Garlic and chocolate. Yum?
The blog food for design on flavour pairing:
[...] basil tastes like basil because of the combination of linalool, estragol, …. So if I want to reconstruct the basil flavour without using any basil, you have to search for a combination of other food products where one contains linalool (like coriander), one contains estragol (like tarragon),… So I can reconstruct basil by combining coriander, tarragon, cloves, laurel.
The people behind the food for design blog have started a new website called foodpairing.be, which provides a database of foods with information on their flavour components and flavour partners.
Apparently peas and strawberries have flavours in common and would be good partners, as would chocolate and oysters or chocolate and sauerkraut. Even more interesting is that you can use their theory to match two otherwise unmatching foods by using a third food with common flavours to both:
Like chocolate and garlic. The trick then is to search for a third food product that has something in common with chocolate and with garlic. An example is coffee. Coffee has flavour components in common with garlic: Dimethyl disulfide and with chocolate: Methyl pyrazine.
Sounds fun. They hasten to add:
This is just a tool to inspire you. You still need as a chef the craftsmanship, the experience,…to translate this inspiration into a good recipe. It is not only mixing two components together. The balance between the two is important.