Once you begin to understand the basic principles of international cooking, a fun exercise would be to try mixing two cuisines together. In other words, take the ingredients from one recipe and use cooking methods from another. There are many benefits in trying this:
1) It’s a culinary work-out. To get good at anything, you have to practice and set difficult goals for yourself. Not only do culinary mash-ups exercise your cooking abilities, but it also exercises your mind. As always, start out with something easy- like mixing two cooking styles you’re very familiar with.
Just the other day for a party, I made Churro Cupcakes- an American twist on a Mexican favorite. I received the idea from another blog and used the outline she provided to make some incredibly tasty treats. My version uses the cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart’s Snickerdoodle Cupcakes as well as her Cream Cheese Icing recipe with about 1-2 tsp of cinnamon mixed in. To garnish, for half of them I drizzled a mixture of melted semi-sweet chocolate and canola oil, and for the other half, I added a dusting of light brown sugar. The results turned out beautiful and incredibly tasty!
Once you become comfortable doing cuisines you’re familiar with, start learning about other techniques and try mixing something like Thai and Hispanic. Make sure the two cooking styles aren’t overly complicated, especially if you’re serving them for somebody else. A dish with way too many ingredients, spices, and rendered cooking flavors confuse the palate as well as the visual appeal before it is eaten.
2) It’s a very good way to introduce different flavors into your family’s diet. A culinary mash-up doesn’t need to have radical changes. It can be as simple as adding foreign flavors to one of your family’s favorite dishes. Spices like cumin, coriander, paprika, and a good curry powder aren’t completely overpowering and add a nice undertone to any dish. Adding paprika to macaroni and cheese would add the slightest kick of flavor, but would still be subdued by the cheese. Last night, I made a simple recipe for salmon with a cumin-honey glaze, and it was amazing. It makes the salmon deliciously savory and sweet, while adding exotic flare and a really beautiful color.
3) It’s fun! Like most of my musings, these exercises are meant to excite and inspire you to cook! You will make plenty of mistakes along the way (Indian Ratatoulle was not a success), but that makes coming up with a really good dish all the better. Doing something like this is a first step on learning how to come up with your own recipes, or adding your own special touch to a tried and true classic.
