Healthy cooking tips

My mignons

The most common request I get are healthy cooking tips so here are some suggestions to keep you occupied.

-Instead of butter use olive oil (I assume you all know that)
-Focus on spice rubs and mixes for your flavoring as opposed to butter and cream or fattening alternatives
-There are many flavorful pastes one can use to rub on meat or vegetables or use as a dip.  For example, check the recipe for chermoula in my blog under the 'recipe' label.  That is wonderful with a number of items.  I will also be posting more healthy dips and marinades like that.
-I have found the reason that some or many people don't like eating healthy is because of poor food preparation.  If you overcook your vegetables, chicken or fish, of course no one will like it.  Focus on the basic cooking techniques because it doesn't matter what kind of sauce or accompaniment you use, nothing will hide poor preparation.
-Avoid processed foods.  This is hard because in any supermarket it is filled with processed foods but you can avoid it.  When I was staying in a small town in France I saw people eating anything and everything.  Wine, cheese, cure meats, fattening food, desserts, you name it.  What I didn't see was a bunch of fat or obese people like we have in America.  There were no fast food restaurants and while processed and convenience food was available in this town it didn't play a dominant role in people's eating habits.  A majority of what people ate was prepared fresh.
So what I am getting at is if you want to eat apple pie or chocolate cake, eat it; just don't buy it.
-Focus on more raw foods.  I will do a blog on just this later on

Update

To all
Unfortunately I have limited access to the internet right now so you may see fewer, if any posts at all for the next few days or so but I will keep you posted.

Culinary regards,

Curt

Recipe-chermoula

All
I have been getting some requests for healthy recipes so here is a very versatile condiment that can be used as a salad dressing, marinade, hot sauce, cold sauce, accompaniment or whatever you want.  It works well with fish, meat chicken, lamb, potatoes, pretty much everything.

This is an olive oil based recipe and olive oil is a mono unsaturated fat which is healthier than saturated fats so this is good to eat.  It will keep for about a week or more in the refrigerator.

Recipe			Chermoula
Ingredients			Amount	Unit cost/Measure US$	Recipe cost US$
Olive oil			530gr	265 gr
Garlic, peeled, chopped			95gr	47 gr
Red onion, peeled, chopped			100gr	50 gr
Lemon juice			40gr	20 gr
Coriander leaves			45gr	22 gr
Italian parsley			50gr	25 gr
Green onion, chopped			45gr	22 gr
Cumin ground			7gr	3 gr
Paprika			35gr	17 gr
Smoked paprika			30gr	15 gr
Chili flakes			pinch
Salt			to taste
Ground black pepper			to taste
Cost
Add 10%
New cost
Yield			1 kg
Cost per portion
PROCEDURE:
Roughly chop any vegetables and herbs
Place all ingredients in food processor and puree until thick paste
Use on shrimp, chicken, beef, lamb, red snapper, etc.
Use as a marinade for grilling, side sauce, thin down for a salad dressing, etc.

Indian wedding-conclusion

We are getting all the food heated up for the plating and getting the two plating lines organized for executing the banquet.  For those of you who don't work in a kitchen, food is plated 'assembly line' style for banquets. You have long tables with stacks of plates on one end and the pans of food on the side of the table opposite the chefs who are plating. You usually have one person for each food item on the plate.  The chef at the end of the table with the stacks of plates will put a plate down, the next chef will put his food item on the plate and push the plate to the next chef, that chef will put his item on the plate and push it to the next chef and so on until the plate is completed.  The chef at the end wipes the plates and hands them to the servers.  When you are plating something like a five course meal for large numbers like 500 people you are basically standing there looking down for 30-45 minutes or more depending on the until the entire banquet is completed.

In the case of this wedding, there were not enough hot boxes to put the food in so we had to have a couple guys heat things in the oven and bring it to the plating line as we needed it.  An inconvenience but it can be done as the people plating cannot leave what they are doing.  Oh, for those of you who do not know what a hotbox is, it is what its name says it is.  It is a mobile or stationary box that plugs into the wall and you set it to the temperature you desire.  When you are plating a banquet simply cook your food and put it in the hot box and it keeps the food hot without cooking it like an oven would.  They also have cold boxes even though they are not called that and they keep the food........well, cold.

I already knew the chef of this hotel was a shoemaker but what really confirmed it was when we were plating the banquet.  On my plating line I had the Italian chef and the hotel chef (the shoemaker) working with me.  Here we are in the middle of plating this dinner, pumping out food and the chef takes a phone call on his cell phone.  He was talking on his phone with one hand and plating food with the other.  The Italian chef looked at me and said something in Italian (even though I couldn't understand it) that I could tell it was something bad regarding the chef's lack of professionalism and we both just started grinning.  I mean who the hell would take a phone call in the middle of plating a banquet? Idiot!

