Nourish Publication_Volume 3 Produce Edition

PRODUCE

urish

VOLUME 3

JULY TO SEPTEMBER 2018

WAITSTAFF TRAINING

TIMING DOWN TO A SCIENCE THE MAGIC OF MAKING MUSH FOR DINNER

YES YOU NEED A

COFFEE PROGRAM SALAD SPINNERS INSPIRATIONS FOR MODERN SALAD BUILDS

GET THE MOST FROM YOUR PRODUCE:

ROOT TO STALK COOKING

We have the tools

to feed your goals.

Customized Solutions We offer a variety of services that can be tailored to your business.

Custom Cheese Blends For more than 30 years, we’ve been blending cheese at our facility in Rice, Minnesota. Today we process more than 600 different blends, and can design one just for your operation.

The Freshest Seafood With decades of fish mongering experience, our seafood specialists inspect and fillet a variety of fresh fish daily. We source around the globe and bring the best cuts to your kitchen. We can even overnight freshly cut fish from our custom facility in Miami, Florida!

Custom Cuts of The Best Meats Our experienced team hand-cuts the finest meat to exact customer specifications. From the best burger meat, to the finest steaks, we’ve got you covered.

Fresh Ideas We are always offering up fresh ideas for your business. Our executive chefs help with menu inspiration, and our internal specialists, trainers and marketing consultants can help with other aspects of your business. We share their knowledge with you through emails, articles and recipes on our web site, our blog FoodCentric.com, Facebook, our mobile app and more.

Innovative Tools We make marketing and menu creation easier than ever.

PerformanceConnect app provides ideas, recipes, trends, and allows you to track your delivery truck.

EandSPerformance.com features over 30,000 equipment and supply products you can purchase online and have shipped directly to you ASAP. PerformanceNet & PerformanceMobile Our enhanced online ordering system is supported on multiple browsers, and lets you customize your dashboard, view invoices, and perform enhanced product searches.

For more information on Performance Foodservice - Springfield, please visit PerformanceFoodservice.com/springfield.

CALL US: (413) 846-5400 / (800) 388-0257 1 PERFORMANCE BOULEVARD, SPRINGFIELD, MA 01104

Menuetta marketing suite simplifies your online and social marketing efforts. Plan, schedule and implement all your initiatives with one single program.

The Roots Behind a Strong Produce Program Teamwork: Achieving Consistent Growth Year After Year

The key to a successful program is driven by quality, consistency, and the ability to service all sectors of the foodservice business. With the help of the team, John Carpenito and Mario Rodriguez have built the foundation of a successful produce program by embracing these ideals and adapting others, including a focus on locally grown and sustainable produce. John feels this focus is instrumental in our customers' success, as well as our success as a broadliner.

Locally Grown Products: Adding local items to your menu will resonate well with your customers and demonstrate the progression and creativity in your menu.

Sustainability: Conservation of our natural resources and good stewardship of the environment is important. Purchasing from local growers aids this ideal.

Our produce team brings honesty, integrity and a sense of urgency to our location and delivers the safest and highest quality of fresh produce from local and regional sources. John and Mario bring passion to the business with their incredible tenure in the industry, 35 and 25 years respectively. Just like our produce, our talent blossoms and is picked and preserved when ripe.

Mario Rodriguez Produce Quality Control Coordinator Mario has been with Performance Foodservice-Springfield for 25 years, operating as Produce Quality Control Coordinator for the last 15. During this time, he has gained an incredible understanding of the product mix, translating to thorough produce inspections. This allows for the best product available for our customer at all times. His passion for the job is infectious, and he is revered by our staff and vendors alike. What's more, Mario consistently has the customer's best interests in mind, making him a wonderful asset to the facility.

John Carpenito Produce Category Manager John was introduced to the produce industry at a very young age by his family who owned and operated a wholesale and retail produce business in Boston, MA. Over the years, he gained an intimate understanding of the industry, achieved by walking the Boston Market and performing roles including quality control, purchasing direct from suppliers (growers) and delivery and distribution. He had not only gained a thorough understanding of the produce sector, but he had also established a strong work ethic serving him well in this position over the past 15 years.

John remains vigilant maintaining the image behind the Peak Fresh Produce™ label. Launched in 2015, the team has been able to maintain a reliable program containing high quality produce items, creating a comfort zone amongst our customer base. The driving force behind its success lies in our customers and sales team. Without their necessary & constructive feedback, we could only anticipate needs based on market trends.

John’s uncompromising desire for quality has built one of the strongest broadline produce programs in the Northeast. Informative, knowledgeable and on top of the latest trends, John is an incredible resource when making produce decisions in your operation.

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Volume 3: what’s inside

Yes, You Need a

Coffee Program So, your wine program is the talk of the town. Your craft cocktail program gets updated seasonally according to raves and online buzz. Your coffee program…. Wait, what? You don’t have a coffee program? Why not?

People willingly drop big money on coffee, plus coffee is an integral closing part of any good meal service. It can even be a way to jump that check average up by ten or twenty bucks per person.

Without coffee, they might not get that extravagant dessert or relaxing cordial to wrap things up. Or worse, they know someplace else to get that robust cup and either leave to spend that money elsewhere or never come in the first place because they want a fuller dining experience.

