppercorns pack the heat while the nutty citrusy coriander and highly aromatic cardamom provide an intriguing blend.
A recipe suitable for the holidays is their Triple-Threat Truffles spiced with fresh and crystallized ginger and then rolled in finely-chopped macadamia nuts. Instead of making brownies, the authors suggest that these easy-to-make truffles can add a new dimension to holiday parties.
The secret of the “hot pop” of flavor in their Knockout Caramel Corn is adding dried chile flakes or ground chile pepper to the caramel sauce that is mixed with the popcorn and cashew nuts. Other intense flavor combinations include fig, apple and anchovy; carrot, fennel and wine; coffee, cardamom and pistachio.
I really liked their ideas for combining sweet and sour flavors. Most world cuisines use sweet and sour elements to create a bit of culinary intrigue. The chefs suggest choosing a naturally sweet ingredient, such as raisins, and combining it with toasted yellow mustard seeds and a fresh sliced jalapeno pepper for a spicy raisin compote.
A section of this chapter focuses on making pickles by bringing salt and acid together. The authors point out that if you remember to keep the sweet and sour in balance and use good ingredients, you will end up with wonderfully interesting sweet-and-sour dishes like when, as a child, you combined the sugar cube with the lemon wedge.
Other sweet ‘n sour recipes include Tea-and-Lime Cured Salmon, which uses Earl Grey tea, sugar, lime juice and zest; Pork with Sweet and Sour Citrus Sauce containing fresh figs, coffee and vinegar to flavor pork.
In the Exotic Flavors chapter, Heavenly Thai-Inspired Mussels features a broth flavored with lemongrass, coconut and basil. Exotic flavors of Mexican oregano, hulled pumpkin seeds and fresh chiles are used to make a Pumpkin Seed Salsa.
The Unexpected Pleasures chapter contains a recipe for a versatile, tangy barbecue sauce that blends spices with tomatoes, brown sugar and coffee. The chefs point out that the sauce can be used a pizza sauce, a substitute for ketchup, a spread for meat loaf or to cook with tofu.
The Decidedly Decadent and Complex Creation chapters contains many complex, gourmet recipes requiring exotic ingredient combinations such as egg, caviar and chervil. Their Duck Prosciutto Salad blends flavors of salt, fennel and melon to flavor duck prosciutto. Decadent recipes include Foie Gras to the Tenth Degree, Creamy Mushroom Soup with Liver Mousse Crostini and Marrow Jam.
One recipe in this section, however that I intend to try, is their Heavenly Chocolate Fondue with Strawberries because it is easy. The authors say that when goat cheese is combined with chocolate containing 58 percent or more cocoa solids, the result is an intensely chocolate (not cheesy) flavor that is perfect for dipping strawberries.
Here are the directions for the fondue: In a saucepan, combine 24 ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate with ½ cup of heavy cream, two tablespoons of sour cream, eight ounces of fresh goat cheese, and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Melt over low heat, stirring constantly with rubber spatula until the fondue melts and smoothens. Transfer to a fondue pot or other small pot and serve with four cups of fresh, hulled strawberries.
Another recipe that sounds delicious and easy is their Nutella and Banana Fresh Toast. The sandwich-like recipe is a super breakfast treat that blends bananas, chocolate and Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread (available near the peanut butter in any supermarket). See recipe below.
In conclusion, the cookbook authors state, “combining flavors resulting in dynamic and satisfying tastes should be a lifelong pursuit for any cook. This book is but a small taste of how one can think about bringing together ingredients for delicious, intensely flavored dishes.”
Their advice: “Try new tastes, develop new skills, but above all, have fun and enjoy the process. Hopefully along the way, you will expand your food world to create more stimulating, mouthwatering combinations of your own.”
Nutella and Banana Fresh Toast
4 eggs
1 ½ cup milk
5 tablespoons sugar, divided
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
8 slices bread cut 1” thick
2 tablespoons butter
2 bananas, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
½ cup Nutella
¼ cup toasted and chopped hazelnuts
In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, 1 tablespoon sugar, cinnamon and vanilla extract. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Dip each piece of bread into egg mixture, turning to coat both sides and allowing mixture to penetrate the bread. Add butter to skillet and cook bread until brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Then turn and brown the other side. Remove and place on a sheet pan.
Preheat oven broiler. Place sliced bananas on 4 pieces of the bread you just made into French toast. Sprinkle evenly with remaining sugar and place under the broiler until browned and caramelized. Let cool for five minutes.
Spread Nutella on remaining 4 slices of bread and sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. Make a sandwich by placing Nutellla bread on top of the banana covered bread. Slice on the diagonal to form 4 small triangular pieces. Serve immediately. Yield 4 servings.