We finished plating the banquet which turned out to be a success.  It is kind of funny that everyone loved the food. That food was by no means what I would call great food (I know I wasn't very proud of it) because we didn't have the tools, or anything for that matter to do our job properly.  The guests of the wedding were all Indians, as you may have figured since I was in India and many of them don't know Western food as well as they know their own food so we were lucky.

We started to clean up but there was no soap, towels or anything to clean with and after the past few days of working in the most unhygienic and unsanitary conditions imaginable nobody was in the mood to deal with that shit anymore so we said "screw it" and left.  We had enough. Let those guys clean up.  If they want to work like pigs that is fine but I don't want to clean up after them.

After working in those conditions I felt a bit dirty, maybe even contaminated and I thought about that movie "Silkwood" with Meryl Streep as the main character who worked in a plutonium plant.  There is one scene where she is contaminated by radiation and they have to scrub her down with these harsh brushes and soap to remove any contaminants but it basically scrubbed her raw.  I though I may have to do the same to feel 'clean' again.

We finished our night in normal fashion in the bar with Black Label and cigars. While it felt good to be able to put out a banquet under those conditions and make everyone happy, we were looking forward to leaving.

I hope you enjoyed this story.  I will be putting more kitchen stories as well as recipes and please get your friends to add themselves as followers.

Culinary regards
Curt

Indian wedding part six

So here we are, the day of the wedding has arrived. My boss, the Italian chef, the Indian sous chef and I all had our morning coffee in the lounge sitting by the massive windows that reveal the stunning landscape outside.  It was still funny sitting in those beautiful surroundings knowing full well there was a disaster in waiting behind the scenes.  While we were sitting there one of the guys at our table went to the breakfast buffet to get some food.  He returned with a huge plate with everything from eggs to Indian specialties.  I looked at him in disbelief and asked, "are you nuts man?"
"What do you mean?" He replied puzzled.
"Dude do you really want to eat anything that came from that nasty kitchen?" I exclaimed.
"I have to eat, what are you doing for food?" He said.
"I have been eating packaged things like cookies and crackers."
He continued to eat and I looked at him like he was nuts.
For the past two days I have been thinking about having a HUGE meal when I return to Bombay because if I see one more damn cookie or cracker I will go postal!  Most people count sheep in their sleep, but for me during those nights I was counting pizzas.

We went to the kitchen and surprisingly everything was moving along fine.  There were still the occasional obscenities being blurted out and while we humored ourselves by making fun of that shoemaker chef.  Chefs always dog other chefs, it is our nature, but this guy really deserved it.  I mean you maintain a kitchen like this, what do you expect?

We were trying to figure out how to execute plating for 500 people because the jackasses who designed the kitchen obviously didn't consider many things like. Part of being a chef is taking a kitchen or system that doesn't work and making it work which is what we were doing here.  I brainstormed with my boss and we decided to make two plating lines so each line would only have to plate 250 plates.  We decided to plate the desserts in the hallway by setting up tables along the wall.  The hallways were so narrow I was a bit worried some server would walk by and unintentionally knock a plate(s) over.  We got the food heated up and because there were not enough hot boxes we had to use the ovens to keep food hot as well.

Until next time..........................................

Indian wedding part five

So it is the day before the wedding and we have a lot of prep to do.  The reinforcements arrived (my boss, the F&B and an Italian chef from another Hyatt) and I greeted them in the lobby to take them to the kitchen and show them around.  I have been anticipating the look on their faces when they see this god awful, disgusting operation much like you are looking forward to seeing someone's expression when you buy them a really nice birthday gift they would not expect.  They just have no idea what they are in store for.  As I was walking them through the kitchen they were dumbfounded and I was enjoying watching the look on their faces.  My boss told me that even though I texted him to tell him how bad it was he had no idea it would be like this.

After their shock had worn off we all took duties and started prepping.  The Italian chef took the risotto course, my sous chef took one course, I took one course and my boss helped where needed.  We quickly learned that if we were going to get our work done we had better hoard all the containers, knives, cutting boards and whatever else we could find.  In any kitchen cooks hoard and hide kitchen towels.  I think I have only worked in one or two kitchens in my career where we always had enough of them.  You can't pick up hot pans with your bare hands and can't clean without a towel.  Give a cook nice kitchen towels and it will always put a smile on their face.  Since that chef wasn't being supportive and we couldn't get any towels I went up to my room and took my bath towels and cut them up so we all had nice, new, clean towels to work with.  You should have seen the smiles on their faces. My boss asked me where I got the towels and when I told him my room he simply said, "well, I don't like the idea of cutting up guest towels but bearing in mind the circumstances, you gotta do what you gotta do."

