Food pairing (or food combination) is a method of identifying which foods go well together from a flavor standpoint, often based on individual tastes, popularity, availability of ingredients, and traditional cultural practices.
From a food science perspective, foods may be said to combine well with one another when they share key chemical compounds [1] or flavor components. One such process was trademarked as "Foodpairing" by the company of the same name.
One pairing that is globally one of the most commonly used,[ citation needed ] cited as a response in "your favorite food" or "food that you can eat every day" surveys and seen in recipe videos, websites or books is:
Pairings where the flavors of two foods specifically complement one another include:
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Experimenting with salty ingredients and chocolate around the year 2000, Heston Blumenthal, the chef of The Fat Duck, concluded that caviar and white chocolate were a perfect match. [2] To find out why, he contacted a flavor scientist at Firmenich, the flavor manufacturer. By comparing the flavor analysis of both foods, they found that caviar and white chocolate had major flavor components in common. At that time, they formed the hypothesis that different foods would combine well together when they shared major flavor components, and the trademarked concept of "Foodpairing" was created. [3] [ clarification needed ]
This Foodpairing method is asserted to aid recipe design, and it has provided new ideas for food combinations which are asserted to be theoretically sound on the basis of their flavor. It provides possible food combinations, which are solely based on the intrinsic properties of the different food products; these combinations are based on the flavor compounds that are present in the products. It also can result in unusual combinations (e.g. endives in a dessert, white chocolate and caviar, or chocolate and cauliflower).[ citation needed ] While unusual, many people find these combinations enjoyable because the combined food products have flavor components in common. Additionally, it is able to provide a scientific, modern basis for the success of traditionally settled food combinations. It is suggested that these traditions can then be overtaken by newer, better pairings. [4]
In 2009, the Flanders Taste foundation organized a gastronomic symposium and "The Flemish Primitives" that was dedicated to Foodpairing. [5]
The "Foodpairing" method starts with a chemical analysis of a food. The aroma compounds are determined with the aid of gas chromatography, which in most cases is coupled with a mass spectrometer (GC-MS). The odorants are also quantified with other techniques. Key odorants can be identified by comparing the concentrations of the odorants with their respective flavor threshold . Key odorants are the compounds that a human will effectively smell. They are defined as every compound that is present in concentrations higher than their specific flavor threshold.
For example, coffee contains 700 different aroma compounds, but there are only a few compounds important for the smell of coffee as most of them are present in concentrations that may not be perceptible with the human nose, i.e. they are present in concentrations lower than their flavor threshold. [6]
The key odorants are essential towards composing the flavor profile of the given product. The resultant flavor profile is screened against a database of other foods. Products which have flavor components in common with the original ingredient are selected and retained. These matching products could be combined with the original ingredient. With this information on possible matches, a Foodpairing tree graph is built.
The essence of Foodpairing is to combine different foods that share the same major flavor components. Comparing the flavors of individual ingredients can result in new and unexpected combinations, such as strawberries paired with peas. This combination was adopted by Sang Hoon Decembre, the chef of L'Air du temps in Belgium.
A cuisine is a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes, and usually associated with a specific culture or geographic region. Regional food preparation techniques, customs, and ingredients combine to enable dishes unique to a region.
A flavoring, also known as flavor or flavorant, is a food additive used to improve the taste or smell of food. It changes the perceptual impression of food as determined primarily by the chemoreceptors of the gustatory and olfactory systems. Along with additives, other components like sugars determine the taste of food.
Miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning. It is a thick paste produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and kōji and sometimes rice, barley, seaweed, or other ingredients. It is used for sauces and spreads, pickling vegetables, fish, or meats, and mixing with dashi soup stock to serve as miso soup, a Japanese culinary staple. Miso is high in protein and rich in vitamins and minerals, and it played an important nutritional role in feudal Japan. Miso is still widely used in both traditional and modern cooking in Japan and has been gaining worldwide interest.
Vanillin is an organic compound with the molecular formula C8H8O3. It is a phenolic aldehyde. Its functional groups include aldehyde, hydroxyl, and ether. It is the primary component of the extract of the vanilla bean. Synthetic vanillin is now used more often than natural vanilla extract as a flavoring in foods, beverages, and pharmaceuticals.
Food science is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the development of food technology.
The Maillard reaction is a chemical reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars to create melanoidins, the compounds which give browned food its distinctive flavor. Seared steaks, fried dumplings, cookies and other kinds of biscuits, breads, toasted marshmallows, and many other foods undergo this reaction. It is named after French chemist Louis Camille Maillard, who first described it in 1912 while attempting to reproduce biological protein synthesis. The reaction is a form of non-enzymatic browning which typically proceeds rapidly from around 140 to 165 °C. Many recipes call for an oven temperature high enough to ensure that a Maillard reaction occurs. At higher temperatures, caramelization and subsequently pyrolysis become more pronounced.