The sad reality is too many restaurants treat coffee as an afterthought, and the lack of planning to integrate coffee into what is otherwise a well-choreographed meal shows. Yes, you made the pasta yourself with imported, small batch flour that’s been extruded from a custom ordered, hand-made bronze dye. The sausage was created in-house using a heritage pork breed. Everything is served on ceramic plates, made from locally sourced clay, thrown and glazed by two ladies living off the grid just outside of town.

Your coffee, well, your coffee comes from the same machine and is served in the same Bunn carafes as the culinarily questionable greasy spoon down the street.

By: Piet E. Jones

Creating a coffee program can be a daunting and expensive task. High end machines can run into the tens of thousands of dollars and take up valuable space in your restaurant. Training your entire front of house staff to pull the perfect espresso is time consuming and can lead to wildly inconsistent results, while the volume needed to justify hiring a trained barista is simply out of reach for most small eateries.

One option, especially for making specialty coffees like lattes, is to use flavored coffee pods.

It’s not the best coffee but it is consistent and fast.

In 2013, Grub Street reported that around 30% of Michelin restaurants use pods citing space, consistency, and the ability to offer a wider array of choices as the impetus. Of course, do you really want to pair artificially flavored coffee pods with that blackberry pie your pastry chef just made with fresh berries from the much beloved local berry farm? Probably not.

So, big, fancy coffee machines with all the bells and whistles are cost prohibitive and pods simply may not fit your culinary philosophy. The choice then is to keep it simple. Don’t try to compete with the local coffee houses. Simply serve a good cup of coffee and make it uniquely yours.

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First, find the right coffee. Either partner with a local roaster or get the right foodservice product that will provide you with constant availability and consistency. The right coffee also doesn’t mean the best rated or most expensive. Pick the blend that complements your food and clientele. A younger, hipper crowd might prefer a darker, bolder blend while an older, more refined crowd may opt for a lighter roast.

Next you have to pick the right method. Traditional drip is fine but make sure it’s well maintained.

Regularly clean the pots with salt and ice (1/2 cup salt and one cup ice in a room temperature pot, swirling the pot until the interior glass is crystal clean). Similarly clean the machine by running a cycle with vinegar added to the mix at least once a month (run it with clean water to remove the vinegar smell, because no one wants coffee vinegar…). Ditch the Bunn carafes. Thermal carafes come in many options to complement your look and style while keeping the coffee hot and fresh much longer, reducing waste and saving money over time.

Another option is to take coffee making out of the kitchen and onto the main floor. Current cutting edge brewing techniques lend themselves nicely to table side service or even to just an open station in view of the diners. Kalita Wave brewing, the current trend setter for pour over coffee making, is sure to excite your diners. Sleek and stylish, it is also very simple, easy to clean, while working well with either thermal carafes or your own handblown glass carafes (in case those two off-grid ladies do that too). Other options for making coffee at the table include Chemex and AeroPress. Even the old standby, the French Press, is a great candidate.

Making a small or large pot, beyond better pricing options and portion control, right in front of your guests ensures they know it’s fresh and builds anticipation for the hot brew. You can even offer steamed milk for a small up charge.

Which brings us to the last thing to consider when creating your own coffee program, sugar. For artificial sweeteners, you have to go with sugar packets. For real sugar, consider sugar cubes.

Perhaps both refined and Demerara. You can even get a little creative and serve a simple syrup in a small jug or a crystallized sugar swizzle. Small touches like these can elevate your coffee service into something special.

A dinner is an experience. Every part is integral to the story you are trying to tell as a chef. Coffee is often the time your diners relax and mull over the experience they’ve just enjoyed. Don’t let a substandard cup of coffee be the last thing they recall.

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THE MAGIC OF

MAKING MUSH FOR DINNER

Vegetable purées deliver flavor like nothing else

By Sophie Brickman Saveur Magazine

As a student at a classic French culinary school, the clarity of my consommé, the silkiness of my béarnaise, and the uniformity of my brunoise were ruthlessly judged—earning, at best, a curt nod of approval (and, at worst, a ten-minute lecture on respect for la carotte). Then, upon graduation, I found myself working the line at the Michelin-starred Gramercy Tavern in New York City making baby food.

Every day, before the lunch rush, I whipped up a vat each of carrot and onion purée, cooking down military-sized pots of the vegetables until they were soft, blending them, and pushing them through a tamis until they reached the consistency of sleek, edible satin.

Tasting intensely of their starring ingredients (purée is from the Latin word purus, or pure), these vibrant mushes were divided into quart containers and dropped off at stations to be dolloped into sauces for fish or meat or, in my case, a carrot-barley risotto. They were used as thickeners, to bind, and for added flavor, precisely

the way I'd been taught to utilize cream and butter in school, mon dieu.

Cut to me making a favorite pasta sauce one night at home, many years removed from professional restaurant work. I stir in a final dash of cream, as the recipe dictates, and the muscle memory of doing the same thing with onion purée and Gramercy's risotto kicks in. Back then, I'd thought little of the cleverness of the technique— I spent much of my stint on the line panting to catch up to my more proficient colleagues and cleaning errant bits of purée from my hair. But now it occurs to me that it'd be tastier to add a spoonful of onion or garlic purée into my pasta sauce instead of simply a thick glug of fatty cream. Why wasn't that standard culinary practice?

I check in with Escoffier and Larousse, my go-to classic French reference books, to see if they use vegetable purées to thicken or bind while adding flavor.

Rien. I do some poking into the Italian section of the saveur

library. Niente. The only vegetable purées I turn up are in the form of soups, or side dishes meant to accompany meats, like mashed potatoes.

