Culinary Content Weekend Review

Playing with food is my favorite and today we'll look back on all the creations that came out of the lab last week!

Up first...Pappardelle with Summer Greens and Artichoke Walnut Tomato Sauce.

Pasta dishes, recipes and images are always a hit with the hungry public. Evergreen as can be, Utilizing seasonal ingredients and interchanging trends keeps this content fresh and engaging.

Second... Cantaloupe, Basil and Prosciutto Salad.

Easy, simple and delicious is a staple trend in our fast paced world. Keeping content approachable (under 10 ingredients and under 30 minutes for prepping and cooking) builds confidence with your audience...The 'I can make this!' approach to customer engagement.

Third....Crafting your own Cheese and Charcuterie Platter.

A little education goes a looooooong way with building customer trust. And How-to's are a great way to tell a story, educate and promote your product. Picking engaging, trending topics (like this one for creating a cheese and charcuterie platter) to 'how-to' drives more people to your site and your products.

Fourth... Garden Gimlet

Say you have a great product, but it is really only seen to have a singular use. Like one of the ingredients for this recipe, bloody mary mix. Get creative. Show that these cornered ingredients don't just have to be regelated to their original/stereotyped use. And sometimes, it can be as simple as switching up a couple of ingredients to showoff the possibilities ...In this case, gin for vodka, adding in fresh lime juice and garnishing with a garden/pickle blend of veggies.

Fifth...Habanero Marinated Fish Tacos

There are few things as tried and true as a great taco. Reel 'em in with fabulous content around evergreen popular food categories. This recipe is a great example of applying the first 4 listed methods of engagement into one tasty bit of content: trending topic, simple/easy, how-to's and creative ingredient use.

Lastly...Creamy Blueberry Popsicles

What's the weather like in your target demo? Hot as an oven? Pouring down rain? Freezing cold and snowing? Customers search for weather appropriate food topics all the time. Keeping tabs on the weather and having a little stockpile of weather related content puts your brand at the tippy top of the search.

If you're looking for some assistance with developing catchy, sticky and overall delicious food content...let's connect.

Frozen Treat Trends…What’s HOT in Cold

With all these idiots out there licking grocery store containers of ice cream, let us not reflect on their stupidity but on, rather, the frozen treat trends being licked. 

The coolest ice cream concepts are coming from the hottest places…

And as I type that, I think that sounds like an absolute no-brainer. Not ice cream licking level duh, but kind of obvious. 

What I MEANT to imply is that these toasty regions are really pushing the creative frozen treat envelope.

Kulfi, Falooda

&

Mumbai Ice Cream Sandwiches

Kulfi is a frozen treat speciality hailing from the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. This dessert is ice cream blown up x10-think custard vs. traditional ice cream. Super dense, super creamy and flavored in all the manner of regional flavors; rose, mango, cardamom, saffron, pistachio, date…delicious. 

Falooda is this ice cream sundae meets milkshake mash-up …with a twist. Get this…the FILLINGS(!)…rose syrup (traditional falooda is pinkish), sweetened vermicelli (like a noodly rice pudding), sweet basil seeds, milk and an ice cream topper. Think of the digital head turning that’ll happen if you put this beaut on your insta/blog? 

Mumbai Ice Cream Sandwiches… K Rustom is an ice cream sandwich shop operating in a tiny space, near the Mumbai waterfront, with just a couple of chest freezers and scores of hungry customers (loyalists since 1953). What makes this spot so trend worthy is the style and flavors of their sandwiches. Over 50 flavors of handmade ice cream is smushed in between 2 wafer cookies…This wafer cookie substitution, I feel, is a better ‘sandwich’ vessel than the typical cookie cookie. It adds a lovely crunch without competing with the flavor of the ice cream. And the FLAVORS…rose ripple, green mango, ginger lemon, saffron, pistachio, saffron + pistachio…marvelous! 

Patbingsu,

Halo Halo and Baobing

Patbingsu, the next big thing, this monster frozen treat trend is coming out of South Korea. And like the other two headliners, fall into the ‘shaved ice’ category.  Patbingsu can range from casual to ultra fancy with a regular rotation of toppings. The traditional Patbingsu calls upon ingredients like sweetened red beans, chopped fruit, sweetened condensed milk and fruit syrup all topped on pillowy snowy shaved ice. 

