Master mixers

What’s the first word you think of when someone says “pumpkin”?

If your response is “pie,” you’re not alone, says Chef David Blaine, of Spokane’s Latah Bistro. For many Americans, that’s the only way they eat autumn’s ubiquitous orange squash.

But strip pumpkin of the sugar, spices, and Aunt Dolores’ flaky crust, and you have an ingredient with endless applications, says Blaine, who recently served a savory pumpkin chutney with duck at the restaurant.

“(Americans have) become so connected to the flavor of pumpkin pie that when you taste roasted pumpkin, nothing brings to mind pumpkin pie,” he says. “If you didn’t put pumpkin spices in pumpkin pie, you wouldn’t know it was pumpkin.”

Pumpkin isn’t the only ingredient that’s been typecast over the years. There’s a growing trend among chefs to find unexpected uses for ingredients that traditionally are tied to either savory or sweet dishes.

Call it culinary switch-hitting, if you will. Luna restaurant laces its butter cookies with rosemary. Chef Alexa Wilson, of Wild Sage American Bistro, recently won first prize at one of Spokane’s premier epicurean events for her saffron crème brulée. And Dave Hill, of Hill’s Restaurant, celebrated the end of last summer’s bounty with a tomato sorbet.

“It tasted like you were biting into a tomato,” Hill says.

(Hill considered pairing the sorbet with a pesto garnish, but left it plain “so the tomato could speak for itself.”)

At Latah Bistro, Blaine and sous chef Don Leonard sometimes use crushed, roasted cacao – the base ingredient in chocolate – to add an earthy flavor to chicken mole or steak.

“The raw product of cacao isn’t sweet itself,” Blaine says. “It takes a lot of sugar to realize its sweet characteristics.”

Leonard also recently incorporated lentils in a sweet bread pudding and stirred zucchini into a savory version of the dish.

“You put a lot of chocolate into anything and it tastes good,” Leonard says, of his Chocolate Sweet Lentil Bread Pudding.

Blaine makes a balsamic vinegar ice cream, explaining that the cream takes away the vinegar’s tartness, allowing complex flavors – such as wood and fruit qualities – to come through.

Crossing the sweet-savory borderline isn’t a new concept. In fact, the Mayas were flavoring chocolate with spices such as chili at least 1,000 years ago. Blaine says the savory-sweet switch-hitting chefs do today is simply bringing ingredients back to their roots.

It’s a matter of “identifying ingredients for what quality they have and not what they’ve been used for,” he says.

Not everyone’s willing to order a dish that sounds too experimental, but in order for cuisine to evolve, it’s up to chefs to find ways to intrigue people’s palate, he says.

“I don’t think anybody gets into this profession saying, ‘I can’t wait to spend the rest of my career doing the same thing that’s always been done,’ ” Blaine says.

When Wilson, of Wild Sage, set out to compete for best dessert at November’s Epicurean Delight, she says she wanted to serve something that wasn’t super sweet. The restaurant’s honey and saffron crème brulée won first prize.

Wilson says the trick is creating a dish that has a familiar element, but giving it a twist. Most people have eaten crème brulée, for example, but saffron gives it an element of surprise.

At Wild Sage, Wilson tricks the palate with some of her regular offerings, including serving lamb with a pepper jelly instead of sweet mint jelly, the more traditional accompaniment.

“The most common comment I get is on our French onion soup,” she says. “French onion soup is normally a very hearty, beef broth and roasted onion flavor. We cook ours with apples and put Martinelli’s apple cider in it.”

Wilson calls the subtly sweet soup an “unexpected flavor profile.”

“I get people who love it and say that’s the best soup in the world or people who say it’s not what they were expecting,” she says.

Blaine admits sweet-savory experimentation sometimes fails.

“I’ve made a lot of bad ice creams,” he says, adding that making goat cheese ice cream was his biggest failure to date. “It eliminated all the nice sourness of goat cheese and replaced it with the raw, unadulterated taste of a goat.”

Rosemary Butter Cookies

From Luna restaurant

1 pound butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

5 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons rosemary, chopped

Crystal sugar, for coating outer edges of cookies

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and blend until smooth again.

Combine the flour, salt and rosemary in a separate bowl, then combine the dry ingredients with the butter mixture, beating until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If necessary, add more flour to get this consistency.

Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour.

Using wax paper, roll the dough into a 13/4-inch diameter log, then roll the log in a shallow bowl or tray containing the large granulated sugar. Slice the log into 3/4-inch thick wheels and lay the wheels sideways on a cookie sheet.

Bake just until lightly golden on the outside, about 6 to 8 minutes.

Yield: Makes 2 1/2 to 3 dozen cookies

Approximate nutrition per cookie, based on 36: 185 calories, 11 grams fat (6.5 grams saturated, 51 percent fat calories), 2 grams protein, 21 grams carbohydrate, 39 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 156 milligrams sodium.

