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Innovate

For this blog I decided I wanted to talk about the famous chef Auguste Escoffier, who changed the entire world of Culinary Arts with his talents and ideals and was so innovative that he got to change the entire game. 

Auguste Escoffier, the King of Chefs and Chef of Kings, was a French chef who popularized French cooking methods, and it’s safe to say that it’s thanks to him that the Culinary world is so France-centric (and, honestly, nobody’s complaining about that). He followed Carême’s steps, but twisted them a bit to make them his own, thus making a whole new extraordinary thing and changing everything for the rest of us, probably without even realizing it at first. Escoffier was the one in charge of codifying and popularizing the five Mother Sauces (Béchamel, Hollindaise, Espagnole, Tomato sauce and Velouté). 

Thanks to Escoffier, the world started seeing cooking the way it is seen now: it’s a respectable and very important career, filled with passion and precision, it is one in which you have to be very organized and really love what you’re doing, because it’s very demanding, and people depend on you and have high expectations on what they’re gonna get from you. 

Escoffier’s legacy was so important that it didn’t take long for his ideals and methods to take over the world. He popularized the French way of doing things and his practices were adopted in the entire world, making Culinary Arts what it is today, changing it’s history and path forever. 

His story has affected every single chef’s life, since we owe most of our foundational knowledge to him, as well as the respect and appreciation that people have for us. 

He’s truly an icon in the Culinary world. 

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Hug a Farmer

Maizal is a Mexican company based in Toronto where their main focus is to grow beans and wheats in the most sustainable way possible to produce products such as tortillas, chips, and create and sell, for a fair price -even more fair than those you’d find at restaurants, since it’s not overpriced but they don’t sound like someone’s being forced into labor or been paid the minimum wage when they work such a hard job-, dishes such as tacos, quesadillas and so on, that are very important to the Mexican culture and gastronomy. 

They try to remain as environmentally-friendly as possible, replacing plastic with biodegradable stuff (such as what seem to be tree leaves, used to make plates!) but they haven’t been able to find a sustainable alternative to sealable bags so they’ve been forced to use a little bit of plastic. They also try not to waste any food if possible, so any time that something doesn’t sell, they do their best to send it back to the farm and either compost it or feed it to the animals, if it cannot be consumed by human beings, and all of this is just them trying not to harm the environment and share a part of their culture in the best way possible.

Their product seem to be really worth what the customer’s paying for, because you can tell that it’s very good quality and it’s grown by people who know what they’re doing and want to do it perfectly, as if not to embarrass their country and show people who are not from there one of the best sides of it.

I didn’t really learn much, since most of it was stuff I already knew or assumed but it was interesting to meet and talk to people who do everything they can to share a little piece of their country (as an international student, this is something I relate to since I love showing my friends and classmates stuff from my country whenever I’m given the chance) and try their best to help the environment at the same time.

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Gabriela Pulido - 101210976

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Purchasing meat and game

The animal I’ve chosen for this exercise was the chicken, since it’s the one I’m the most familiar with and it’s also the one I’ve cooked the most before, and I didn’t choose a specific cut because of the recipe I chose, which calls for a whole chicken or just the chef’s favourite piece.

Chickens are slaughtered at around six weeks old. They come in a variety, depending on how they were taken care of, like free-range, free-run, and some others, who lead people to believe that they got to be free-er than they actually were. They have both dark and light meat: the difference between the two is that the light meat is more tender, and it's like that because the muscle wasn't as used. Their dark meat comes from the legs and thighs, and their light meat is from muscles like the breasts, wings, and so on.

The price of a whole chicken depends on a couple of things: the butchery shop, the chicken’s size, it’s grade, the breed of chicken and some others, but the price averages around $30-$35 CAD. To make sure you get your money’s worth, you should use every single part of the chicken and not let anything go to waste. It’s easy to find a recipe that calls for a whole chicken but even if it wasn’t, you could cook most of it the same way and then use the scraps for something else –it can be grinded and used for a patty, or to be mixed with rice or pasta, and the bones could be used for a stock if they need to be removed for the cuts.

Some ways to cook chicken:

Roasting: while being rotated constantly, the chicken is roasted with it’s own fat and is exposed to heat or fire. 

Poaching: the chicken is submerged in a liquid (water or stock) and cooked at a low temperature.

Braising: first, the chicken is sautéed at a high temperature but is then moved to a covered pot with some liquid and is kept at a lower temperature.

Recipe: Sancocho colombiano (Colombian chicken stew).

Taken from FoodNetwork.