Halo Halo is a personal fav trend to watch coming out of the Philippines. Halo Halo translates to ‘mix mix’ in this stunning scrumptious carnival in parfait form. Shaved ice is mixed, layered and topped with boiled sweet beans, gelatin, tapioca, rice pudding, ube (purple yams), condensed milk, cereals (some US chefs are adding in things like Cap’n Crunch) all topped with ice cream. 

Baobing is having some star-chef powered culinary crossover at the moment. Chef Stephanie Izard, from the famed Chicago restaurant group behind the notable Girl and the Goat, opened up a baobing spot just recently. 

This dessert is not necessarily a ‘new’ thing for it’s creators (coming from China and Taiwan)-historically, potentially, being one of the oldest frozen treat recipes on the planet. Ice shavings  are mounded into a massive heap before being topped with condensed milk, adzuki beans, mung beans and tapioca balls. A rotation of seasonal fruit is a popular addition for an all-year-round sweet treat. 

If you're looking for some assistance with your frozen treat recipe development or developing catchy, sticky and overall delicious food content...let's connect.

Scarfing on Summer Salads

Checking out the summer salad trends…

Cooling, easy, healthy and flavorful…all the things you want when the temperature spikes and the produce market is overflowing. We’ll discuss the buzziest, trendiest and SE…OMG (iest) food on the planet… to discover what’s new in salads.

The Green Stuff

Stretching this category a wee bit…teehee

In the weeds…

This two-for category is going to cover the backyard variety and the back alley variety.

Since ganja, maryjane, pot, more marijuana lingo, etc… has hit mainstream consumership as a beneficial health remedy the culinary crossover is unsurprising. CBD is a hot topic in cooking and is finding a salady home via infused oils (olive, grapeseed, coconut and avocado oils, just to name a few). CBD extract is not known for its fab flavor, so creative masking techniques (a la creative vinaigrette recipes) are piquing interest in the community that supports and uses. There is also a BIG online component to this as well…very trendy with social and search.

The backyard bitters (aka. weeds) are getting some love this season. The foraging trend has ebbed into this really great sustainability/eco-friendly piece. The rise in the reduction of agro chemicals (pesticides, weed killers, etc…) has naturally given rise to a weed epidemic. Lucky for us, so many of these weeds are actually quite tasty and chefs are taking advantage (plus, bonus points, for helping out the farmers with their weed problem). Creative culinary recipe development is popping up (weed pun) using dandelion, sorrel, purslane, plantain (not the nanner) and lamb quarters.

Strange and Unusual

Salads are getting a bit…weird

Weird but tasty…

The culinary trends that have dominated the savory/hot food categories are tossing up in the salad bowl. And, for salads, that’s kinda different.

Smoked lettuces, vegetables and fruits are dominating the popular flavor profile spectrum creating a rich and robust diversity to salads. Think smoked citrus vinaigrettes, smoked berries as toppers, smoky avocados as fillers and smoked root veggies as meaty alternatives.

Funky, fermented and sour are also strong flavor contenders in the salad category. The good-gut ferments like kimchi, kombucha , kefir, miso and raw cheeses are just the tip of the funky iceberg (lettuce-ha ha ha, dad jokes a plenty today).

The meatless meat fun is branching into the salad realm as well. The monstrous popularity of the Impossible Burger, that spanned a number of spinoffs (the Archie Bunker of food stuffs), is making moves on salads. Creative types are thinking outside of the taco salad box too- think meatless kofta topped mediterranean salads or meaty yet meatless antipasta courses.

Exploring Far off Flavors…

without leaving your kitchen

Passports not needed…

I love love love that the Asian greens are popping in popularity with salads. These far-east flavorful greens are some of my personal favorites for culinary development, hot or cold. Here are some of the trending lettuces, sprouts and cabbages to get your hands on; Tatsoi, all the Choys (bok, gai, sum and yau), water spinach, Chinese celery, gai lan and mizuna. Trend on the rise!

Follow the Spice Trade Route for inspiring salad flavors. From Northern Africa, Middle East, Asia and Mediterranean Europe, these are the grand slam trends in salads. Fragrant cardamom, ginger, coriander, sumac, turmeric, cumin, tamarind and exotic peppers (think Szechuan peppercorns) are spicing up every where from vinaigrettes to pickled vegetables. Look for the country specific spice blends like; Berbere (Africa), Baharat (Middle East) or Chaat Masala (India).

If you're looking for some assistance with your summer salad recipe development or developing catchy, sticky and overall delicious food content...let's connect.