FLAVOR MATCHES
Recipes for Balsamic and Basil Berry Salad and Lime-Mint Melon Salad follow the story and cooking tips below.
Lot of weddings going on. In the kitchen too.
Summer is the time of the year when a squeeze of lime or lemon just seems perfect with that wedge of watermelon. Or a slather of mayonnaise or sweet cream butter simply must be the coat for that cob of corn.
Sure, the season itself is a sort of Tinder app for food pairings because so many of them pop ‘round just now. Slices of chin-dripping juicy tomato? Swipe right on the fresh basil.
But reasons other than seasonality underlie many matches of a particular food with its perfect flavor or ingredient partner. Understanding why can help us recreate delicious marriages of foods all year long.
Acidity and sweetness
We’re going to make some lemonade—but in steps. Water plus sugar tastes OK, if a bit boring after the third sip. Water plus lemon juice tastes interesting, if a tad difficult from even the first sip. Water plus sugar plus lemon juice tastes great. All three elements are in there just as they were when merely paired, but they’re best all together.
That’s because balance is best; balance is most refreshing, most interesting.
So plain melon or mango or mulberry is delicious enough, but with a splash of something acidic (citrus juice, cider or rice vinegar, aged balsamic, plain yogurt) there’s more flavor, more electricity, more awesomeness.
Keep the happy marriage of acidity and sweetness in mind in your yearlong cooking, especially when fashioning desserts. Ice cream is great, but even better with the acidity that chocolate provides. Ripe (even overripe) fruit makes for terrific tarts, pies, and confections, but honey’s acid or the tang of citrus or buttermilk can tame what might cloy.
But acidity balances, even enhances, other cooked foods that are sweet on the plate even before dessert is served. So, a squeeze of lemon over roasted winter root vegetables (with their sugars caramelized from the heat of the oven) is the kind of bad math that works: 1+1=3. Caramel plus citrus makes for many more flavors on the tongue.
Salt and sweetness; salt and acidity
Salt provides similar balance in matches of foods that are either sweet or tart alone.
It isn’t the fat in the prosciutto that is “cut” with the sweetness of the melon that it wraps; it’s the salt in the ham (from its cure) that balances the fruit sugar. Likewise, a zip-line of lemon juice doesn’t eliminate the brininess of the oyster or clam, it balances salt against acid, thereby making the taste of the whole more interesting.
If the combination of prosciutto and melon rings your chimes, try prosciutto with any of many other sweet or ripe fruits: mango, papaya, stone fruit (peach, plum, apricot, nectarine), pineapple, orange, muscat grapes, kiwi, star fruit, and so on.
The “marriage” of prosciutto and melon is a classic, not because of the flavors necessarily, but because of how sweet “gets along with” salt.
We can reach the apex of pairing saltiness with both acidity and sweetness when marrying cheeses (major depositories of salt) with foods such as marmalade, honey, ripe fruits such as figs or dates, and drops of aged balsamic—all foods that marry both sweetness and acidity to the salt of cheese.
This is also why the Hawaiian pizza (cheese, salt, pineapple, ham or Canadian bacon) shall not perish from the earth.
Always try to include something sweet such as marmalade or fruit preserves along with cheese. Photo from Rasmus Gundorff Saederup on unsplash.
And accents
I like to think that the real reason that we pair ripe summer tomatoes with basil (or, for that matter, lamb with mint sauce or salmon with lemon) is diversion, even distraction.
A truly magnificent ripe tomato is just too. much. beauty. Its overwhelming aesthetic must be tamed in order to process it all. Basil snaps the mind back to attention, plants it back to earth.
So does mint on ripe berry, or mint with the funk of lamb. Succulent, oil-rich salmon, well, it can pile on too much to matter in the mouth. Thank you, edge of lemon, you frame this baroque so well.
And what is it, then, with melted butter on corn, or the great Mexican combination of grilled corn (elote) with mayonnaise or crema?
Well, that is simply the human thing to do come summertime, pile rich on rich, throw sweet on top of sweet.
I don’t see any problem with that marriage, do you?
RECIPE: Balsamic and Basil Berry Salad
From barefeetinthekitchen.com; serves 6-8. Note: The sugar in the recipe below is optional. Only add it if the berries aren't quite as sweet as you would like.
Ingredients
2 pounds fresh strawberries quartered or cut bite-size
12 ounces fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons traditional or white balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon white sugar (optional)
8 basil leaves sliced very thin
Directions
Combine the strawberries and blueberries in a medium-size bowl. Drizzle with balsamic and oil. Sprinkle with salt, and with sugar if desired. Stir gently to coat. Sprinkle with basil and toss once more. Serve immediately, or refrigerate for up to an hour.
RECIPE: Lime-Mint Melon Salad
From tablespoon.com; serves 6
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups 1/2-inch cubes honeydew melon (1/2 medium)
1 1/2 cups 1/2-inch cubes cantaloupe (1/2 medium)
1 teaspoon grated lime peel
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons chopped fresh or 1 tablespoon dried mint leaves
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
In medium glass or plastic bowl, toss ingredients. Cover; refrigerate about 2 hours or until chilled.