So begins the big adventure.
Melding together
Spanish Tapas
and
Korean Side Dishes
The first thing I needed to do
was pick three flavors that worked together
from each country.
These make the pallet
for painting the recipes.
This required making lots of little toasts.
 |
| The first try. Tastes great, but not even close to what I'm going for. |
 |
| Total bust. Too much soy. Too much olive. Too Soggy. |
FLAVORS
The first toasts,
although delicious,
were not well balanced flavor wise.
They were too "Korean".
After a few more tires I found the perfect balance.
From Spain I chose:
Lemon
Olive
Paprika
From Korea I chose:
Soy Sauce
Spicy Peppers
Fermentation
 |
| This was ugly as heck, but a lot more delicious and sent me down the right path. |
TEXTURE
After that I needed to refine my textures.
"What?" you ask "Textures?"
Yes, believe it or not texture
is as a key part of fusion cuisine.
I consider it equally important to taste.
Spanish food has a lovely
balance of crunch and smoothness
that's critical for it to "taste" Spanish.
At first my toasts just didn't have it.
The perfect crunch was found in:
Toasting the bread
Making goat and soy cheese.
Using lotus root
 |
| This was where I started really picking up speed. |
INGREDIENTS
Finally, I had to decided what was going in things.
The two cuisines have a great deal in common,
but I still needed to narrow it down.
So this is what
I'll be making the tapas out of.
CROSSOVER INGREDIENTS
Chicken eggs
Quail eggs
Sardines
Eggplant
Peppers
Potato
Squid
Shrimp
Mushrooms
UNIQUE INGREDIENTS
Lotus Root
Olives
Olive Oil
Kimchi
Korean fruit wines
 |
| In the end I knew just what I needed to take it to the next level. |
WHAT'S NEXT?
After this I need to work on
marinating my own lotus root.
The stuff from the market is just too strong.
It needs to be less intense.
It needs to float inside the recipe,
not stand out on top.
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