And so I go back to the source himself, my old boss and culinary mentor.

“It's a little like when you make dashi for the first time,” says Michael Anthony, Gramercy's executive chef, as we sip espressos in the airy dining room of his newest restaurant, Untitled at the Whitney. “You do all this work and then taste it and it's like, ‘That's it? Why'd I go through the trouble?’ But, that dashi, those purées, they're our building blocks.”

The purées he employs at his restaurants—garlic simmered in milk, celery root with apple, spinach—can change with the season and appear in varying ways, including, of course, the cheffy practice of a swoop underneath a protein. But they are also used as thickeners and binders, just as I’d remembered.

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When you’re working with a carrot purée, it should taste like carrots, just carrots.

“It’s not an overcomplicated style of cooking,” he told me. “When you’re working with a carrot purée, it should taste like carrots, just carrots.”

In his new cookbook, V is for Vegetables, Anthony recommends folding purée into farro to give it more body and flavor without the added heaviness of butter or cream, and at Untitled, he adds a spoonful of onion purée to a mix of kale and radicchio for a riff on a classic creamed spinach, which accompanies a roasted and fried chicken dish.

clique of nouvelle cuisine chefs— Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, and Frédy Girardet, who was famous for his thin, vinaigrette-like purées that pooled on the plate below meats—and then trickled to the States. Before we part, Anthony suggests I get in touch with one of these stateside purée fanatics, New York chef David Bouley.

“So I’ll be Captain Kirk and you be Spock,” Bouley says, when I reach him on his cellphone a few days later to talk purée.

Uh, oui, chef.

“I wish I could take credit for the technique as a stroke of genius,” Anthony says. He surmises that the idea of using purées to thicken and flavor came from the 1960s

“We find ourselves in Italy, and there’s this beautiful old woman making marinara sauce, and we go over to take a look and there

are no tomatoes in sight; she’s just cooking down onions in a pot forever, right? And we wait and wait for her to add the tomatoes, and finally, after ages, she throws in a few, no paste, no purée, rices it all, and it’s the best marinara we’ve ever had, and you’re asking me, ‘What’s that all about?’ Now we get on our starship and zip to Lyon, and there’s this other beautiful old lady, and she’s cooking her onions down and down, and they get browner and browner and finally she puts in a shot of sherry and some water on top and it’s the best onion soup you’ve ever had in your life, right? So what’s going on?

These ladies are taking the onions to the point where they’re the most flavorful, extracting that flavor, and boom, you have a building block. That’s what my purées are.”

While Bouley did, indeed, cook in Girardet’s kitchen, he says his motivation to cull down dairy and starches and cant more heavily toward vegetables came when he opened up the French restaurant Montrachet in the 1980s.

He wanted to make lighter, healthier food for his clients, and also stock his kitchen with elements that could be combined in countless ways to create a myriad of final products, so that tasting menus could come together easily and be as varied as the guests who’d be eating them.

To this day he keeps upward of 100 purées at the ready in his walk-in. Of course, he doesn’t think home cooks need to have that many on hand, but a few in the freezer, that can be broken off and thrown into a saucepan with pasta or soup? Why on earth wouldn’t you stock that, just as you do butter and lemon juice?

And so I dutifully go home and roast shallots with wine and port in the oven, low and slow for a couple hours, to make one of his favorite purée combinations. As the shallots collapse in the oven, and the wine-port mixture reduces, I find myself inhaling the air, open-mouthed. When the time comes, I push everything through a tamis and throw the burgundy mush into the fridge, where it sits. And sits. Maybe I forget about it.

And then, one night, with friends in town, I am over the stove stirring that same simple pasta sauce and decide to add in a few spoonfuls of that red wine—shallot purée instead of cream. And just like that, I layer on a deeply complex, extremely satisfying note, sweet with the softened shallots, rich with the wine, that makes it taste like I’d simmered that sauce for half a day, instead of just an hour. A few nights later, I throw some into a jarred (gasp) sauce.

Same amazing transformation. And then into a quick kale sauté. Everything it hits, it improves.

“They’re like pigments,” Bouley told me. “You paint your own design, sure, but you have to have quality pigments. And the better the pigment, the better the result of your work.”

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Step Outside the Box & Inspire Summer Sales By: Piet E. Jones 12

Summer is here.

Warm days and long evenings. Extended weekends full of holiday cookouts, grilling with friends and unless you’re lucky enough to be a tourist destination, empty tables. What can be done to keep that revenue flowing during the off season?

You could start by thinking outside the box.

The box being your restaurant. And outside being, well, outside. In today’s busy world, people love weekend cookouts and holiday barbecues, but many don’t have time to make a dish to bring. Add to that the increasing sophistication of people’s palates, along with a desire to show off to friends, and suddenly that quart of three-bean salad from the grocery store just doesn’t quite cut it anymore.

Why not take advantage of the season and offer your menu as an alternative for all these needs? Look to your side and appetizer menu, even your dessert list, and let your imagination run. Got garlic mashed potatoes as a side?

Maybe you’re well known for your gruyere mac-n-cheese. You probably already make these items in bulk—why not offer them in portion sizes perfect for picnic tables? Some items might not even require reheating. Your green bean and bacon side with a mustard vinaigrette? It’s just as good served cold as it is hot.