An aroma compound, also known as an odorant, aroma, fragrance or flavoring, is a chemical compound that has a smell or odor. For an individual chemical or class of chemical compounds to impart a smell or fragrance, it must be sufficiently volatile for transmission via the air to the olfactory system in the upper part of the nose. As examples, various fragrant fruits have diverse aroma compounds, particularly strawberries which are commercially cultivated to have appealing aromas, and contain several hundred aroma compounds.
A coffee bean is a seed from the Coffea plant and the source for coffee. It is the pip inside the red or purple fruit. This fruit is often referred to as a coffee cherry, and like the cherry, it is a fruit with a pip. Even though the coffee beans are not technically beans, they are referred to as such because of their resemblance to true beans. The fruits most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together. A small percentage of cherries contain a single seed, instead of the usual two, called a "peaberry". The peaberry occurs only between 10% and 15% of the time, and it is a fairly common belief that they have more flavour than normal coffee beans. Like Brazil nuts and white rice, coffee beans consist mostly of endosperm.
Heston Marc Blumenthal is an English celebrity chef, TV personality and food writer. Blumenthal is regarded as a pioneer of multi-sensory cooking, food pairing and flavour encapsulation. He came to public attention with unusual recipes, such as bacon-and-egg ice cream and snail porridge. His recipes for triple-cooked chips and soft-centred Scotch eggs have been widely imitated. He has advocated a scientific approach to cooking, for which he has been awarded honorary degrees from the universities of Reading, Bristol and London and made an honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Molecular gastronomy is the scientific approach of cuisine from primarily the perspective of chemistry. The composition, properties and transformations of an ingredient are addressed and utilized in the preparation and appreciation of the ingested products. It is a branch of food science that approaches the preparation and enjoyment of nutrition from the perspective of a scientist at the scale of atoms, molecules, and mixtures.
The odor detection threshold is the lowest concentration of a certain odor compound that is perceivable by the human sense of smell. The threshold of a chemical compound is determined in part by its shape, polarity, partial charges, and molecular mass. The olfactory mechanisms responsible for a compound's different detection threshold is not well understood. As such, odor thresholds cannot be accurately predicted. Rather, they must be measured through extensive tests using human subjects in laboratory settings.
Coffee cupping, or coffee tasting, is the practice of observing the tastes and aromas of brewed coffee. It is a professional practice but can be done informally by anyone or by professionals known as "Q Graders". A standard coffee cupping procedure involves deeply sniffing the coffee, then slurping the coffee from a spoon so it is aerated and spread across the tongue. The coffee taster attempts to measure aspects of the coffee's taste, specifically the body, sweetness, acidity, flavour, and aftertaste. Since coffee beans embody telltale flavours from the region where they were grown, cuppers may attempt to identify the coffee's origin.
3-Mercapto-3-methylbutan-1-ol, also known as MMB, is a common odorant found in food and cat urine. The aromas ascribed to MMB include catty, roasty, broth-like, meaty, and savory, or similar to cooked leeks.
Alkylpyrazines are chemical compounds based on pyrazine with different substitution patterns. Some alkylpyrazines are naturally occurring highly aromatic substances which often have a very low odor threshold and contribute to the taste and aroma of various foods including cocoa, baked goods, coffee and wines. Alkylpyrazines are also formed during the cooking of some foods via Maillard reactions.
Molecular mixology is the process of creating cocktails using the equipment and techniques of molecular gastronomy.
An odor or odour is caused by one or more volatilized chemical compounds that are generally found in low concentrations that humans and many animals can perceive via their sense of smell. An odor is also called a "smell" or a "scent", which can refer to either an unpleasant or a pleasant odor.
A key odorant is a volatile compound that is present in concentrations higher than their specific flavor threshold.
Bacon ice cream is an ice cream generally created by adding bacon to egg custard and freezing the mixture. The concept of bacon ice cream originated in a 1973 sketch on the British comedy series The Two Ronnies as a joke; it was eventually created for April Fools' Day by a New York ice cream parlour in 1982. In the 2000s, the English chef Heston Blumenthal experimented with ice cream, making a custard similar to scrambled eggs and adding bacon to create one of his signature dishes. It now appears on dessert menus in other restaurants.
tert-Butylthiol, also known as tert-butyl mercaptan (TBM), and abbreciated t-BuSH, is an organosulfur compound with the formula (CH3)3CSH. This thiol is used as an odorant for natural gas, which is otherwise odorless. It may also have been used as a flavoring agent.
Instant tea is a powdered mix in which water is added, in order to reconstitute it into a cup of tea. The earliest form of instant tea was developed in the United Kingdom in 1885. A patent was granted for a paste made of concentrated tea extract, sugar, and evaporated milk, which became tea when hot water was added. However, no notable developments were made until spray drying technology allowed for drying the tea concentrates at a temperature which did not damage the flavors of the product.
