Growing up, I was never that fond of chocolate. Given a choice of flavors, I always picked vanilla or some variation thereof. Plain vanilla custards, puddings, and ice creams were the comfort food of my childhood, and frankly, I adored them. But times change, and as I grew older, I moved away from vanilla. I became a fan of different fruit flavors, different chocolates, and sweet cream edged out vanilla as my background canvas of choice. I became oversaturated with vanilla; it was everywhere I looked, seemingly in everything that I tasted. Vanilla had lost its magic.
Then one day, I was reading about seasoned salts. We began discussing the idea of infusing sea salts with sweet spices, and so, of course, we thought of vanilla. I was hesitant at first; our bottle of vanilla extract had grown dusty and dark, vanilla sugar languished on the shelf, our beans untouched in their baths of whiskey or sherry on a dry storage shelf. Instead, there is a bottle of vodka infused, yes, with vanilla beans, but also with whole cardamom pods, dusky brown things that are more earthy and pungent than their lighter green counterparts, black peppercorns, blades of mace, and a solitary stick of cinnamon. The vanilla flavor was there, but as part of a whole, a single note in a symphony of flavors to be used whenever the mood strikes. My mood for straight vanilla had faded so far as to be a shadow of a memory, but vanilla salt—that sparked my interest.
There are classic savory dishes made with vanilla. The most well-known is probably vanilla with lobster, first remembered as a dish by Alain Senderens. For the most part, though, vanilla is relegated to the sweet dishes. A chance to pair it with savory and marry it to sea salt was a fresh challenge to spark my interest. Unsurprisingly, the first place we used it was with foie gras. The exotic floral notes of vanilla were the perfect foil to the liver’s rich earthy flavors. Candied kumquats and minus eight vinegar completed the profile, a teasing reminder of the classic pairing of foie gras and Sauternes. We married vanilla with smoky chipotle peppers and black rum to create a braising liquid for short ribs, served with a creamy potato puree, lightly smoked cipollini onions, and glazed carrots. We threaded baby bay scallops on spent vanilla beans and grilled them with a quick squeeze of lime. We infused brown butter with vanilla beans to be brushed over lightly broiled oysters served with champagne. We roasted beets and tossed them with olive oil, lemon juice, horseradish, and vanilla salt for a cold salad on a warm evening. The list could go on and on.
It was a bittersweet reunion. Although I enjoyed every moment and each dish, we moved on relatively quickly. Vanilla is still too much around us. Its very inevitability in the world around us makes it less fun to play with. We see it all around us and taste it in almost every dessert, heralded or not, needed or not. It has become ubiquitous, and that is a pity because it is still one of the very best flavors in the world.
About the Author
