Hot food ideas for a new year
FLAVOUR TRENDS: Seaweed, umeboshi plums and ‘little fish’ all on 2016 foodie’s menu
Let’s look forward to some of the trending flavours and foods that will be popping up in the coming year:
Little fish
We’ve all become slaves to umami (the flavour best described as “savoury”) and little fish — and the products made from them — tend to be umami bombs. So expect to see lots of anchovies and sardines.
New York City chef Seamus Mullen puts them front and centre at his Tertulia restaurant, where the “tosta matrimonio” tops crisp bread with black and white anchovies and slowroasted tomatoes.
Meanwhile, recipes for grilled or marinated sardines have practically become fixtures in monthly food magazines.
Head for the seafood counter, where you’ll find refrigerated white and black anchovies (some of them deliciously marinated), as well as fresh and smoked sardines.
Or look for tiny bottles of colatura, a liquid anchovy extract that is Italy’s answer to Asian fish sauce. Drizzle that over fresh pasta and dust with grated Parmesan.
Not sure what to do with your anchovies? Your best bet: Nothing. As long as you’re buying the good ones, just pop them on seeded crackers or toasted baguettes, then enjoy.
If you buy cheaper ones, just heat them in a skillet with some olive oil and garlic. They’ll melt away into a sauce. Then toss in broccoli florets, cooked pasta and grated pecorino.
Seaweed
Nori, the seaweed often pressed and dried in sheets, then used to wrap sushi, can do much more and people are starting to wake up to that.
Try it as an almost calorie-free potato chip substitute. Typically marketed as “seaweed snacks” and sold in single-serve packets, these sheets of nori are crispy, salty and addictive. They also come in different seasonings such as teriyaki and wasabi.
Nori also is being turned into condiments. Combined with sesame seeds and salt, it’s called furikake.
Or there is the Sea Shakes line of seaweed seasoning blends, which combine kelp, dulse and nori with garlic, lemon peel and rosemary (among many others) with delicious results.
Try them over roasted vegetables, cooked chicken or rice and other grains. Also use them to dress up soft goat cheese or hummus.
Alternative sugars
Avoiding high-fructose corn syrup is getting a little easier, in part because soft drink companies are returning to pure cane syrup. A growing selection of natural sweeteners are made from alternatives to either cane or corn.
Agave syrup (also called agave nectar) is the juggernaut here. Available in numerous varieties and grades, it’s made from the sap of agave plants (tequila is made from a different part of the plants) and has a clean, sweeter-than-honey flavour.
There also are sweeteners made from coconut (both syrups and granulated), barley, brown rice, dates and — my new favourite — apples.
Many of these work well in baking and for making dressings, marinades and sauces. I use agave or apple syrup in place of simple syrup when mixing cocktails.
Unlike honey, these mix easily. And deliciously.
Umeboshi plums
These are the fruit of the ume (pronounced OO-may) tree, a relative of the rose. They can’t be eaten raw. That’s why most are salted, fermented and dyed red using shisho leaves. The resulting “plums” have an intensely sour-salty flavour that can be weirdly addictive. They usually are sold whole, as a paste or as a vinegar.
In traditional Japanese cooking, umeboshi (OO-may-BOSH-ey) are eaten straight up as you would pickles or served inside balls of rice wrapped in nori.
The vinegar is used to season vegetables. It’s great in marinades and dressings; it also makes great pickles. Try it sprinkled over a bean and quinoa salad with avocado and shrimp.
The plums (remove the pits) or paste are great puréed into sauces and rich gravies. The flavour gets along particularly well with bitter greens and broccoli.
Or for all manner of fun, start popping them into cocktails. Vodka, lime juice, ginger, simple syrup and an umeboshi plum shaken with ice is quite nice.
Grains and legumes
It all started with the quinoa craze. Now all sorts of crazy grains and legumes (or seeds masquerading as them) have been popping up. And so we have farro and teff, millet and triticale, not to mention more common wheat berries and rye berries being cooked and consumed straight up (rather than turned into flour).
Many grains and legumes are being briefly sprouted (germinated) before being dried and packaged. The result is a slightly sweeter, nuttier flavour.
And then there are the flours. No doubt stirred by all the interest in gluten-free foods, many companies now produce bean flours, such as black bean flour, fava bean flour and chickpea flour.
They are a delicious way to play around with recipes and work particularly well in crackers and dumplings.
Try chickpea flour in a batter for vegetable tempura.