Chefs Demonstrate Produce-Centric Dishes At New York Produce Show
By Paul Frumkin
Chef Stuchel & his team at the 2013 New York Produce Show- This marks the third year in a row Chef Stuchel has taken Johnson & Wales University Students to participate in this terrific show.
Chef
Alain De Coster remembers the days when a typical restaurant vegetable
plate meant pale little piles of steamed spinach, green beans,
cauliflower, peas and carrots arranged on a dish with perhaps a poached
egg placed in the center.
But those days are long gone, declares the lead chef-instructor at The International Culinary Center in New York City.
“Something like that would be unthinkable today,” De Coster says
during a culinary demonstration at The New York Produce Show and
Conference. “Consumers are demanding much more when it comes to produce,
and chefs are eager to give them what they want. The quality of the
produce coming out today is phenomenal, and a well-thought-out vegetable
plate can really show a chef at the top of his game. If you have a
combination of beautiful vegetables — an explosion of flavors — they can
take you in a wonderful direction.”
This new, more sophisticated focus on vegetables and fruit was
apparent everywhere at the three-day show in New York. Professional
chefs and culinary educators demonstrated to attendees how far the
treatment of produce has progressed in restaurants, from being almost an
after-thought of menu development to sharing star billing with costly
proteins.
“One thing about vegetables — we can sell them as a main course like
that,” says chef-restaurateur David Burke, snapping his fingers.
Such culinary experts as Kerry Heffernan, Joe Quintana, Mark Weiss,
Burke and De Coster, as well as instructors and students from Johnson
& Wales University and Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts,
carried this produce-centric message through the show.
The event, presented by the Eastern Produce Council and Produce
Business magazine, showcased nonstop celebrity chef demonstrations
throughout the second day at Pier 94 in Manhattan. At the same time,
culinary instructors and their students roamed the show floor, foraging
among participating exhibitors for fruits and vegetables they could
transform into cutting-edge preparations at their Culinary Innovation
Stations.
The demonstrations were sponsored by Bejo Seeds Inc., Earthbound
Farm, East Coast Fresh, Five Star Premium Greens & Herbs, Hooray
Purée Inc., Mann Packing, PRO*ACT, Rainier Fruit Co. and Tasti-Lee
Tomatoes.
During the demonstrations, participating chefs shared their recipes
and cooking techniques for popular produce-based dishes. Joe Quintana,
regional executive chef for the 15-unit Rosa Mexicano restaurant chain,
discussed the upscale Mexican concept’s signature dish, guacamole
made-to-order tableside. “Each restaurant consumes an average of nine
cases of Hass avocados each day,” Quintana said, “for a total of more
than a million avocados a year chainwide.”
Rosa Mexicano’s recipe for guacamole calls for avocado, onions,
jalapeño chilies, cilantro and tomatoes, prepared with a traditional
molcajete y tejolete — or mortar and pestle — at each table.
Avocados are not the only high-volume produce item used by Rosa
Mexicano, Quintana says. Each restaurant uses 40 pounds of tomatillos
and 35 cases — weighing 15 to 20 pounds per case — of cilantro each
week, both of which are included in its salsa verde.
For the event, Quintana also prepared Sopa de Calabaza de Castilla a
la Mexicano, or pumpkin puree soup. The recipe calls for pumpkin puree,
olive oil, onion, garlic, jalapeños, Mexican cinnamon, allspice berries,
cilantro and heavy cream. The soup is garnished with pepitas, or
pumpkin seed croutons.
“Produce plays a big role in menu development at Rosa Mexicano,” he
says. “We try to bring something special to the flavors of Mexico.”
De Coster also prepared a pair of dishes showcasing a range of
vegetable and fruit items during his demonstration. For his first dish,
he combined both fruit and vegetables in an onion medley, baby spinach,
seasonal mushroom and Lady Alice apple torte. The tourte incorporates a
variety of onions (cippolini, red and white pearl onions and shallots)
and mushrooms (oyster, chanterelles, button or shiitake).
For his second dish, he prepared a Pissaladière Monégasque, a
pizza-like tarte from the south of France. The crust is topped with
white onions, a fondue of tomatoes, baby arugula leaves, garlic, thyme,
coriander, anchovies, and black pitted kalamata olives.
De Coster acknowledges the new wave of awareness surrounding produce.
“There is an emerging movement to show just how good produce can be,”
he says. “Chefs are more demanding when it comes to purchasing, and
we’re seeing that in the farm-to-table trend. It’s all about taste.”
David Burke, executive chef and owner of the New York-based David
Burke Group — which includes David Burke Townhouse, David Burke Fishtail
and David Burke Kitchen — acknowledges that professional “chefs are no
longer treating vegetables as secondary citizens. Now you’ve even got
stars, like the ’magical vegetable’ kale. Isn’t it amazing how something
can be around for decades and then it becomes a star?”