Honey Saffron Crème Brulée

From Wild Sage American Bistro

1 pint whipping cream

1/8 teaspoon saffron threads

4 egg yolks

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 ounce imported acacia honey or a flavorful honey of your choice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a small pan, heat the cream over low heat until bubbles form around the edges. Add the saffron threads and allow the mixture to steep for five minutes.

Strain the threads out at this point, if you wish.

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until thick, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and honey.

Combine the cream and egg mixtures and pour into six 6-ounce custard cups.

Place cups in baking pan that has about 1/2 inch of water in the bottom.

Bake until the custard is set, about 45 minutes.

Remove custard cups from the water and refrigerate them until chilled. Sprinkle each custard with about 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar.

Place on top oven rack under the broiler and broil until the sugar topping is browned. Alternatively, you may use a small torch to brown the brulée instead.

Yield: 6 servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 366 calories, 32 grams fat (19 grams saturated, 80 percent fat calories), 3.5 grams protein, 15 grams carbohydrate, 250 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 35 milligrams sodium.

Zucchini Bread Pudding

From Latah Bistro

For the zucchini bread:

2 cups pureed zucchini, squash or pumpkin

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable or canola oil

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

3 teaspoons cinnamon

For the bread pudding:

3/4 pound link sausage (Italian, andouille, German) diced

1 white onion, diced and sweat

2 ounces sage, chopped

2 ounces thyme, chopped

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

3 cups chicken stock

4 eggs, beaten

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

To make the zucchini bread, combine the zucchini, eggs and oil in a large bowl and set aside.

Mix the flour, sugar, soda, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the zucchini mixture using a paddle attachment. Mix until fully incorporated.

Divide into two loaf pans and bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour, or until done.

To make the bread pudding, cube 1 loaf of the zucchini bread into 1/2-inch by 1/2-inch pieces. Toss the bread, sausage, onion, sage, thyme, garlic, chicken stock and eggs together in a large mixing bowl and season with salt and pepper.

Pour into a buttered baking dish and cook 30 minutes covered and 10 minutes uncovered.

Yield: 14 to 16 servings

Approximate nutrition per serving, based on 16: 349 calories, 21 grams fat (4 grams saturated, 56 percent fat calories), 10 grams protein, 28 grams carbohydrate, 109 milligrams cholesterol, 1.4 grams dietary fiber, 572 milligrams sodium.

Chocolate Sweet Lentil Bread Pudding

From Latah Bistro

5 cups water, divided

2 cups lentils, rinsed

14 ounces chocolate, melted

1 quart half-and-half

2 cups egg yolk

6 cups sugar

1 loaf sturdy bread, cut into small cubes

Cover lentils with 4 cups water. Do not salt the water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes.

While still warm, process lentils in small batches in a blender until smooth. Additional water will be needed.

Pass the puree through a sieve to remove any additional grit. Fold in the melted chocolate.

In a saucepan, combine dairy and sugar and heat to a simmer. Whisk together 3 cups lentil puree mix and 2 cups egg yolk. Whisk the heated dairy mixture into the egg mixture.

Loosely fill 8-ounce custard slices with a sturdy bread cut in small cubes. Cover bread with custard mix and allow to absorb. Fill custard cups until no more mix will fit.

Cook in a 350 degree oven until the pudding crests.

Yield: 16 (8-ounce) servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 657 calories, 21 grams fat (11 grams saturated, 28 percent fat calories), 14 grams protein, 109 milligrams carbohydrate, 224 milligrams cholesterol, 6 grams dietary fiber, 279 milligrams sodium.

Sweet/Savory Holiday Chutney

From Dave Hill, Hill’s Restaurant

1 cup small diced mixed sweet bell peppers (red, green and orange)

1 cup small diced onion

1 cup diced orange segments and pineapple

Pepper flakes, to taste

1 cinnamon stick

2 whole cloves

1 cup apple cider vinegar

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup fresh cranberries

1 sage leaf

In a thick, dry, stainless steel pot, preheated until very hot, add the peppers, onions, pineapple and oranges and allow them to caramelize without stirring. Then add the pepper flakes, cinnamon stick and cloves.

Stir and allow the mixture to caramelize more, then add the vinegars and brown sugar.

Stir and cook over medium-high heat until reduced to a glaze.

Stir in the cranberries and sage and allow them to cook until they are just done.

Remove the chutney from the heat and refrigerate it for up to several weeks, if desired.

Remove and discard the cinnamon stick, cloves and sage leaf before serving.

The chutney can be served hot or cold as an accompaniment to turkey, ham, beef, venison or lamb.

Yield: About 12 (3-ounce) servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: 64 calories, less than 1 gram fat (no saturated fat, 2 percent fat calories), less than 1 gram protein, 16 grams carbohydrate, no cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 12 milligrams sodium.