Deviled eggs are hot right now. Lucky for you, they are easy for a kitchen to churn out in great numbers, deceptively simple, and endlessly customizable. Top them with crispy, chopped bacon or mix them up with your house-made relish. Flavor them with herbs and spices to match the style of your menu. No matter how you make them yours, when they arrive at the party, it’s doubtful there will be any left before the meats are finished grilling. Branding the platter with the name of your restaurant can’t hurt, lest someone else try to take credit for all that deliciousness.

There really is no limit to the scale of your offerings, even main courses. Try a tray of fried chicken, burger for those who want the flavors of summer grilling without the work, or even taco kits with all the fixings. Hot dogs and sausages are easily made in-house. Offer a variety of grinds or allow the customer to customize the spices to better fit the theme for their weekend bash.

And don’t forget to offer desserts. Whole pies and cakes can be stunning, but so can sampler platters that have broad appeal to both differing tastes and healthier eating habits.

Helping a guest out with a side or creating the whole she-bang can help keep your staff busy on the weekends and before a big holiday, but what about the weekdays? If there’s a park nearby, offer picnics to-go. Loan or rent baskets and then fill them up. Try boxed lunches during the day, then perhaps cheese and charcuterie with crusty bread in the evening. Just don’t forget to check your local ABC laws before you add a bottle of wine to the basket. And it’s not just couples looking for a romantic setting that might want that picnic. Mom and dad picking up the kids from summer daycare might want to enjoy a dinner al fresco with the kids without having to worry about prep or clean-up.

You know you already have regulars who love your food. Many will be thrilled to be able to take your food to their next weekend gathering. And if you break even, don’t fret.

Your food on that table is the kind of advertising money can’t buy and your customers are suddenly your traveling sales team. People trying your food outside your restaurant box will be driven in to see what else you have to offer and when those pictures hit Instagram and Facebook, so will the whole community.

People love eating out during the summer. Even if they’re not eating in your restaurant, you can make sure they’re still eating your food.

SALAD SPINNERS Inspirations for salad builds with a modern flavor narrative

BY ELIZA AMARI FLAVOR & THE MENU

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Salads used to score a lot of points with consumers because of their fresh, wholesome promise. But with modern bowls fulfilling a similar promise, the salad category has had to re-examine its value proposition. Taking a cue from bowls, modern salad development focuses around building a strong flavor narrative, upping textural interest, deepening complexity and relieving palate fatigue.

Commodity boards have devoted a lot of resources toward developing recipes that capture all of that in a salad bowl. We asked a handful of them for their favorite builds—ones that can either be duplicated or translated onto a number of different menus.

Fancying Fattoush

A classic Eastern Mediterranean salad, fattoush can provide an array of options for salad adaptations today. Typically featuring stale, toasted or fried flatbread, seasonal vegetables and tangy dressing, translating this salad helps leverage the red-hot exploration of Eastern Med flavors.

This Za’atar Spiced Lamb Fattoush Salad and Persian Feta, created by Scott Pickett, chef/owner of Estelle Bistro in Melbourne, Australia, features a za’atar-spiced Aussie lamb loin over a mix of vine-ripened tomatoes, Lebanese cucumbers, radishes and purslane sprigs seasoned with sumac and mint leaves and toasted pita bread. Persian feta, pomegranate seeds and baby mint leaves garnish the salad. “The sumac adds a signature acidity and a flavor that I think is catching on here in the U.S.,” says Catherine Golding, business development manager for True Aussie Beef & Lamb.

“Fattoush is ripe for adaptation to American menus.

The Mediterranean flavors are definitely in demand, it reads ‘healthy’ and adapts easily to incorporate seasonal veggies.”

Best Dressed

Dressings are fundamental for modern, flavorful salads and can oftentimes be the most laborious part of the creation. The effort pays off in this arugula-kale salad of candied walnuts, bacon and roasted sweet potatoes, topped with a Ginger Tofu Dressing, created by Tag Grandgeorge, chef of Le Jardin in Des Moines (taking top honors in the 2017 Soy Salad Dressing Recipe Competition). Silken tofu adds a unique note to the Asian-inspired dressing, prepared with both white and rice-wine vinegars along with a blend of seasonings, all emulsified by a combination of canola and soybean oils. The tofu contributes both creaminess and high-quality plant protein. “The dressing is compatible with plant-based menus, vegan and vegetarian salads as well as seafood or poultry salads,” says food writer Gail Bellamy on behalf of The Soyfoods Council. “It marries well with healthful ingredients such as sweet potatoes, walnuts and kale, and it inspires simple adaptations, such as whisking in mashed fresh avocado.”

A Warming Trend

The notion of a salad as a dish primarily served cold can limit creativity. This Warm Potato Salad provides a modern take on the classic conception of salad, blending the boundaries of salad and entrée in delicious new light. “The definition of salad is expanding, and this warm salad option proves that most entrées comprised of a protein, starch and vegetable can be transformed into a salad composition,” says RJ Harvey, global foodservice marketing manager for Potatoes USA. The cooked new potatoes are tossed with a marinade of seasonings such as lime, cumin, garlic and cilantro, then sautéed with chorizo and tomatoes. Grilled chicken adds an additional protein and, together with the crispy, soft potatoes, tops a bed of arugula, giving it a slight wilting from the heat. Hearty and comforting, this warm salad also offers a seasonal alternative to any cold salad.