Ingredients:

1 gallon water

One 3-to 4-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces

2 cups chopped cilantro

7 cloves of garlic

3 medium carrots - chopped

1 red bell pepper - seeded, and chopped

1 green bell pepper - seeded, and chopped

1 scallion - chopped

3 low-sodium chicken bouillon cubes

1 small yucca - peeled and cut into small pieces

1 green plantain - peeled and cut into small pieces

5 all-purpose potatoes - halved

2 ripe plantains - peeled and cut into small pieces

4 ears corn, cut in 3 pieces

1 tbsp ground cumin

Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

In a blender, puree the garlic, carrots, peppers, onion, chile, and 1 cup cilantro

In a large pot, combine the purée with the water, bouillon cubes, cumin, and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the chicken and simmer for another 20 minutes.

Add the yucca and green plantain and simmer for 10 minutes more.

Add the potatoes, ripe plantain, and corn and simmer for another 15 minutes.

In a blender, combine the remaining cilantro and a little of the stew broth and puree. Stir the puree into the soup, season with salt and pepper, and serve.

Gabriela Pulido | 101210976

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Preservation

The foods I chose to talk about for this specific blog were a couple of vegetables (cucumber, watermelon radish, carrots, daikon) that I did for a previous class, meaning I have no pictures of the process but resorted to use some from different websites (links to each one can be found below the name of the vegetables) to show the raw vegetable and the ending result.

Ingredients

Cucumbers

Radish

Carrots

Daikon

750ml of cider vinegar

500ml of water

8 oz. of white sugar

4 tsp of salt

4 bay leaves

Recipe

Wash, peel and cut the radish, carrots and daikon into julienne.

Wash, split in half, deseed and cut the cucumbers into 1/4 inch think semi circles.

Place each vegetable into separate bowls.

Add the water, sugar, salt, vinegar and bay leaves into a sauce pot.

Bring mixture up to a quick simmer.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

When cold, pour the mixture over the vegetables, stir each and let sit.

Cucumber

Raw, by  GreenMyLife

Pickled, by Country Life Experiment

Radish  Raw, by Southern Exposure Pickled, by David Lebovitz

Carrots and daikon  Raw, by Battle of the Bánh Mì Pickled, by Today

Each vegetable was tasted before and after pickling and, needless to say, the difference was abismal. Taste-wise, each vegetable tasted a more sour-y, more acid after being pickled, the radish was even spicy. Their texture was softer after being soaked in the mixture for a while, and they were way less crunchy than when raw. Even though they weren’t submerged in the liquid for long, they still absorbed the flavour pretty quickly and you could taste the vinegar in them, and how the salt enhanced their natural flavours.

It was a pretty interesting project, since it was something I had never done before and I got to do it with my group, which consisted of some classmates I appreciate and have learned a lot from. It’s something I would love to try again, with different ingredients, timing trying more methods I’ve learned about in the last couple of weeks. 

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Nutrition blogs #1 and #2

Blog #1

The topic that interests me the most is definitely Vegan vs. Animal-based diets, since veganism and vegetarianism are huge topics, specially nowadays, and it’s always interesting to see what people come up with to be able to maintain that kind of lifestyle. I would love to learn more about that and other special diets in nutrition.

I do think that nutrition will be more important in the culinary world, because people are always seeking to switch to a healthier lifestyle and cooks should know how to please their customers with what they’re going to be looking for, and it’s also pretty interesting to create new dishes, or remake an old one, replacing some of the ingredients that don’t provide as many nutrients as others with them.  Credible website: World Health Organization (WHO) Not-so-credible website: Wikipedia 

Three ways to determine if a website is credible or not:

Who wrote the article? Check the qualification of the author, who they are, if they’ve worked enough to know what they’re talking about and are capable of explaining it. 

How long ago was it posted? Chances are something written 10 years ago might not be so true anymore. One of the best ways to know if a website is credible or not, is by checking the dates of the posts/articles in it. 

Is there any bias? Even if almost everything has certain degree of bias in it, a professional author knows not to let their opinion get in the way of what they’re writing about (at least not without proving why that is better than the alternative).

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Blog #2: Plant based (Vegan) vs. Animal based diets. 1) What is the definition of a plant-based diet? A plant-based diet is a diet in which one abstains from eating products that come from animals in any way (not just meat products, but also cheese, milk, etc.)

2) Provide 3 health benefits of following a plant-based diet versus the currently high animal based diet that is generally followed. Other than health benefits, what can be other benefits of following a plant-based diet (hint: think of the environment, moral/ethical values, cost, food sustainability, nutrient benefits)?

One of the main health benefits of vegan diets is that it’s richer in certain nutrients, such as potassium, vitamins A, C and E, fiber, and many more.

Studies show that it may protect the people who follow this lifestyle from certain cancers. (x) (x) (x) 

It’s associated to lower risks in heart diseases. 