While we were all working, the disgusting kitchen was naturally the topic of conversation.  "Curt, have you ever seen a kitchen like this?  What kind of chef allows this?  He is no fucking chef!" The Italian chef exclaimed.
I told him after a day I am just now coming out of shock so he should give it a day as well.

Every now and again someone, somewhere in the kitchen would yell some obscenities.
"Crap man!"
"Dammit!"
"Jesus Christ!"
"What the hell is this shit?"

Even the simplest thing like finding a towel or spoon was like pulling teeth.  There was not a shortage of profanity during those couple of days.  I think we even created some new words. It is enough of a challenge going to work in someone else's kitchen that you are not familiar with, not knowing the hot spots in the ovens, idiosyncrasies of that kitchen, where things are kept and so on, but worse is not knowing what state the kitchen will be in.

As I said previously, things always seem to work out but this time I was rightly concerned as to how on earth we were going to get this party out.  We were storing food in whatever we could find.   Large bowls, small bowls, water pitchers, sheet pans, trash cans that had new liners in them and so on.  What happens in situations like this is you basically have to compromise your standards big time.  We didn't have enough big pots for me to saute the onions properly so I put all the chopped onions on sheet pans and baked them in the oven.  Do what you have to and make sure the party goes out.

So the day has progressed and most of the prep is done.  Somebody mentioned aloud the thought of going to the bar and getting a drink and we all just nodded our heads with the utmost approval and called it a day.

Recipe-Three bean chili

My mignons

I didn't have time to finish the Indian wedding story tonight so I will leave you with a recipe.  When I lived in India I was the chef of an American style grill restaurant.  Yes, yes, I know, I know, it is funny that a hotel company would open a restaurant like that in a country that is 75% vegetarians.  Because of the huge vegetarian population our menu was basically two menus in one.  One side non-vegetarian items and one side vegetarian items.
This dish is one of those vegetarian items and it is one of the few vegetarian dishes I can eat as a meal and not feel cheated because I didn't eat any meat.
Now if you want to add some meat to this dish it would work fine.  I always like some kind of pork with beans.  I would add some chopped up sausage or something.  Yum!!!

Enjoy and tune in later for the conclusion of the Indian wedding story.

Duration 1 ½ hours

Serves 6

Three bean chili

U.O.M:

Liter

PURCHASE LIST

INGREDIENTS

FOR COOKING THE BEANS

35 gr. Kidney beans (dry weight)

35 gr. Black eyed beans (dry weight)

35 gr. White broad beans (dry weight)

1/4 ea. Carrot, large, rough chop

1/2 ea. small White onion, large, rough chop

1/2ea. stalk Celery, large, rough chop

4 ea. Parsley stems

3 sprigs Thyme

TO FINISH

1/2 lt. Canned peeled Italian potatoes

6 gr. Fresh thyme

15 gr. Chopped cilantro

30 gr. Garlic, minced

100 gr. White onion, ½”X1/2” dice

To taste Chili powder

To taste Cumin, ground

15 gr. Cayenne pepper

Couple drops Tabasco

To taste Salt

To taste Fresh cracked black pepper

To sauté Olive oil

Basic Preparation:

For the beans:

Soak the beans in 3 X the amount of water to beans one day prior.

Cook the beans with the ingredients listed until tender. DO NOT PUT SALT IN THE WATER.

How to tell if beans are cooked.

Take a few out of the water and break them in half. When they break does the texture look kind of smooth? If so, they are done. If the texture looks more like a broken rock, they need to cook more.

Also, taste a few beans to be sure if you think they are done.

Remember for this recipe you will be cooking the beans again so if they are slightly under cooked you can finish cooking them when you continue the preparation.

Drain the beans in a colander.

Keep aside until ready for use.

You may cook the beans up until a few days before use if necessary. If you do cook them ahead, place them in a container, wrap it with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

TO COMPLETE THE DISH

Heat a large bottomed pot over medium heat. Add oil to sauté.

Add the garlic, onions and jalapenos and sauté until translucent.

Add the paprika, cumin and chilli powder and sauté (careful not to burn the spices) for about 1 minute over medium heat stirring constantly.

Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for @ 1 hour.

Amount of cooked beans should be @ 200gr. Of each bean, however it won't hurt the recipe if there is more of one type of bean.  

Taste. Adjust seasoning as necessary.

Serve with bread and sour cream.

During the cooking process if for some reason the ingredients should start to burn, add a bit of water but not too much.