The secret to tasty simple recipes has a lot to do with the seasoning, herbs, spices and oils you add into your food. No need for a lengthy sauce reduction or marinades since you are striving for something simple and easy to cook but full of flavor, as if you spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Tasty simple recipes are successful with the right combination of flavors. Balance stronger ones with something more accepting, like say, sweet with sour or salty with sour.
In this collection, we have several that radiates with the deep, earthy and salty flavors of canned black beans. In black bean and corn salsa, the addition of corn and cilantro balances the pinch of saltiness each bean piece lends to the salsa. Likewise, the black bean sweet potato burrito contrasts with the tender sweet potato, a heavy and hearty addition. In the same vein, the anchovies with herbs salad have something salty in it as well, courtesy of the tinned anchovies. These tasty simple recipes are easy to assemble since the ingredients are mostly as filling.
While the saltiness in the food was brought about by black beans and anchovy, for anything with asparagus, it is the vegetable that shines more than the additional flavors. Foremost because when you serve freshly harvested asparagus, it is barely cooked (just blanched with hot water and then plunged on ice water to maintain its beautiful spring green color). It makes for a good receptacle for such other addition as truffles and nuts in the recipes here: asparagus with truffle puree and asparagus with almonds.
Potatoes, baked or fried, also make for a tasty dish especially with butter or a slathering of sour cream and chives. For the apple cinnamon prawns, the combination of apple and cinnamons with olive oil to make a flavorful infusion give the prawns an exciting flavor profile.
To make your dishes tasty, maximize your use of the citrus or lemon zester. Lemon zest can be added into soups, stews, pasta sauces, spice rubs, and honey glaze. Orange or lemon zest may also be strewn into ricotta cheese or cream cheese to give the dish more tang. Just make sure you don’t grate into the white flesh which tends to be bitter from the fruit’s skin oils. Now that you know how to make your dish tasty, the rest should be simple to make. Just season, cook and serve.