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Savory Sweet

Showcasing how salads can range in composition and appearance, this Lentil Salad with Kale, Roasted Grapes and Mushrooms features a wonderful combination of ingredients, both cooked and raw, that offers strong visual appeal and a modern display of sweet and savory. Squash, shallots, mushrooms, grapes and sage are tossed with olive oil and salt, then roasted together. This blend is then tossed with fresh kale to slightly wilt the greens, then lentils are added. The salad is dressed with an orange vinaigrette that features browned butter in the orange juice reduction. “Grapes are used to offer a refreshing contrast to the other ingredients and deliver a juicy, delicate sweetness that elevates the flavor notes in this salad,” says Courtney Romano, foodservice consultant for the California Table Grape Commission. “Although a workable vegetarian dish, a protein of almost any type could be added to further increase the heartiness of this salad.”

Dressing Up

Dressings help bring home the crave factor. This Grilled Chicken Salad with Honey Jalapeño Vinaigrette delivers the hot honey trend perfectly. The vinaigrette is used first to marinate the chicken, which is then grilled and placed atop the baby spinach.

Monterey Jack cheese, tomatoes and crumbled bacon are added and drizzled with the Honey Jalapeño Vinaigrette. “Honey plays a dual role in the dressing, serving as an all-natural emulsifier and providing the perfect balance of sweet to jalapeño’s heat,” says Catherine Barry, the National Honey Board’s director of marketing. “The delicious combination of fresh ingredients creates the perfect, flavor-forward, ‘clean’ modern salad.” Customization opportunities are numerous with this salad. Chefs can substitute the grilled chicken with a crispy fried chicken, swap the spinach for mixed greens and replace the Monterey Jack with a number of cheeses. A signature hot honey dressing brings any of these options to life.

Chicken & The Egg

Classic egg salad blossoms from basic to bold in this contemporary take on picnic fare. Layers of flavor and texture are co-mingled into a colorful, inviting salad. Coarsely chopped hard-boiled eggs, diced roasted chicken and apple are mixed with a creamy, curry-based sauce. For a modern presentation, this Harvest Egg Salad is served on toasted pita triangles over a layer of peppery arugula and garnished with toasted pecans, pomegranate seeds and scallions. “One of the beauties of this recipe is that the garnishes can easily be switched out and replaced with other ingredients on hand—from pepitas and sunflower kernels to dried cranberries or cherries. The sauce can also be easily modified by replacing the curry powder with another spice mixture,” says Phaedra Ruffalo, senior director of market development for the American Egg Board. The dish can also be switched into a bowl format by adding more greens, or served in pita pockets for a handheld offering.

Pear Pulls Double Duty

In any foodservice operation, cross-utilization is key. In this Pear, Potato, Green Bean and Bacon Salad, canned pears take center stage with a balancing sweetness to the hearty build of roasted potatoes, green beans and turkey bacon. As a bonus, the reserved pear juice forms the base of the Pear Dijon Vinaigrette, blended with apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard and seasonings. “The combined use of the pears and the reserved juice for sweetness and the apple cider vinegar for acid make the dressing a strong complement to the savory-sweet flavors in the salad. Plus, the use of canned pears saves time poaching and peeling pears,” says Susan Renke, promotion director for Pacific Northwest Canned Pear Service. “For a signature twist, this salad could be altered by switching broccolini for the green beans or upping the spice profile with harissa or curry.”

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Greens & Grains

As the concept of “salad” evolves on menus, we’re seeing much more play with grains adding heft to modern salad builds. In this Avocado Grains & Greens Salad, a trio of wheat berries, pearl barley and couscous is tossed with avocado oil, lemon, parsley, mint and cilantro to create a fragrant and hearty base. Creamy avocado, cucumber, tomato and arugula add freshness, color and texture. “Grain salads and bowls are all the rage right now, and avocados are a wonderful addition to meld grains with other ingredients,” says Mark Garcia, head of marketing, foodservice and culinary for Avocados From Mexico. Topped off with a rich tahini dressing, this Mediterranean-inspired salad can serve both as a vegetarian entrée and an easy side dish with heart-healthy ingredients and bright texture and flavor.

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A Little Bit Country

Savory country ham contrasts with vibrant beet-pickled hard-boiled eggs in this Asparagus Salad with Country Ham and Lemon Ricotta, created by Stephen Barber, executive chef at Farmstead at Long Meadow Ranch in St. Helena, Calif. The savory and acidic flavors are paired with lemon zest ricotta, adding a refreshing creaminess to the build, while potato roll croutons and shredded carrots offer textural variation. “This is a beautiful composed salad with big flavor. It features premium ingredients that are thoughtfully curated to create a balanced dish,” says Stephen Gerike, assistant VP, channel marketing for the National Pork Board. “The salty, umami-rich sliced country ham and the acidic notes from the cheese and pickled eggs all complement the earthy asparagus.” Though the base of this salad features fresh asparagus—peeled and blanched—the dish could easily be composed over greens or, alternatively, over farro, bulgur or quinoa in a bowl build to provide a heartier salad or entrée option.

California Dreamin’

This Watermelon Salad with Crema and Cotija rides high on the trending use of savory watermelon, expressed to its fullest in a salad form.

Giorgio Rapicavoli, chef/owner of Eating House, an eclectic restaurant in Coral Cables, Fla., uses a refreshing base of watermelon, shallots and cilantro, and drizzles it with a rich, creamy dressing of California crema, olive oil, lime juice, salt and sugar. A sprinkling of California Cotija cheese and corn nuts add flavor, crunch and visual appeal, along with bright garnishes: sliced radishes, jalapeños, cilantro and lime. “This salad can also be used in wraps, tacos, as a base for falafel-stuffed pita sandwiches, in gyros, or as a side relish with grilled meat, poultry or seafood,” says Jennifer Giambroni, director of communications for the California Milk Advisory Board, highlighting the versatility of this salad and its pairing potential with protein.

