Tasting Kitchen
Welcome to Tasting Kitchen. Season’s Greetings – or should I say Seasonings Greetings! This holiday TK issue is full of spices and flavorings. We talk to four talented and ambitious chefs about the flavor profile – or Flavor DNA – of dishes from India, Sichuan, Vietnam and the Isaan region of Thailand. Think cardamom, black salt and saffron, red peppercorns, red chilies and green chilies, dill, Kaffir lime, lemongrass, coriander, galangal and turmeric. We take a look at spices in history, and how even back in the Middle Ages savvy marketers knew the value of a good story. Spice merchants claimed that birds used cinnamon sticks to make giant nests in the cliffs above beaches in India, which “cinnamon hunters” then plotted to obtain. Today India is still associated with the world’s best spices. In this issue, for our first Tasting Destinations feature, TK’s Director of Photography David Hartung and Senior Writer Lucy Morgan traveled to Old Delhi to visit the world’s largest spice market and to New Delhi to visit one of the world’s top restaurants for modern Indian cuisine. One of our featured wines is the peppery Austrian Grüner Veltliner. We also talk to a New Zealand Wine Master about what makes great wine great, and to a leading French Champagne Chef de Cave about the value of patience and restraint. There are also some crabs running loose in the issue. A master chef in Macau shares his recipe for Quinoa Lobster Salad while five more from Hong Kong and Singapore share their favorite crab dishes and culinary musings. Happy Holidays,
Welcome to Tasting Kitchen.
Season’s Greetings – or should I say
Seasonings Greetings!
This holiday TK issue is full of spices and
flavorings.
We talk to four talented and ambitious
chefs about the flavor profile – or Flavor DNA
– of dishes from India, Sichuan, Vietnam and
the Isaan region of Thailand. Think cardamom,
black salt and saffron, red peppercorns, red
chilies and green chilies, dill, Kaffir lime,
lemongrass, coriander, galangal and turmeric.
We take a look at spices in history, and
how even back in the Middle Ages savvy marketers knew the value of a good story.
Spice merchants claimed that birds used cinnamon sticks to make giant nests in the
cliffs above beaches in India, which “cinnamon hunters” then plotted to obtain.
Today India is still associated with the world’s best spices. In this issue, for
our first Tasting Destinations feature, TK’s Director of Photography David Hartung
and Senior Writer Lucy Morgan traveled to Old Delhi to visit the world’s largest
spice market and to New Delhi to visit one of the world’s top restaurants for modern
Indian cuisine.
One of our featured wines is the peppery Austrian Grüner Veltliner. We also
talk to a New Zealand Wine Master about what makes great wine great, and to a
leading French Champagne Chef de Cave about the value of patience and restraint.
There are also some crabs running loose in the issue. A master chef in Macau
shares his recipe for Quinoa Lobster Salad while five more from Hong Kong and
Singapore share their favorite crab dishes and culinary musings.
Happy Holidays,
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tasting news<br />
be a little hard to assess when first released. Also some<br />
wines grow in the glass. That’s particularly true of red<br />
wines sealed with a screw cap and very young wines that<br />
have lots of potential.<br />
Every wine lover has a certain personality and specific<br />
preferences. What are your own unique preferences<br />
when it comes to wine?<br />
If you mean wine style I must confess that Pinot Noir<br />
is my “desert island wine” with Riesling a close second.<br />
However I appreciate great examples of all wine styles<br />
from Champagne to sherry.<br />
What makes the best New Zealand wines great?<br />
I need to answer that by referencing specific wine<br />
types. Sauvignon Blanc: the best are intense, pungently<br />
aromatic, have purity and an array of subtle flavors. The<br />
best wines have energy. Riesling: power, purity and an<br />
exquisite tension between subtle sweetness and knifeedged<br />
acidity. Chardonnay: an emphasis on fruit flavor rather<br />
than winemaker influence such as oak, buttery characters<br />
and yeast autolysis. Must have power and complexity with<br />
a silken texture. Pinot Noir: power, a silken texture and<br />
an array of flavors that are displayed like the colors on a<br />
peacock’s tail. Syrah and blended reds: power, intensity,<br />
density, complexity and the ability to age gracefully.<br />
KEVIN JUDD / AUSTIN LANGFORD<br />
24<br />
| TK | flavor dna
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