Robert Krause - The Cooks Book of Intense Flavors: 101 Surprising Flavor Combinations and Extraordinary Recipes That Excite Your Palate and Pleasure Your Senses

101 SURPRISING FLAVOR COMBINATIONS and Extraordinary Recipes That Excite Your Palate and Pleasure Your Senses

ROBERT and MOLLY KRAUSE, chef/owners of the award-winning Krause Dining restaurant, featured in Food & Wine magazines annual 100 Tastes to Try issue

CHAPTER 1 Timeless with a Twist
Combinations that make the familiar new again.

CHAPTER 2 Unexpected Pleasures
Combinations that may seem unusual, but make sense in an innovative new way

CHAPTER 3 Complex Concoctions
Combinations with deep and distinctive flavors.

CHAPTER 4 Bright & Light
Combinations that lend a delicate and fresh flavor to the final dish.

CHAPTER 5 Sweet & Sour
Combinations that pursue the sweet-and-sour element pervasive in many world cuisines.

CHAPTER 6 Exotic Flavors
Combinations inspired by ethnic world cuisines.

CHAPTER 7 Decidedly Decadent
Combinations that seek the biggest, richest flavor possible.

Why should you bother with another cookbook? You know your way around a kitchen, feed you and your loved ones home-cooked meals regularly, and even have some impressive dishes under your belt to prepare for company. You recognize most of the ingredients at the market, even the gourmet ones, and may even subscribe to a cooking magazine or two. You already know how to cook.

This book approaches dishes in a different way than most cookbooks. Most cookbooks break down by type of recipe and when during the meal it appears (for example, salads, soups, main courses, and desserts), but this book looks at recipes through the lens of flavor combinations. Each recipe highlights three flavors featured in the dish, with individual discussions of each, including cooking techniques that work well and seasonality, if applicable, as well as the combination of flavors as a whole in terms of how they interact with each other. We also offer additional ways to use the flavors together beyond the recipe provided. If these three flavors like to hang out together, we want to tell you all that they can do!

And yet.

The act of cooking is really like engaging in a relationship, except that instead of another person, food becomes the object of your attention. And just like people, food can be complicated. Some personalities just dont get along (such as olive oil with Asian cuisine); sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised despite a negative first impression (turnips can be delicious); or sometimes, timing is everything (as in adding fresh herbs at the end of a cooking process). Just as we should make it a priority to strive to improve our relationships with those close to us, we can always deepen our relationship with the food we prepare.

We didnt group the recipes in this book by dish typethere is no appetizer chapter. Rather, the chapters try to cluster flavor profiles to evoke a sense of taste that can often be hard to describe. Take, for example, Chapter 2, Unexpected Pleasures. These combinations have a surprising element or component that sounds as though it may not go with the others. The recipes range from spice blends to sauces and even desserts. Each chapter has a theme to unite the flavor combinations but will otherwise run wild with a wide range of recipes that will hopefully draw you back into the kitchen to pursue.

Cooking is about combining flavors as well as applying different preparation techniques, and that is what this book is all about. Let your mood guide where to jump inthe book has no real beginning or end. Are you feeling restless but have nowhere to go? Check out Chapter 6, Exotic Flavors. Do you have a few days off from work and want to tackle a new and challenging recipe? Look into Chapter 3, Complex Creations. Are you feeling a craving for something rich? How about Chapter 7, Decidedly Decadent? You get the idea.

In addition to your mood, let the food choose you for a dish. Some beautiful mushrooms may call to you from their baskets, or a pile of heirloom tomatoes may look irresistible. Give in! Then let this book help you figure out what to do with them. Seek to make your cooking routine more fun and spontaneous, while keeping in place solid cooking techniques.

Intense cooking contains rich flavors, and we go for maximum flavor in this collection of recipes. You may find some ingredients repeated throughout the chapters. That is because some ingredients, such as chile peppers for example, have great potential for intensity and diversity. Other ingredients, such as rhubarb, may not have as diverse applications, but they offer a distinct flavor worthy of appreciation.

So go for flavor in your cooking and bring with it your own intensityand expect great combinations to result.

Certain flavor combinations are so ingrained in our collective consciousness, it seems that they have always existed togethersalt with pepper, bacon with eggs, peanut butter with jelly. We take them for granted and almost regard them as indistinguishable from their individual states. Part of their charm lies in their mass appeal and in not having to wonder whether someone will enjoy these flavors, because overall everyone does.

And yet, just as a timeless piece of clothing sometimes needs a new accessory to keep it relevant, timeless food combinations also benefit from a breath of fresh air. We seek to keep the recognizable quality in these flavors, but we also want to bring in a twist to keep the tasting interesting.

Timeless food combinations typically fall into one of two categories: The ingredients themselves are frequently prepared together, or the method of preparation (or cooking technique) sets the standard for serving. To change up these classics, we either introduce an ingredient not normally found in the preparation, or we prepare the standard ingredients in a different way using an untraditional technique.