Spanish Accent

High-impact ingredients with a Spanish twist give this Spiced Walnut and Olive Salad a modern appeal. Piquillo peppers and Spanish manchego, along with arugula, are dressed with a mustard-based vinaigrette amped up with meaty, briny Queen olives. For a flavorful heartiness and crunch, pan-fried walnuts are tossed with cardamom, cinnamon, fennel seed, cumin and brown sugar. “This dish can be customized using spices to your liking, so that you can achieve different nuances and a surprising taste,” says Paula Sanchez, representing Olives From Spain.

“It provides a great light entrée or the perfect accompaniment to your main courses.”

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By: Piet E. Jones

Smoot

Smoothies on the Upswing

Gone are the days of artificial and chemically produced flavors. Fresh, real flavors are what customers are looking for these days. One way to take advantage of seasonally fresh flavors is through fruit smoothies.

Relatively easy to make, smoothies can help you leverage local produce that’s in season and appeal to health conscious customers who want to enjoy a refreshing beverage but are avoiding overly sugared sodas.

From berries to melons, the seasonal abundance of fruit (and corresponding affordability) allows seasonally shifting choices that will keep interest as fresh as the fruit. Of course, after you’ve picked out your fruits for purée, either single or a blend of multiple fruits, what other choices can you make for an exciting beverage?

Another trend you can incorporate into your smoothie is a superfood, like avocado.

Adding both creaminess as well as good fats, avocados make a great base that can mix with a whole host of other anti-oxidant superfoods to amp up your healthy offerings. Blueberries are good, and a great match with creamy avocado, but do you really think anyone is going to not try an avocado and dark chocolate smoothie? Satisfying both healthy desires and chocolate cravings all at once is a good thing.

Herbs are also great for customizing your drinks or keeping fruits like banana, available year round, from getting stale and tired. Mint will keep that banana from being one-note or you can get a little more exotic with a little lavender and a spoonful of chia seeds to keep the superfood theme going.

Basil will add color and flavor, especially when blended with mango or the bright mango color can be made richer and deeper with a pinch or two of turmeric.

Next you’ll want to check the sweetness.

It might not be. A simple syrup, made with either cane or Demerara, can work. Some almond milks are pre-sweetened and there’s nothing wrong with a little honey. Yes, artificial sweeteners can work, but there are alternatives out there. Try stevia extracts, a little can sweeten a lot and there is some evidence that it is friendly to diabetics.

You can substitute out veggies for the fruits, although at that point you might want to upgrade from a blender to a real juicer to

pswin

First, you need a liquid to get the purée to a drinkable state. Apple juice or cider brings both liquid and flavor to the party but not might match with every fruit combination. A 1% milk will add smoothness to the drink or, for the lactose intolerant or those just avoiding dairy, almond milk will achieve a similar result.

For true trendy appeal, try coconut water.

reduce the amount of residual vegetable matter. Kale, carrots, even sweet potatoes, are all good candidates. The leafy vegetables, kale or spinach, do cry out for something with a little more substance, lest they become watery. A banana does the trick just fine.

Sweet potatoes need to be peeled, baked, and cooled, you can bake the night before and let them get down to temperature over night.

They also benefit from a little banana added and the result ends up tasting an awful lot like ice cream but with no added sugar.

A quick hint about bananas, used in so many of these drinks. Cut them up into 1-2 inch pieces and pop in the freezer. It helps concentrate the naturally occurring sugars, makes them super soft (when no longer frozen) and easier to incorporate into the drink. Plus, this helps cool the drink down without diluting the flavors and ingredients with more ice. Then there’s never having to waste product that goes too ripe before you get a chance to use it.

Your smoothie, of course, doesn’t just have to be a drink. Adding yogurt will thicken it up and you can top it with everything from granola to chia or flax seeds to make it a healthy and refreshing dish for breakfast or lunch.

With a little pre-planning, it can also be overnight oats. Simply mix a 1/2 cup of rolled oats with a full cup of fruit purée and the liquid of your choice, let sit overnight in the fridge. No cooking required. You could even drop the fruit and add some peanut butter for an extra protein burst. Easily and trendily served in Mason or Weck jars for a stunning presentation.

On the other hand, your smoothie could stay a drink. A real drink. Get some of that purée up to your bar staff and let them go to work on it.

Who could really resist a little fig purée served up with tequila and splash of sherry and a squeeze of lime on a hot summer day?

21

Everything You Need to Know About

JACKFRUIT the Latest Miracle Food

By Sam Worley

Featured in Epicurious

Huge, nutritious, and plentiful in hot climates, jackfruit is a food well-suited to a warming world. Oh, and some vegans think it tastes like pulled pork. Here’s the lowdown.

WHAT IS JACKFRUIT? Depends on where you’re sitting. If you’re in some parts of south and southeast Asia—India, Bangladesh, Thailand—it’s an everyday food. The starchy unripe fruit can be cooked in curries, while sweet, ripe jackfruit complements sticky rice and ice cream. You can get jackfruit chips, jackfruit noodles, jackfruit papad. Followers of American vegan cooking blogs, on the other hand, will find unripe jackfruit compared, with confounding frequency, to “vegan pulled pork.” Seriously, it’s a thing.

