Paint Pots – Thinking Food Visually
I often think about food visually, literally, I imagine what a flavor looks like. I suppose this is in part to my training in design and that I think visually. Cooking is indeed a lot like painting, mixing together different colors for a particular effect, setting warm and cool colors side-by-side to create depth or an emotional response. So, I have taken to creating a series of essential “paint pots” that are always on hand when I am ready to “compose” a picture.
I will write about my paint pots and share how I make them. You should make up your own, and share them here, as well. Starting in no particular order, except this is what is happening in the kitchen now, I’ll share something I just made. Citrus is in season, a riot as a matter of fact, trees ripening fruit faster than it can be harvested, flavors peaking. Citrus, therefore, is on the menu. Most of us eat the fruit and throw out the peel – stop that right now! Eat the fruit, but use the peel. Lemon peel and orange peel can be a wonderful addition in many ways, as a matter of fact, lemon peel is an excellent substitute for salt.
Orange & Clove Pepper
What a bizarre combination. Not really. Picture a holiday potpourri – a large orange stuck with 40 cloves of Ceylon, close your eyes – can you smell it? Yes!
How to make it. Using very sharp knife, peel a number of oranges, leaving the bitter pith still attached to the orange. Set the oranges aside for later, to be peeled the remainder of the way, and eaten. Once the peel is removed, do not wait long to use, as the orange will begin to dry out and air-borne molds attack faster. If the oranges are not organic, rinse and dry them first, to remove any residue.
Next. (This process is something I learned from Hervé This, the energetic, mind-expanding French food chemist and author of: Molecular Gastronomy – Exploring the Science of Flavor.) 
Place the peels in a non-aluminum sauce pan. To a cup of peels, add 1/4 cup glucose and 1/4 cup water & 8 cloves. Glucose, of course is a basic sugar, less sweet than the common sucrose – you may substitute a very thick corn syrup. Over low heat, bring the mixture to a simmer. Cook until the liquid is reduced by half. Take off the heat, allow to cool. Add 1/4 cup of water again and return to the heat. This time, cook slowly, until all the water is evaporated and the mixture is very thick. Pour out onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone baking pad. (Here you will want to have one of these on hand, but in the worst case, line your baking pan with a piece of lightly oiled foil). In a low oven (low meant 225F to 275F), dry out the orange peel, watch closely, do not let the sugar caramelize, which means to take on color. This could take anywhere from thirty minutes to one hour. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
And now. In a spice grinder (a coffee grinder you reserve only for grinding spice), grind the cool, dried orange zest and clove into a fine powder. You may stop here. But, in a proportion of 2 parts orange to one part whole, black peppercorns, grind again into a fine powder. Store in a small jar for future use. Or, what I have done is divide the batch in two, half with and half without the pepper.
How to use. This “paint pot”, as it were, produces a haunting, hard to pinpoint essence. Use it towards the end of cooking to produce a sharper color or at the very beginning where it will become a background shade. Clove and pepper will be spicy and hot, the orange provides a chiaaroscuro effect, strongly lighting the food from the side and the reduced sweetness of the glucose mellows the mixture. Use it where ever you might just use pepper.