On being more creative in the kitchen/fusion!

[BAPyessir6]

I love making things to a T in the kitchen, but I also like to flex my cooking knowledge/creativity and try to "make things work" by throwing stuff together. If you've ever seen Chopped on food Network, it's that same idea. People get a few ingredients and try to make dishes with it. (Say, a dessert using/featuring prunes, cream cheese, and animal crackers. Or an appetizer using tofu, tomato paste, and prosciutto)

Mostly I only do this when I have to use X ingredient up before it goes bad or I just have a ton of it, but I want to improve these cooking muscles. Is there any way to improve doing this, or is it a "just do it more and more" idea?

Shop with no grocery list? Force fusion dishes by choosing 2 random countries once a week?

The most recent 3 random kind of "fusion"/weird combo dishes I did within the past week were:
1. Cabbage rolls filled with pizza (pepperoni, cheese, tomato sauce, rice)
2. Carbonara using butternut squash in the sauce and red pepper flake to cut the sweetness of the sauce (egg, Parmesan, a little cream, butternut, basil, black pepper and bacon since I can't find guanciale)
3. A simple pork fried rice white shiro paste (miso!), cabbage, and apple. I fried the cabbage to a good golden to give it a nice char/smokiness that paired great with the apples I got from the orchard. I sprinkled some smoked Gouda on it too and that made it nice!

In my mind, this isn't super out of the box, but I wanna work on this nonetheless. Any ideas?

 

[caseydog]

2. Carbonara using butternut squash in the sauce and red pepper flake to cut the sweetness of the sauce (egg, Parmesan, a little cream, butternut, basil, black pepper and bacon since I can't find guanciale)

I've seen carbonara done with spaghetti squash on YouTube. It looked good

Using bacon is okay when you can't find Guanciale or Pancetta. Ya' gotta' do what ya' gotta' do. There is NO cream in carbonara. Never!

CD

 

[Badjak]

I think it is just a matter of trying things out, accepting sometimes it will go wrong.
For me, cheese on rice is a firm no. But thats me and a combo I won't even try.

One of my recent one was Thai red curry butternut with white beans.
Worked a dream, but you won't find it in Thailand

 

[boom]

No cheese on rice for me either. (Or seafood).

But yea, I can go entirely (we call it - IRON CHEF; “and the secrets ingredient is…”) experimental in the kitchen easily. But it has to be a riff on an actual dish for me.

Especially fun reworking leftovers.

 

[dragnlaw]

I've put cheese on rice but only in certain dishes and it is not the main focus. Risotto's often grate a bit on.
Honestly can't think of any other times that I have.

 

[boom]

I've put cheese on rice but only in certain dishes and it is not the main focus. Risotto's often grate a bit on.
Honestly can't think of any other times that I have.

ahhh...I stand corrected. Risotto is the exception!! thanks.

 

[Badjak]

I can understand risotto..
Didn't think of it
(Not a risotto fan though)

 

[dragnlaw]

Favourite

Mushroom Risotto = heaven on earth = food of the gods​