Food Gradients: Asala, African Walnut

I discovered #foodgradients on instagram last year and I fell in love.

What a delightful excuse to play with food without really messing about with flavours and textures.

Seattle-based food photographer Brittany Wright, 23, runs one of the most appetizing accounts on Instagram (@wrightkitchen), arranging foods by color for gorgeous gradient photos. Here, she shares her morning routine, and the story behind her stunning shots on instagram (@wrightkitchen); Today.com

For weeks we did nothing but make food gradients, of chilies and peppers and garden eggs and pear.

This was an exercise in sorting for the children  –  they loved it.

To sort things, you have to observe them closely, to judge what it is that makes one different from the other. To see natural clusters of sameness and then difference. 

Asala. Interesting nut, in season.

I’ve used it in a few interesting ways – to bring nuttiness and crunch to recipes.

The characteristic bitterness that comes when you drink water after eating isn’t there in all preparations.

Like in a couscous salad with green peppers – bell and hot, spring onions, green tomatoes, kumquat skins, raisins sultanas, cilantro, olive oil, salt.Because you need/ want nuts. And it works.

The bitterness people shy away from is dulled. Barely there. Instead, its character is distilled – creaminess, crunch and a peculiar flavour I haven’t quite ‘grasped’ come through.

And in a pesto. With looked like Okro soup but I can assure you – it wasn’t! The base is a of scent leaves, like ‘le dip‘, all blitzed up. Served with plantain chips. Reallllllllllly awesome. 

Both were delicious with no lingering bitterness. And in the past. It’s time to think up new things keeping in mind what Funke Koleosho shared with me on instagram:

‘My grandma made Egusi-style stew with this…tasted a little like bitter leaf soup, but without the bitter leaves…would be exciting to recreate this’.

Well, it’s the season. 

And yep, we are going to be eating lots of fruits and vegetables and nuts in season so…

What do you think would work with the Asala? I just might make it.

I would love to see it in a fritter…[wpurp-searchable-recipe]Food Gradients: Asala, African Walnut – – – [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]