Vanilla goes in cookies and cakes, right?

Whether it's sweet essences enhancing main courses or savory spices dressing up dessert, chefs are using new flavor partnerships to jump-start old recipes.

At Spago Palo Alto, executive chef Michael French has used cardamom in his chocolate ganache. At Citizen Cake in San Francisco, owner Elizabeth Falkner serves a cheese and polenta dessert with poached fruit and a red wine sauce that includes chile powder along with cinnamon, cardamom and cocoa powder. And at San Mateo's Viognier, pastry chef Camal El Sherifi makes a semifreddo parfait with Spanish saffron, acacia honey, lavender and white peaches.

Without going spicy hot or wild fusion, a little experimentation can bring new tastes and textures into your culinary repertoire, too.

Vanilla, a familiar flavor to most home cooks, is an ideal ingredient with which to start because of its versatility.

''Vanilla is a natural lifter and emulsifier; it evens out flavors,'' says Patricia Rain, a Santa Cruz food writer and retailer known as The Vanilla Queen. ''If you have baby vegetables that aren't as sweet as you like, a few drops of pure vanilla extract brings out their sweetness. This works especially well with peas, corn, beets, carrots, winter squash and sweet potatoes.''

Vanilla also is a natural antacid. That's why poaching acidic fruit such as fresh pineapple in liquid with a vanilla bean creates a bright, balanced compote. That balancing attribute also applies to savory sauces.

''Any sauce with citrus, vinegar or wine, from bearnaise to Hollandaise, benefits from a small addition of vanilla. It keeps the sparkle of the citrus or acidic flavor intact, but cuts some of the sharpness,'' says Rain.

Cuban-born food historian, author and restaurateur Maricel Presilla discovered vanilla's balancing ability during a trip to Veracruz in the late 1980s. There, she saw women adding it to their traditional shrimp dish in chipotle sauce.

Today, it's one of the most popular dishes at Zafra, her restaurant in Hoboken, N.J. Presilla says using ground vanilla bean in shrimp Veracruz brings together the flavors of the hot chipotle, acidic tomato and sweet plantain.

The use of vanilla as a flavoring agent came late to Mexico, even though, like chocolate, it is native to Mexico.

''Vanilla was considered sacred and virtually ignored in their cooking. It was the Europeans, especially the French, who recognized vanilla's potential with food,'' says Rain, author of ''The Vanilla Cookbook'' (Celestial Arts).

On the menus of chefs such as Wolfgang Puck and Thomas Keller, you'll see lobster served in vanilla sauce. Delicate-flavored pork or salmon also pair well with vanilla-laced sauces.

But vanilla is just the beginning.

For centuries, Mexican cooks have spiced their hot chocolate with chiles, each region favoring its own chiles ground into paste with roasted cacao beans. Chocolate began to be used in mole with the arrival of chocolate-loving Spanish.

Over the past 20 years, as Tex-Mex and Latin foods exploded on the culinary scene, U.S. consumption of hot spices such as chiles and mustard seeds increased 85 percent, according to the American Spice Trade Association.

Now chile powder, was once considered exotic, is sprinkled on almost everything from tuna-noodle casseroles to mac and cheese.

It's simply a matter of discovering what tastes good, say chefs like Presilla who enjoy experimenting.

''My father was an artist who developed his own unique palette. He used red and vermilion, but never orange. I feel the same about spices. You have to constantly develop your own flavor palate, not just adding ingredients for the sake of spicing or following the latest trend.''

Spicing, she says, is part visual, part taste and part aroma.

Take her use of achiote seeds in chocolate rice pudding. Aware that colonial cooks used achiote seeds to color water for cooking, Presilla boiled rice in achiote water to impart a deep orange color to the pudding. The resinous, slightly bitter taste of achiote adds another flavor dimension.

At the Greystone campus of the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, pastry chef instructor Stephen Durfee also enjoys experimenting with dessert flavors. He has sprinkled toasted caraway seeds on his rice pudding creations. And at an institute conference titled ''World of Flavor,'' he paired that with a puree of dried apricots.

''I think of flavors in terms of what I like and what I've done before. When I was young, my parents bought rye bread with caraway seeds,'' he said. ''I remember loving rye toast with apricot jam for breakfast. Wow. Caraway seeds go with apricot jam. It's a taste and visual memory.''

''We're seeing an increase in consumption of all spices related to the cuisines of India, Italy and the Middle East. That includes fennel and caraway seeds,'' says Tricia Laning, product development manager at Tone Brothers, leading supplier of spices to the United States with brands such as Spice Islands and French's seasonings.

Durfee has made candied fruit salad with caraway syrup and added fennel seeds to poached peaches and pears. Laning says she has worked with other chefs who have added caraway seeds to apple pie crust or mixed ground caraway seeds into hot chocolate.

