This month’s round of TGRWT is hosted by John Sconzo over at Docsconz, and the foods to pair this time are pumpkin and cooked chicken.* As always you can find instructions on how to participate in the announcement post. If you are new to TGRWT (which stands for They Go Really Well Together), check out the round-ups of the previous 19 rounds!

* In case you wondered why the link to the announcement posts includes lemon grass: There was some confusion regarding how to read the charts at the foodpairing website. The initial suggestion was to use pumpkin and lemon grass, but his has now been changed to pumpkin and cooked chicken.

This month’s round of TGRWT is hosted by Pablo over at Medellitin, and the foods to pair this time are tomato and black tea. As always you can find instructions on how to participate in the announcement post. If you are new to TGRWT (which stands for They Go Really Well Together), check out the round-ups of the previous 18 rounds! And if you are chemically inclined, you may want to read on to learn more about the compounds behind this months pairing.

With a little help from Douglas Baldwin (whom I interviewed about sous vide recently) I’ve been able to pinpoint the compounds which occur naturally in both tomato and black tea, according to The Good Scents Company website:

(E)-2-hexen-1-al, (E)-2-hexen-1-ol, (E)-2-hexen-1-yl acetate, (E)-2-nonen-1-al, (E)-geranyl acetone, (Z)-2-hexen-1-ol, (Z)-3-hexen-1-al, (Z)-3-hexen-1-ol, (Z)-3-hexen-1-yl acetate, 1-octen-3-ol, 1-penten-3-ol, 2,4-decadien-1-al, 2-hexen-1-ol, 2-methyl furan, 5-methyl furfural, ammonia, butyl alcohol, butyraldehyde, butyric acid, citronellol, dihydroactinidolide, dimethyl sulfoxide, dimethyl trisulfide, ethyl hexanoate, gamma-hexalactone, gamma-valerolactone, geranic acid, hexanal, hydrogen sulfide, isoamyl alcohol, isovaleraldehyde, isovaleric acid, linalool oxide, methyl ethyl ketone, ortho-guaiacol, propionaldehyde, valeraldehyde

Now this might seem impressive, but as I’ve touched upon previously it is highly uncertain that all of these compounds actually contribute to the flavors of tomato and black tea. Many are probably present at concentrations well below the individual odor thresholds. To alleviate this one preferably needs odor activity values. The closest I came for tomatoes was the mention (free pdf) of a “model” tomato paste with the following compounds:

(E)-beta-damascenone, 2-phenylethanol, 3-methylbutanal, 3-methylbutyric acid, 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone, 4-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5H)-furanone, 4-vinylguaiacol, 5-ethyl-4-hydroxy-2-methyl-3(2H)-furanone, acetic acid, butyric acid, dimethyl sulphide, eugenol, linalool, methional, methylpropanal, vanillin

And for tea (both black and green) there is a complete PhD thesis available for download (in German). The following compounds in black teas had high FD (flavor dilution) values:

(E)-2-nonenal, (E)-beta-damascenone, (E,E)-2,4-decadienal, (E,E,Z)-2,4,6-nonatrienal, 2-phenylethanol, 3-hydroxy-4,5-dimethyl-2(5H)-furanone, 3-methyl-2,4-nonandion, 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone, beta-ionone, geraniol, linalool, phenylacetaldehyde, phenylacetic acid, vanillin

Comparing the two latter lists, we get the following shortlist for odorants present in tomato (paste) and black tea which contribute significantly to their aromas:
(E)-beta-damascenone, 2-phenylethanol, 4-hydroxy-2,5-dimethyl-3(2H)-furanone, linalool, vanillin (shown below). The fact that none of these are included in the data from The Good Scents Database illustrates my point about using OAVs to evaluate flavor pairing.

References:
Werner Grosch “Evaluation of the Key Odorants of Foods by Dilution Experiments, Aroma Models and Omission” Chem. Sens. 2001, 531.
Schuh, Christian “Wichtige Aromastoffe in schwarzem und grünem Tee (Camellia sinensis)”, PhD disseratation, TU München, 2004.

For TGRWT #18 hosted by Aidan Brooks I decided to use puff pastry dough and laminate some Norwegian blue cheese, “Norzola” (made to mimic Gorgonzola) between two layers and roll them out. To accompany this I made a plum reduction with my two favorite spices, star anis and ginger. I should also mention that I tried the very simplest combination of plum and gorgonzola as well: a simple slice of bread with some Gorgonzola and a thick slice of a blue plum. This was very delicious – and takes absolutely no time to prepare.

Norzola puffs
Spread room tempered blue cheese on puff pastry dough and cover with a second sheet. Roll out until doubled in size (at least). Bake at 200 °C until golden brown.

Plum reduction
200 g plums (I used red and green), stoned
100 g orange juice
35 g sugar
1/3 star anis (whole)
ginger to taste

Simmer for about 1 hour. Remove the star anis and purrée. Reduce further until desired consistency.

Serving: apply a generous spoon of plum reduction, sprinkle with finely chopped walnuts and place Norzola puff on top.

The few blue/purple plums take the final color a long way!

