• FQAM Online: Volume Two
• Variety
  • Differentiation: Where the Profits Are
  • Innovation with Latin Flavors
• Sustainability
  • What Can Food Service Do?
  • Conquering "Can't-Be-Done" Thinking
• Flavor
  • The Mechanics of Taste
  • Flavor Experiment
• Innovation
  • What's New? What's Next?
  • Sandwiches with a Vietnamese Accent
• Online Marketplace
• Resources and Recipes
  • Conference Resources
  • Moroccan Charmoula
  • Romesco Sauce and Romesco Vinaigrette
  • Harissa Vinaigrette and Mayonnaise
  • Vietnamese Sandwich
  • Vietnamese Braised Pork
  • Marinated Daikon and Carrots
  • Coriander Vinaigrette
• FQAM Online: Volume One

Flavor Experiment: The Case for Marriage

When you think about a dish with complex flavor—a Oaxacan mole, for example—it's often impossible to tease the elements apart. The dish is more than the sum of its ingredients because those ingredients interact. Each component affects how we perceive the others.

Imagine listening specifically for the tuba's part in a symphony. You could probably hear it, but it would have limited beauty, depth and meaning compared to the whole. "Complexity comes from multiple dimensions in focus," says chef Robert Del Grande, owner of Café Annie in Houston. "A single dimension is not that interesting."

To show how critical, and sometimes surprising, these interactions are, chef Del Grande and chef Adam Busby of the Culinary Institute of America recently "deconstructed" a mole. With all the elements of this elaborate sauce in front of them, they explored how one essential ingredient—raisins—affects the taste of all the others.

If you want to try this experiment yourself, assemble tasting portions of the following ingredients: seedless raisins, bittersweet chocolate, salt, almonds, ancho chili, chipotle chili, coffee beans, hoja santa, fennel seed, juniper, anchovy and toasted tortilla. Taste a raisin with each one of the other ingredients. After each sample, try to articulate what's happening on your palate.

"Watch as words go away or come forward in your descriptors," says Del Grande. "There's a time dimension. Flavors change as they roll across your palate. And new things evolve from the relationships of flavors to each other."

Here are a few of the tasting notes Busby and Del Grande made:

• Raisin/salt: The raisin no longer seems sweet. In fact, the fruit/salt interplay brings capers to mind. Could raisins replace capers with seafood?
• Raisin/almond: The raisin's sweetness comes back. The fattiness of the almond coats the palate and mutes the raisin's acidity.
• Raisin/chocolate: The fruity notes in the chocolate come to the fore.
• Raisin/chipotle: Barbecue sauce! Raisins temper the chili's heat.
• Raisin/hoja santa: tastes like a soft drink; a definite root beer flavor
• Raisin/fennel seed: Together, it's red licorice. See how new ideas evolve?
• Raisin/juniper: Gin and tonic
• Raisin/coffee: Coffee's bitterness is the high note; raisin, the low note. Could this be the start of a great steak sauce?

Pay attention to the impact ingredients have on each other and you'll find many departure points for improvisation. Never thought of putting raisins in a steak sauce? Trust your palate to take you in some unexpected but inspired directions.