Sweet, says Durfee, is not the only note to strike in a dessert.

''I think about a balance wheel of contrasting flavors and textures for each dessert. I look for salty, sour and bitter tastes to oppose the sweet,'' he says. ''That's why I garnish with ground coffee beans, crumbled burned bread and toasted, salty nuts.''

His approach leads to any number of unusual combinations, such as sweet and sour desserts from pickled blueberries spiced with cloves, cinnamon and allspice. And guess what he puts in shortbread paired with mangoes and ginger chutney? A dash of curry.

Vanilla-scented butternut squash risotto

Serves 6
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup scallions, sliced thinly OR 1/4 cup shallots finely chopped
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 1/2 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into small chunks or bite-size pieces
1/2 cup chopped parsley
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
Freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste
In a heavy-bottomed pan, cook scallions or shallots in oil over low-medium heat until lightly golden, about 5 minutes. Add rice and turn several times to coat with oil. Turn heat to medium-high and add a ladle of broth, stirring constantly to keep rice from sticking to the bottom or sides of pan. When broth has been absorbed, add another ladle of broth, the squash and the parsley. Stirring steadily to keep the rice from sticking, add balance of the broth, a ladle at a time. Rice is done when it is firm but tender, without a chalky center.

Remove from heat and add butter, vanilla, cheese, salt and pepper. Stir quickly and thoroughly to combine.

Per serving: 333 calories, 9g protein, 13g fat (5g saturated), 46g carbohydrate, 1,031mg sodium, 17mg cholesterol, 15g dietary fiber.

Rice pudding with caraway
and apricot puree

Serves 8
1 cup rice, preferably basmati or ''baby'' basmati
1 cup water
1/2 cup milk
Pinch salt
1 cup vanilla creme anglaise (You can substitute 1 cup melted vanilla ice cream or 1 cup cream mixed with 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract)
1 cup cream, whipped
2 teaspoons caraway seeds, toasted
Pistachio nuts, shelled and roughly chopped to garnish
For apricot puree
1/2 bottle white wine such as sauvignon blanc
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup sugar
8 ounces dried apricots
To make pudding: Place rice in saucepan with the water, milk and salt. Bring to a simmer, cover tightly, reduce heat and cook 20 minutes. Turn off heat but leave rice covered in pan to steam with lid closed for 10 minutes. Spread cooked rice on a sheet pan to cool. When cooled to room temperature, place rice in bowl, add vanilla and creme anglaise, then fold in whipped cream to make it lightly creamy. Serve with toasted caraway seeds, pistachio nuts and puree of poached dried apricots.

To make puree:

Bring wine to a boil and ignite liquid carefully with a match to flame off alcohol. Add sugar and water and mix until sugar dissolves. Add apricots and poach until tender. Timing varies, depending on the fruit. Puree mixture in a blender or food processor.

Per serving: 461 calories, 5g protein, 23g fat (14g saturated), 63g carbohydrate, 63mg sodium, 84mg cholesterol, 3g dietary fiber.

Shrimp Papantla with ripe plantains in vanilla chile chipotle sauce

Serves 8
1 1/2 pounds shrimp, medium-size (about 20-24 to the pound)
2 Mexican vanilla beans, plump, or 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 plantains, ripe (should be soft with blackened skin)
1 cup safflower or corn oil
2 pounds plum tomatoes (or canned tomatoes, drained), peeled, seeded and quartered
3 chipotle chiles in adobo (available in Latino markets)
1/4 cup olive oil or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract, preferably Gaya, (if using an unsweetened extract, add 1 teaspoon light brown sugar)
Salt to taste
1 medium white onion, peeled and julienned
Peel and de-vein shrimp, leaving on tails, and set aside. Cut vanilla beans into 1-inch pieces with a knife and then chop to a fine bread-crumb texture in a small food processor or spice grinder, about 2 teaspoons. Set aside.

Cut off brown ends of plantains and slit skin length-wise from end to end along its ridges, preferably with a table knife. With fingertips, work off skin. Slice crosswise into 1/4-inch rounds. Heat safflower or corn oil over moderate heat in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed saucepan or deep skillet until barely rippling. Fry plantains until golden, about 1-2 minutes. Remove from skillet and place on paper towels to drain. Keep in a warm place.

Place tomatoes and chiles in a blender or food processor and puree. Heat olive oil in a 9-inch skillet or medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in puree and salt. Saute, stirring occasionally, about 20 minutes or until sauce thickens and oil starts to separate from solids and begins to fry again. Stir in onions, ground vanilla or extract and cook about 2 minutes while stirring. Add shrimp and plantains. Cook 3 more minutes. Serve immediately.