IBM's Chef Watson Stirs Up Unusual Food Pairings In New Cookbook

The folks at IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) have published an innovative cookbook based on the research of Chef Watson. Never heard of him? That's because this chef isn't a "real" person - it's an artificial intelligence computer developed by IBM.

While it may sound incredible, some say Chef Watson's cooking knowledge may rival that of a Michelin-starred chef. Just like Ferran Adrià, Chef Watson's mission has been to come up with a wide assortment of unprecedented food pairings. These findings appear as recipes in Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson: Recipes for Innovation from IBM & the Institute of Culinary Education.

So how did Chef Watson come up with these perfect food pairings?

According to Steve Abrams, director of IBM’s Watson Life research program, Watson scanned publicly available information on recipes, common food pairings and the chemical compounds in food. This allowed the computer chef to "figure out" flavor combinations that work well together, like strawberries and mushrooms or Vietnamese apple kebabs, Quartz reports.

Cognitive Cooking features 65 recipes including a Spanish Almond Crescent (Chef Watson's first-ever recipe), Creole Shrimp-Lamb Dumplings, Hoof-and-Honey Ale and Italian-Pumpkin Cheesecake. It's available on Amazon but you can get a glimpse some of the recipes over at IBM.

Here's an inside look at IBM's Chef Watson project:

Via Quartz