Culinary diversity

A few days ago I wrote about a meal (here) that, after all my travels this summer and experimentation with Central Asian and Middle Eastern food, seem so very American – boneless pork chops, corn on the cob, and green beans with mushrooms.  That post was a couple of days after I shared how a couple of bursts of inspiration serve as the source of my menu “planning” style (here) that produced the meal shown in the photo.

I’ve been thinking about those posts and how easy it is to mix culinary styles and what “American cooking” might mean.  So over the next couple of posts, I’m going to be exploring this a bit, sometimes with recipes and sometimes not.

One way of mixing culinary styles is to cook a Chinese inspired meal one night, followed by a Tex-Mex meal, followed by something from North Africa, and concluded with a burger, coleslaw, and corn on the cob.  I’ve done things like that and on reflection, it’s pretty amazing that dried shittake mushrooms, baby bok choy, dried ancho peppers, harissa, and fresh corn are all available in many (if not most) American groceries.

But when I’m talking about mixing culinary styles, I’m talking about something a little different.  The other day I made a sausage-seafood soup.  Take some hot sausage and brown it, then cook onions, garlic (and maybe green peppers or celery) in the rendered fat, add beans, add fish stock or water, then add 2-3 different kinds of fish or shellfish, and then season to your heart’s content.  As described, that recipe is fundamentally Italian.  Substitute chorizo for sausage and kale or spinach for the beans, and it’s Portuguese but you’re basically doing the same thing.

On this particular day, I made the Portuguese version but instead of seasoning with smoked paprika, salt, and pepper, I substituted harissa for the paprika and added ground cumin and crushed curry leaves.  This made the soup something else.  The change in spices was definitely noticeable, adding a little complexity, some dark sweetness (I don’t know how else to describe the effect of the cumin) and a little piquancy from the curry leaves.  It worked really well – I was very happy with the results.  As I write this, though, I wasn’t conscious at the time that I was taking a Portuguese model and adding some North African (harissa) and Indian (curry leaves) elements that were outside the Portuguese orbit, not to mention the cumin.

Now I’m not claiming to be a culinary genius who brings together flavors in revolutionary ways.  It’s quite the opposite. I love eating, love cooking, and feel completely comfortable when improvising, even if the improvisation is unconscious (as it was in this case).  A little of this, a little of that, and see what you get.  In my case, the this and that span continents.  In my mother’s day, not only would she not have known a thing about North African food or have dreamed of having ingredients for Indian food at home, it never would have occurred to her to toss some cumin in a soup to see what happened.

I can think of lots of other examples. I often make “pizzas” on a tortilla base and I’ve developed lots of additional templates since I first wrote about it here.  The last time I did my tortilla-pizza, I made two.  One was almost a classic pizza with a tortilla instead of pizza dough – sun-dried tomato pesto, pepperoni, and grated mozzarella.  Just perfect and exactly what it should be.  My other one, though, was arugula, basil pesto, chorizo, and grated queso.  In other words, a Mexican tortilla with Italian pesto, Puerto Rican sausage, and Mexican cheese with a green usually identified with Mediterranean cooking.  And remember that these tortilla pizzas were initially inspired by a dish native to Alsace-Lorraine on the French/German border.

Or consider the meal in the photo.  Eggplant puree flavored with soy, sesame, and other East Asian ingredients served with pita, glazed carrots with harissa, and Central Asian meatballs.  All the elements worked together just brilliantly but you’d never find them sitting together “naturally.”

I don’t know what my point is or if I even have a point, unless it’s that our range of tools, techniques, and ingredients is incredibly broad these days.  Every once in a while I’ve produced a mistake of epic proportions, but usually the results are pretty good and very interesting and I want to do a little exploring about what this flexibility and scope really means.  I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.  Please comment to share your experiences with drawing across culinary boundaries.

Recipe – Sausage & seafood soup

Ingredients

1 lb hot Italian sausage (or substitute chorizo)

1 tbl olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 celery rib, halved and chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 15oz cans beans, drained (or if using chorizo, substitute 10 oz frozen chopped spinach or 2 bags of fresh spinach, wilted and chopped)

5 cups fish stock (if fish stock is not available, use water)

1-2 stalks of thyme

2 dried bay leaves

1 stalk fresh oregano

3 half-pound portions of different types of fish (for example, 1/2 lb of tilapia, 1/2 lb of shrimp, 1/2 lb of squid)

2 tbl smoked paprika (or the seasoning of your choice)

salt and pepper to taste

sherry vinegar to taste

Directions

Heat the oil in a dutch oven or stock pot over medium-low.  Add the sausage and brown.  When the sausage has mostly browned and rendered most of its fat, add the onion and celery and cook until soft, about 8 minutes.

Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more.

Add the herbs and bay leaves as a bouquet garni.

Add the stock and beans.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to low. Simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the fish and simmer until the fish is done.  Add the fish in order of required cooking time.  For example, add thick white fish first, thin white fish after a couple of minutes, shrimp after another minute or two, squid and shellfish next, etc.  Everything should be cooked after 10 minutes, but by keeping the heat on low, your are keeping your fish from getting overcooked.  Feel free to simmer for a reasonably long time, if necessary.

Add paprika (or your seasoning) and stir.  Taste for salt, pepper, and vinegar, adding as required.

Serve hot.