Verdict: This one was yummy! My wife (who’s not very fond of blue cheese) approved and helped herself with a second serving It’s both sweet, sour, creamy, airy, crunchy – and it’s even got tannins (plum skins + walnuts).

Finally it’s time for a new round of TGRWT. It’s the 18th round and the host this time is Aidan Brooks, a trainee chef who works in Spain. In his blog he’s touched upon flavor pairing several times and also wrote a blog post on the same topic for “Word of mouth”, the food blog of The Guardian. The foods to pair this time are plum and blue cheese, and as usual you can read more about how to participate in the announcement post. The deadline for submissions is September 1st.

TGRWT is not a competition, but Aidan wanted to add a little competitive element to round of the meal. So his challenge to you (in addition to the normal TGRWT contributions) is to make a dessert using plum and blue cheese which additionally incorporates any two of the following flavors: salty, sour, bitter, umami, pungent, astringent. He will pick a winner and the prize is quite cool: he’ll make a restaurant level version of it, with the name of the winner incorporated in the title of the dish and try to get this on the menu at Restaurante Ferrero where he works as a Pastry Chef on the team of Paco Morales, Spain’s “Chef of the Year 2009″.

Photo by mykrar from flickr.com (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Regarding the chemistry behind this pairing there is (for once) actually some informartion available. From a paper on gorgonzola I’ve learnt that 2-nonanone, 1-octen-3-ol, 2-heptanol, ethyl hexanoate, methylanisole and 2-heptanone are the most important impact odorants of natural and creamy Gorgonzola cheese [1]. For plums I haven’t found anything on impact odorants in fresh plums, but there is a paper on impact odorants in candied plums [2], and comparing the two papers I find that phenyl acetaldehyde, ethyl benzoate and ethyl octanoate are present in both Gorgonzola cheese and candied plums and have odor activity values greater than 1. There’s another paper as well comparing two plum varieties were the abstract mentions odor unit values, but alas – I don’t have access to the full text (maybe someone with access could check it and give me a hint about the impact odorants?) [3]. There are probably some differences between fresh and candied plums, but at least this shows that you’re safe if you want to use candied plums when cooking up something with blue cheese.

[1] Moio, L.; Piombiono, P.; Addeo F. J. Dairy Research 2000, 67, 273 “Odour-impact compounds of Gorgonzola cheese”. DOI: 10.1017/S0022029900004106
[2] Nunes, C.; Coimbra, M. A.; Saraiva, J.; Rocha, S. M. Food Chemistry 2008, 111, 897 “Study of the volatile components of a candied plum and estimation of their contribution to the aroma”. DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2008.05.003
[3] Gómez, E.; Ledbetter, C. A. J. of the Science of Food and Agriculture 2006, 65 (1), 111. “Comparative study of the aromatic profiles of two different plum species: Prunus salicina Lindl and Prunus simonii L”. DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.2740650116

The Canadian sommerlier François Chartier (he has an extensive website featuring several blogs, including a section named Sommellerie moléculaire) is out with a new book on food and wine pairing. It’s not just another (superfluous) book on the subject. As the title Papilles et molécules (= Tastebuds and Molecules, unfortunately not available in English) suggests there is some science involved. It turns out in fact that he has applied the principles of flavor pairing to food and wine. With help from Richard Béliveau from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Martin Loignon from PerkinElmer he has analyzed wines and food and comes up with the following suggestions for lamb, as described in the article “Chemistry-set wine pairing”:

Having roast lamb? Don’t waste it on an ill-advised red Bordeaux, the old standby trotted out by generations of sommeliers. Lamb’s characteristic flavour comes from thymol, an aromatic compound found in the oil of, yes, thyme. It’s also a flavour note associated with red wines from the southern Languedoc region of France, such as Minervois, Corbières or St. Chinian.

Other combinations mentioned in the article include:

rosemary – white wines from northern Alsace
pork – oaked red wines
curries – viognier
cinnamon – pinot noir, grenache, ice cider, oloroso sherry

François Chartier also introduces “bridge ingredients”. Mint, which goes well with sauvignon blanc, shares aroma compounds with parsley, fennel and tarragon. Based on this he theorizes that sauvignon blanc should also pair well with dishes based on these ingredients.

As far as I can see (with my very limited high school French) there are no links or references to all the other activities in the field: Heston Blumenthal’s pioneering of the concept together with François Benzi from Firmenich, the Food pairing website – not even to the TGRWT food blogging event Nevertheless it’s nice to see that the concept has now been applied to food and wine as well. As I don’t own the book yet I can’t tell whether François Chartier includes odor activity values in his discussion or not (but I certainly hope he does!).

As I mentioned in the previous post I put the leftover rose froam from TGRWT #16 in the freezer and was surprised by the result. Inspired by this I thought I would extend this and substitute apple juice for water for TGRWT #17. As apple juice is quite sweet I started off with 20 g sugar, but once frozen it lacked sweetness and even was a litte icy, so I upped the amount to 40 g. The picture above may suggest that the foam could be served for dessert, but read the verdict before you make huge amounts of the foam.