As for non-health-related benefits, it’s been proven that plant-based diets are more sustainable and affect the environment less than an animal-based diet. This study explains how veganism conserves water, reduces energy consumption and purifies the air.

3) In your future culinary profession, can you see yourself incorporating plant-based foods in your menus? Why or Why not? As someone who’s really intrigued by veganism and it’s pros, I would love to incorporate it in my menus and career in general. Having it in the menu is inclusive and invites anyone who wants to eat in my restaurant to do it, it’s keeping in mind that people might stick to this lifestyle strictly and I’d want to be able to provide what they’re looking for, and it’s also a way of letting other people experiment with it.

4) Share a vegan recipe, in a standard recipe format (recipe can be sweet or savoury). Provide photos of your process with a) raw ingredients b) the cooking process c) finished product Due to personal issues (not being able to cook in the place I lived when this post was written), I’ll be posting a recipe I made a while ago but have no pictures of the progress or the final product. Avocado pasta 

Ingredients

12 oz spaghetti

2 avocados - halved, seeded and peeled

1/2 cup fresh basil leaves

2 cloves of garlic

2 tbsp lemon juice

1/3 cup olive oil

1 cup cherry tomatoes - cut in half

1/2 cup corn kernels - rinsed

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Prep

Cook the spaghetti following the instructions in the package and drain well.

Combine avocados, basil, garlic and lemon juice in the bowl of a food processor; season with salt and pepper to taste. 

Slowly add olive oil while still mixing until emulsified.

Mix the avocado sauce, tomatoes and corn into the pasta and serve immediately.

5) Reflect on your experience. How easy was it to find ingredients? Did you learn a new culinary skill while making the dish? What were some of your challenges? Would you make this recipe again? The ingredients were pretty easy to find, you’ll be able to find them in any grocery store. I doubt I learnt anything new and there really weren’t any challenges, since it’s a pretty simple recipe that doesn’t need much talent, it’s one that anyone could make, luckily. I’d definitely do it again, it’s pretty simple, quick and it’s delicious. 

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Panna cotta - sensory evaluation.

Picture taken from FoodNetwork

Panna cotta is a dessert from Italy, it’s main ingredients are gelatin, sugar, heavy cream and vanilla extract but it isn’t quite as cloying and sugary as it sounds - I’d say sweet is the only taste category this fits in, but it’s a good kind of sweet, one that won’t make you want to throw up or leave you craving for a bit more (I would know, I ate three of them). It’s a simple food, one where you don’t really have to use your senses on: it’s plain white (unless you add any kind of colorful fruit, which besides making it look more appetizing, would also make it taste better); unscented, you just get to smell a hint of the vanilla extract but it’s not as strong as one would expect; it’s texture is jello-like, so it’s kind of jiggly or a bit more liquidy depending on how long you let it rest for before you eat it.  It tastes of what it is: cream, sugar and vanilla, but, again, it’s not an overpowering taste, it’s pretty subtle and just good enough if you’re craving something sweet but easy to make. It isn’t very unique, but that doesn’t make it any less amazing.

I, as a person who really likes sweet stuff but hates being thrown off by it’s flavour when it’s too much, loved it because of how simple it is, would definitely make it for something like a family reunion, or a celebration of the sort, as a main dessert.

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Butternut Squash Soup

I chose this recipe because it is is a quick, easy and delicious one, is there anything else we can ask for?

Ingredients

400g of butternut squash

75g of onion

40g of leek (white part only)

20g of celery

1 clove of garlic

30g of butter

750mL of vegetable stock

Salt, white pepper and nutmeg to taste

Spice bag: thyme, bay leaf, parsley stems and crushed white peppercorns

Method

 Peel and dice all the vegetables, making sure to deseed the butternut squash and puréeing the garlic.

In a pan, sweat the onions, leeks, celery and garlic in butter until they're soft.

Add the squash and continue sweating.

Add the vegetable stock and spice bag.

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer.

When squash is soft, remove spice bag and transfer the vegetables to a blender, puréeing them until smooth. Pass through a strainer if needed.

Return soup to a clean pot and re-boil.

Adjust consistency by adding extra chicken stock and seasoning in small amounts.

Picture taken from PaleoLeap

The biggest challenge about this was the fact that I couldn't cook it at home, so I took advantage of making it for Chef Tomaselli in his Culinary Foundations class. At the time of presenting it, he said it was pretty good and liked it, which is something means a lot to a chef-to-be, specially after all the stress put into it (due to how complicated and hectic the class was) and taking into account the fact that it was my first time making a soup from scratch, without any kind of help. Overall, it was a pretty wholesome experience when it was done and the feedback was given. This is 100% a recipe I will make again, and can't wait to show it to my family when I see them again.