Contrasting culinary flavours from around the world are particularly hot these days. Although we’ve been exploring the many diverse and intriguing global flavours since at least the ’70s, with these crazy, changing times, we’re looking for new culinary inspirations while we’re stuck in our own kitchens.
Many of us have been lucky enough to have tasted complex flavours in our past travels and are now leaning into the experience of enjoying them in our own home-cooked creations. It’s become trendy to combine healthy ingredients in mainstream recipes and then fuse them with unique international flavours.
In our culinary collection this month, we’ve adapted the burrito from Mexico with a cultural fusion of fermented Korean kimchi. The result? Excellent fibre with gut-healthy fused ingredients in an intense and satisfying combination that seems so wrong but is absolutely right!
We cross boundaries by dusting cauliflower steaks with Creole spices, topping them with a semblance of spinach salad. The humble flower provides 100 percent of your daily vitamin C needs, while the spinach tips the health-o-meter scale with antioxidants and much, much more.
The health-boosting list also includes rutabaga, rich in vitamin C, nestled in gnocchi and served with saffron-infused, omega-3-rich salmon, along with a medley of fresh spring greens laced with citrus and married with the complexities of Eastern curry and Western maple syrup.
Foods travel the world, and these days, we’re fusing those worldly flavours with local and occasionally imported ingredients. We’re establishing a whole world of exciting dishes right from our own kitchens. Dabble in some of the flavours here and enjoy mixing and matching to your palate’s content!
Finding fusion
In this feature, when we speak of fusion foods, we’re capitalizing on flavours coupled with detoxifying regional ingredients, then enriching them with dashes of international flavours and cooking techniques to create even more interesting flavours.
Think cabbage to kimchi, hot spices with local vegetables, gnocchi made with nutrient-rich rutabaga. The possibilities are endless.
The health key is to use locally grown as much as you can, depending on the season. Move that local favourite to the global level with infused international flavours. It’s the next best thing to travelling there. Buy local. Cook international. It can’t get any easier—or fresher.
Creole Cauliflower Steaks with Spinach, Tomatoes, and Pine Nuts
Rutabaga Gnocchi with Saffron Lemon Salmon
Halloumi and Citrus Salad with Curried Maple Dressing
Paneer Kebabs with Spicy Zhoug Sauce
Blood Orange Coconut Mousse
Irene McGuinness is a writer, recipe developer, food stylist for numerous magazines and corporations, and alumna of the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University
Alexa Everett
Laura Bolt
Gail Johnson
Carime Lane