Burke demonstrated the versatility of the “magical vegetable” when he
prepared a vegetable torte with charred kale and kale-whipped potatoes
that also includes roasted cauliflower florets, zucchini, yellow squash,
red peppers and eggplant. “Tortes can be a rich, hearty vegetable
dish,” he says.
The veteran chef says he expects to see fruits and vegetables elbow
their way further into the spotlight in restaurants, which also is
likely to result in smaller portions of meat and fish. “Even at
steakhouses we’re seeing clever side dishes with produce,” he says. “And
it’s economical for us. Vegetables can weave in and out of any menu.”
Growers are helping to drive these new trends in produce usage, he
adds. “Growers have listened to chefs — we’re getting better vegetables.
Today, we can get whatever we want from suppliers. For example, when it
comes to herbs, everything in the world is at your fingertips.”
Kerry Heffernan, who honed his culinary craft at such New York
restaurants as Montrachet, Bouley, Eleven Madison Park and South Gate,
told attendees that adding a variety of produce to menus allows chefs
“to take things in new and challenging directions.” As an example,
Heffernan prepared a salad pairing oranges with carrots. “We’re
definitely seeing produce used in different ways,” Heffernan says.
Featuring the freshest ingredients also has become something of a
mission for many chefs. Restaurant customers, he says, “are even used to
seeing root vegetables like carrots and turnips served with the tops
still on, which is an indication of freshness that translates to [the
dish] being more nutritious.”
Heffernan also discussed how certain vegetables, such as kale, have
emerged as culinary stars and how this trend is expected to continue and
grow. Citing potential candidates for future menu stardom, Heffernan
points out, “Leeks are wonderful and don’t get enough attention.
Rutabaga is the unheralded star of the winter produce spectrum, and
salsify also bears a lot of interest. Dill is due to make a comeback,
too.”
Mark Weiss, a professionally trained culinarian who bills himself as
the “DJ Chef” and accompanies his cooking demonstrations with music,
demonstrated the preparation of several dishes, including sautéed shrimp
flavored with garlic, jalapeño peppers and red wine, served in scarlet
butter lettuce rose cups.
Like many of his other professional colleagues, Weiss cites the
widespread farm-to-table movement as being an important trend that is
helping to shape menu development. “Produce is all about fresh and
flavor now,” he says. “People are so conscious of what they’re eating
these days.”
Weiss also predicts that scratch-made preparations and gluten-free
dishes will continue to take on added importance in the foodservice
industry.
Foraging Young Chefs
Meanwhile, as chefs demonstrated the importance and versatility of
fruits and vegetables in the menu development process, culinary school
educators and their students fanned out across the exhibition floor with
the mission of bringing back a cornucopia of interesting produce that
would enable them to prepare cutting-edge dishes at their Culinary
Innovation Stations.
Douglas Stuchel, assistant professor at the Hospitality College of
Johnson & Wales University, Providence, RI, says his school’s four
participating students were sent out with foraging bags to gather
ingredients early in the day, after which they returned to the station
to prepare anywhere from 20 to 30 different dishes. Every recipe had to
serve 50 portions.
“We had about an hour or so to forage, and then we cooked for seven
hours,” he says, comparing it to a “mystery basket” competition.
Fourth-year pastry program student Michelle Johnson said the students
were nervous at first but got used to the action of foraging quickly.
“It was exciting,” she says. “We had some ideas before we went in and
then started foraging.” She says the group gathered “a lot of mushrooms,
onions, potatoes, avocados and tons of herbs.”
Among the team’s dishes was a savory fruit salad containing fresh
fruit with pine nuts and fresh herbs like thyme, rosemary and chives.
“People are more willing to experiment with sweet and savory flavors,”
Stuchel observes.
John Abels, lead instructor at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary
Arts, Chicago, IL, also led a team of four culinary students
participating in one of the two Culinary Innovation Stations at Pier 94.
He said his students visited about 15 exhibitors who had agreed to take
part in the event, from which they brought back such items as potatoes,
kale, baby fennel, fingerling potatoes, and finger limes. Jefferey
Brown, one of the students, says the group foraged for more than an hour
before returning to their station to begin preparing the dishes.
Among the preparations was an apple crisp, made with Lady Alice
apples, dusted with salted caramel powder (made by creating a buttery,
salted caramel toffee and blending it in a food processor with tapioca
Maltodextrin, a food-grade chemical that converts fat to powder). The
group also prepared a beet salad with candied walnuts.
Commenting on the show, Abels calls it “a tremendous learning
experience for our students. It taught them several new skills — for
instance, communicating with vendors, identifying quality produce,
sourcing new products and thinking critically on their feet.
“I am always impressed at the magnitude of this segment of the
industry,” he adds. “This is the third year I’ve been here, and there is
more produce every year.”