If you’re someone concerned about climate change and food production, though, you might see jackfruit as a “miracle,” as one researcher described it to the Guardian. It’s a good source of protein, potassium, calcium, and iron, it’s plentiful, and it has tons of uses. “It’s a very versatile fruit,” says Nyree Zerega, a plant biologist at Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden who studies “underutilized” crops.

“It can be your main meal and your dessert all in one.” The seeds can be roasted and eaten, or ground into flour; even the timber from the jackfruit tree is useful. And jackfruit grows exuberantly in subtropical and tropical climates. Leela Punyaratabandhu, proprietor of the Thai-cooking blog SheSimmers, says that many people in Thailand grow up with two or three jackfruit trees in their backyard.

22

The only thing: “You’re not supposed to sit under it,” Punyaratabandhu says. Individual jackfruit can grow up to 100 pounds—it’s the largest tree-borne fruit in the world. When we talked, Punyaratabandhu said she’d recently picked up a jackfruit of her own. “I just brought home a 20-pounder,” she said. “It’s still sitting on my kitchen counter.”

WHY’S IT SUCH A BIG DEAL? Climate change. One of the promises of jackfruit is that, because it grows in tropical and subtropical areas, it’s more optimized for the warmer world that we’re barreling toward, whereas current staple crops like wheat will become harder to grow. Drought and heat waves are already affecting global yields on maize, wheat, and corn, and those effects will continue to accelerate. And it’s helpful that this nutritious, bountiful fruit grows well in places like India, which is home to about one-quarter of the world’s undernourished people.

HOW DO YOU COOK IT? “You treat it like you would any other starch—give it the flavor you want it to take on,” says Zerega about the unripe fruit. Green jackfruit is also a bit stringy, which accounts for the pulled-pork thing. The mature fruit yields a number of discrete pods, which only have to be deseeded in order to be eaten.

Punyaratabandhu thinks unripe jackfruit tastes sort of like artichoke hearts—so much so that when she first came to the U.S. and felt nostalgic for jackfruit curry, she’d use canned artichoke hearts instead. The ripe fruit, which has a bright, banana-ish flavor, can take the place of mango atop sticky rice (or the pods can be stuffed with the rice) or it can be served over ice cream. “The best way to enjoy [ripe] jackfruit is right out of hand,” Punyaratabandhu says.

Jackfruit leaves aren’t much on their own, but food can be wrapped in them for cooking, in the manner of banana leaves. “In my family we’d make fermented rice all the time,” she says. “My grandmother would use the jackfruit leaf to wrap the sticky rice while it’s fermenting.”

The Jackfruit Company, seizing on its Next Big Thing potential, has released a line of meals in a pouch that capitalize on the meaty texture of jackfruit with flavors like barbecue, Tex-Mex, teriyaki, and curry. They’re available in stores across the country, including Whole Foods and Wegman’s. We tried a few in the office recently, and while they were good, no one will soon be mistaking them for pulled pork.

WHERE DO I GET IT UNPREPARED, THOUGH? Asian markets, mostly, though you can also find it at the occasional major store: Zerega says she saw some jackfruit randomly make an appearance in supermarkets in suburban Chicago recently, and just as quickly disappear. It comes canned and fresh. And vendors will often sell it in pieces, rather than whole, so take heart: You can leave the front-end loader at home.

STAFF

TRAIN

FROM GREETIN

From customer service and sommeliers, there are many rules and standards that are expected to be followed when working in a formal dining environment. Though some etiquette practices may seem like common sense to some servers, others may be unfamiliar to new employees who aren’t used to working at formal restaurants or banquets.

While most techniques can be mastered over time, we’ve provided a timing guide to optimize the customer experience. From initial greeting to the final departure, these tips and tricks will help newbies and veterans alike.

First 10 minutes meet, greet & initial order Greeting

Beverage Order

Appetizer Order

Timing: Within 1 minute

of being seated

Timing: Within 2 minutes of

being seated

Timing: Upon beverage

service

Key Points: Guest should be acknowledged and told you will be right with them.

Key Points: Water service and drink orders need to be prompt.

Key Points: Appetizer orders can also be taken with beverage orders. This is also a good time to announce specials and present the wine list.

Delivery Time: 2-4 minutes

Delivery Time: 5-7 minutes

NING 101

NG TO DEPARTURE

10-20 minutes

salad, soup & wine service Entrée Order/Wine Order

Salad, Soup & Wine Service

Timing: Within 0-5 minutes of taking the

appetizer order

Timing: 2-4 minutes after the entrée order

Key Points: Wine orders are best taken with entrée orders but may also be presented during the beverage order.

Delivery Times: Wine service: 2-4 minutes Soup/Salad: 2-4 minutes Entrée service: 12-16 minutes

Key Points: Wine service is dependent upon guest preference and sometimes is preferred right before entrée service. Soups and salads may be served when appetizers are almost finished.

20-30 minutes

entrée service and check-up Entrée Service Timing: After salads/soups have been cleared Key Points: Allow salads to be completed before serving entrées so you don’t rush the guest. Clear salad and any leftover appetizer plates before serving entrées. Fill beverages, rolls, etc. before leaving the table. Also check for additional service ware needs (forks, knives, etc.).

Table Check Back Timing: Within 2 minutes or 2 bites of the entrée delivery

26

Key Points: Promptly check for doneness, correct order, quality and temperature within 1-2 minutes of service.