Frozen rosy apple foam
2.1 g xanthan (0.50%)
3.6 g methyl cellulose (0.85%)
40 g sugar
6.5 g rose water
300 g apple juice
70 g lemon juice

Grind xanthan, methyl cellulose and sugar in mortar (easier dispersion of hydrocolloid in water). Mix liquids in a bowl and disperse sugar and hydrocolloids into solution with a hand held immersion blender. For better foam production change to tilted disk attachmend or use an electric whisk. Freeze.

Verdict: Aroma wise I was quite satisfied and even my wife liked it. The rose flavor was pronounced but not overwhelming and balanced nicely with the apple. I had to use quite a lot of lemon juice though to get it acidic enough for my taste. The texture was not as smooth as I had hoped for however. It was a little icy and even brittle when scooped and certainly need improvement if I’m to make this again. Another disappointment was the aftertaste – it was actually not good at all. I suspect that it’s one of the hydrocolloids. Anyone have similar experiences? As it is now I would not serve the frozen foam as a dessert because of the aftertaste. But it could work well as an element in a dish. And I was thinking if adding a little fat, for instance as cream, could help both the texture and remedy the aftertaste?

I only used my new Bamix for dispersion and whipping this time. First with the knife attachment for dispersion (top left) and then with the tilted disk for whipping (top right). Compared with the rose foam I made for TGRWT #16 using a conventional hand mixer the bubble size was more non-uniform when using the Bamix (bottom left). The foam scoops nicely when frozen, but texture leaves a little to desire (bottom right).

Just a small reminder that the deadline for the current round of TGRWT #17 is a little later than usual: May 8th. I took the picture above for last month’s TGRWT (where it was combined with chicken) and came to think that it actually qualifies for this month’s TGRWT as well. It’s rose foam on a spoon with apple, celery and almonds, and the foam is sprinkled with a little pepper.

As an experiment I tried to freeze the leftover rose foam and was quite surprised by the resulting texture. It was easy to scoop due to the incorporated air and had a nice mouth feel. There were no ice crystals and the texture was almost a little chewy. What would one call this? Ice cream? Sorbet? No – there is no cream and the texture is much lighter. Frozen sorbet? Foamed sorbet? Frozen foam? Any suggestions? I think I’ll make a variation of the frozen foam for TGRWT #17

Frozen rose foam

Frozen rose foam is easily scooped due to all the air bubbles

It’s time for a new round of “They go really well together”. For TGRWT #17 the challenge is to pair apple with rose, in particular Cox Orange or Elstar apples in combination with Damask (Rosa × damascena). The hosts this time are Malin and
Lisa, and Malin explains explains a litte about the chemistry behind the pairing both in English and Swedish. The deadline is May 8th so you get a little extra time for this round. By coincidence rose appears in TGRWT twice in a row, but I can assure you that the hosts of the March and April round did not know about each others choices when they were made. If you bought a bottle of rose water for last round I’m sure there’s a little left. You might even be lucky to get hold of fresh rose leaves now that summer is approaching. For inspiration on how rose combines with chicken, do check out the round up of TGRWT #16 over at Supernova Condensate.

For this month’s “They go really well together” event (TGRWT #16) hosted by Supernova Condensate I decided to leave the chicken untouched and focus on the rose component. I had long wanted to try Chad’s Lemon whip (which I’ve included in Texture) where lemon juice is thickened with xanthan and then whipped to a thick foam after addition of methyl cellulose. I started with water, a little sugar and about 10 g of rose water. Having added xanthan and methyl cellulose I tasted it and decided to double the amount of rose water, add some more sugar and add a little lemon juice for acidity. I can imagine that rose water comes in differents strengths so it’s advisable not to add all from the start.

Rose foam
15 g sugar
0.7 g xanthan (0.49%)
100 g water
20 g rose water
8 g lemon juice
1.2 g methyl cellulose (0.84%)
(I used Metil from Texturas)

Grind sugar and xanthan. Sprinkle into water, rose water and lemon juice with hand mixer on full speed. When the xanthan is dispersed add methyl cellulose a little by little with the mixer still on. Mix for another 5-10 minutes until bubbles are small and uniform and the foam is dense and stable. If desired the foam can be whipped with an iSi whipper charged with nitrous oxide. I served the rose foam with diced apples, stalk celery and chopped almonds as a side dish to roasted chicken. Mashed potatoes with basil leaves, topped with a good olive oil and ground pepper was nice with the chicken.

Verdict: The rose foam is thick and lucious. The rose aroma blends very well with apple aroma. Lemon, almonds and celery give a nice contrast. The overall combo was a pleasant surprise! My previous encounters with rose water have been somewhat overpowering (especially in food from the Middle East), but the rose foam was much milder as I had diluted it with plenty of water.

The foam is stable on the time scale of minutes to hours. When left overnight the bubbles coalescese, but the volume of the foam remains more or less the same. Foam from the previous day can easily be whipped up again with a hand mixer.

Newly whipped rose foam (left), 18 hours later the bubbles have coalescesed (right). I apologize for the somewhat weird colors.