Umami, sweet, salty, and smokey. All tastes in one bite. In preparation for the TGRWT #9 I tried a simple appetizer where figs rolled in bacon are baked to melt the parmesan cheese and chocolate inside. The TGRWT is a blogging event where one has to develop a recipe using ingredients that theory predicts should go well together, but for which there may be few or no recipes. Round number nine is being hosted by Robert from La Mia Cucina (the photos on the his site are pure eye candy).…

October is over and we have another round-up from the blogging event TGRWT. In round #7, we were asked to develop a recipe the combined caramelized cauliflower and cocoa. This turned out to be a challenging pairing. Cauliflower is a recent staple. It developed from broccoli sometime during the medieval period in the Mediterranean region. Like corn, it is a plant that would not survive well in the wild, suggesting that one day some farmer just found it among the broccoli.…

Sweet under heat. Just like onions, if you roast cauliflower, broccoli or turnips until they start to caramelize, they develop sweet flavors. Kale and collards when fried loose their bitterness. The challenge for the TGRWT #7 was to create a recipe that combines cocoa with cauliflower that has been caramelized through roasting. For this event, my first challenge was learning to caramelize cauliflower. Recipes on the WWW suggest breaking the cauliflower into small florets, coating them with oil, and roasting them for 40 minutes at around 400°F.…

Right after the deadline of the sixth TGRWT, the Washington Post, the local newspaper, published a recipe for apple risotto. I tried the recipe with lavender and a few small changes and it turned out really well. The day after I made the dish, my daughter ate the leftovers instead of the lasagna we had made for lunch. For this recipe I used a larger amount of lavender than I did for my TGRWT #6 submission and it did not have the soapy taste I feared.…

Caramelized cauliflower and cocoa I’m very happy to have been asked by Martin, from khymos.org, to host the seventh They Go Really Well Together (TGRWT) food blogging event, where you create a recipe that pairs two ingredients that are not usually seen together. The theory is that if two ingredients have chemical compounds in common, then they should go well together in a recipe. With the blogging event we get to put the theory in practice.…