How to Enjoy Gourmet Foods For a Fraction of the Cost

Leveraging on the booming popularity of food gifts, the food gift industry has devised newer, better and more exciting choices to rope in customers. The mere mention of rare gourmet delights evokes a craving that's hard to resist. Gourmet food gifts promise to leave a mark of their own. Hard-to-find and unusual gourmet food gifts are ideal corporate gifts. In a highly competitive corporate scene, such gifts impress recipients because of their subtle personal touch. Gourmet gifts can be customized and chosen to cater to a specific event, occasion or individual client's taste. They can be enjoyed as special personal treats, or reserved to be given to someone special.

The market abounds in a wide variety of options in the gourmet food range. Most people associate fatty high-calorie food with gourmet food. The food industry has been sensitive to the demands of the customer. Specially customized gourmet gift baskets and gourmet food gifts are available for those on a diet plan, or for the health conscious. Gourmet fruit gifts are also a unique, with an assortment of exotic fruits, extraordinary cheeses, breads and crackers and bottled food items like brandy and wine. Wine is a popular item because of its popularity among both men and women. While men mostly enjoy a good bottle of wine, most women have a weakness for wine accessories like fine-cut wine glasses.

Gourmet food gifts, however, come with a price. While picking up such food gift items, freshness and quality should be

always ensured. It is best that the gifts are delivered within a day. There are many online options apart from the usual local vendors and shops.

Quality Gourmet food are the best foods and they are wonderful to try. Gourmet foods however have a gourmet price tag and not many people can afford to dine on fine food all the time.

Since gourmet ingredients are a lot more economical than eating out at top restaurants, what about making some delicious gourmet recipes at home? You can make seafood dishes, meat dishes, and even gourmet pizza recipes by dressing up classic favorites and making them extra special.

Some of the Most Expensive Gourmet Foods

Saffron is a delicate flavored spice, which is harvested from the saffron crocus flower. It takes between fifty thousand and seventy five thousand flowers to make one pound of dry saffron, which is why it has a price tag of between five hundred dollars and five thousand dollars per pound. You only need a tiny bit of saffron to flavor a recipe though.

Beluga caviar is a well known gourmet food and this caviar comes from a fish, which is more than a hundred years old. This type of fish has been around for about a hundred and twenty million years, making this caviar a product of a dinosaur era survivor. If you want to sample beluga caviar for yourself, expect to pay more than two thousand dollars per pound.

You might not consider potatoes to be a gourmet food but La Bonnotte is an almost extinct French variety, grown on the Noirmoutier island. Only one hundred tons of La Bonnotte potatoes are grown each year and the potato fields need to be fertilized by a special type of local seaweed. These potatoes cost about three hundred dollars per pound.

How to Transform a Plain Food into a Gourmet Dish

If the above foods are out of your price bracket, rest assured that it is possible to transform the plainest food into a delicacy by altering some of the ingredients, using the best ingredients you can get, and taking care with the cooking and presentation. Think of chicken nuggets, for example. These humble little fried pieces of chicken can be transformed into a gourmet dish.

To make a tasty horseradish dip, which perhaps suits gourmet chicken nuggets better than ketchup, combine a cup of sour cream with a couple of tablespoons of prepared white horseradish and season it to taste. Serve this dip chilled, with the chicken nuggets. The following recipe makes enough for four people as an entree or eight people as an appetizer.

Gourmet Chicken Nuggets Recipe

You will need: 

• 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
• 1 1/2 cups fine breadcrumbs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

How to make it:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and line a pair of baking sheets with aluminum foil. Cut the chicken breasts into 1 inch cubes. Mix the breadcrumbs, cheese, salt, pepper, oregano, and thyme in a Ziploc bag and shake it well.

Dip the chicken in the oil, and then roll it in the crumb mixture in the Ziploc bag. Bake the chicken on aluminum foil covered baking sheets for 10 minutes, then serve them with a dip.

Fine food does not have to cost the earth. If you like to eat well and you enjoy combining top quality ingredients with your favorite classic recipes, what about making some gourmet pizza recipes ? A few gourmet toppings can transform a humble pizza into something amazing. There are plenty of delicious types of pizza and healthy recipes you can make.