In the words of Anne Burrell, "brown food tastes good". Well, that's true as a guideline, but not a rule.
Because if you're serving guests, you're probably not going to want to slap this down on the table:
(it's the orange-star anise chicken thighs from All About Braising and it is utterly delicious, but you couldn't pay me to serve it to people I'm not related to; scallions, you're not fooling anyone)
Visual impact matters. I'll keep the lesson brief, because I don't want to get all fiddly about suggesting you buy fresh herbs just for a spot of green on your food, nor do I want to suggest that you should shell out twice as much for the purple potatoes just because they're purple.
But if you get the chance to play around with color, even if it doesn't affect the taste, it kind of feels like it does. Oranges in cardamom syrup over Greek yogurt: fabulous dessert. Doing the same thing with cara cara oranges, blood oranges, and clementines? Exponentially more fabulous.
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