30-40 minutes

dessert & after dinner drinks Clear Plates Timing: Upon completion of entrĂŠes Key Points: Finished plates, glassware, service ware, etc. should be cleared throughout the entire service process. However, it is particularly important to clear and crumb the table before asking for dessert orders.

Dessert & After Dinner Drink Orders Timing: After plates have been cleared Key Points: Desserts and after dinner drinks should be prepared promptly. Additional napkin or linens may be required.

Delivery Time: 2-3 minutes

40-50+ minutes check, payment & table turn Check Presentation Timing: Near or after the

completion of

dessert Key Points: Always check for more orders or refills before presenting the guest check.

Ensure that all finished service ware has been cleared.

Check Payment

Table Turn

Timing: Within 1 minute of

cash/credit card

presentation

Timing: Within 1 minute of

guests' departure

Key Points: Never rush the guest to pay but be ready to process payment as soon as the guest has presented cash or credit card so that the change may be given and charge slips may be signed.

Key Points: Once a guest has left the staff should immediately clean and reset the table so other guests don't have to view it and another guest may be seated promptly.

27

Veggie Noodles are Here to Stay

By Piet E. Jones

Culinary trends are constantly on the move.

Some pop big with lots of buzz and perhaps a bit overuse, like sous vide, before settling into becoming a somewhat commonplace technique used effectively for some dishes.

Others, like foams, devolve into culinary punchlines.

Spiralized vegetables, or zoodles, looks like it might be on track to have some staying power. Typically made from zucchini, hence the Z, zoodles have crossed the boundary from restaurant to home kitchens cementing their popularity.

Part of that is driven by the gluten free and reduced carb trends; the rest is that they are both tasty and versatile.

Any Pasta Dish Can Have Their Noodles Replaced with Zoodles.

Blanching in salted boiling water or a quick steam are common preparation methods, just be careful not to overcook lest the zucchini become limp and mushy. You can even skip precooking, just slip the zoodles into a sautĂŠ pan with the sauce and heat while tossing. A simple basil red sauce, maybe with some sliced hot Italian sausage, then finished with a little freshly shaved Parmesan is really all you need but nearly any sauce/protein combination can work. You could even list on your menu not as a separate dish but as a healthy option to your normal pasta dishes.

28

There is no need, however, to limit zoodles to pasta style dishes.

They make great salads and slaws as well. The freshest zucchini zoodles can be served raw, although you can really dial up the color and taste with a quick blanch followed by an ice bath. Tossed with mayonnaise or dressings, they perform well as a bright and crunchy side dish or as a topping on, say, a pulled pork sandwich either a traditional slaw dressing of mayonnaise and sour cream or with a simple, sweetened vinegar dressing.

You could even bind the zoodles together with flour and egg to make a pretty amazing latke. The flour kind of defeats the purpose of low carb and gluten free so you could sub it out for either almond (make sure you have an allergy warning) or coconut flour, just keep in mind those have very different flavor profiles so you might want to experiment with flour blends and maybe even some fresh herbs and spices to achieve your desired result. Dress the plate with the traditional accoutrements like sour cream and applesauce for the best fusion of nostalgic and contemporary.

Zoodles are Perfect for Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner Lunch and dinner also shouldn’t be the only time to consider zoodles. Potato heavy skillets and bowls are very popular these days for breakfast, and zoodles are a healthy alternative to all that starch. Soften onions and peppers in a cast iron skillet with a little olive oil, toss with zoodles and crispy, chopped bacon then top with a couple of poached eggs and shredded Gruyère. Voila, a great high protein/low carb way to start any day.

Zucchini is also not the only vegetable you can use. Drop the first letter from zoodle to match your veggie and you’re good to go. Coodles when you use carrots. For parsnips you’ve got poodles. OK, no one wants to put poodles on their menu… Besides, zoodles is fast becoming a more generic term that can apply to more than just spiralized zucchini, best to just stick to that and modify it with the name of the vegetable used.

Get Creative with Your Veggies The point is, most any firm or hard vegetable will do. Some, like carrots, you can serve raw and lightly dressed. Others, like sweet potato, require cooking. You also need to be aware of how the vegetable changes when heat is applied. Some will fragment into shorter pieces with too much while others, like sweet potato, turn to mush if overcooked. In nearly all the cases, fast cooking is good, from frats blanching to deep frying. Slower methods tend to break the zoodles into increasingly smaller pieces lowering the visual appeal.

Zoodles can also help reduce waste and lower food costs.

Already offering fresh broccoli on your menu? What do you do with the large center stalk? Try peeling it then run it through your spiralizer. A quick blanch and what you used to throw away is suddenly ready for the table in a slaw or side.

So, there you have it, a well-established cooking trend that is endlessly versatile and adaptable. Zoodles can help you appeal to today’s tastes and cater to those with gluten issues or trying to reduce their carb intake. Plus you might be able to reduce waste and lower food costs in the process. Everybody wins!

29

Raw, edible portions. Percent Daily Values (%DV) are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

VEGETABLES

#

Leaf Lettuce

3

Mushrooms

8

Onion

32

Potato

58

Pumpkin Radish

15 9

Romaine Lettuce

4

Spinach

3

Summer Squash

9

Sweet Corn

66

Sweet Potato

57

Swiss Chard

3

Tomato

16

s, Black an ed e B ok Chickpeas Co

100

Great Northern

104

Lentils

115

Lima Navy

134

108 127

Pinto

122

Red Kidney

112

g %DV 0 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 <.5 0 <.5 1 2 3 <.5 1 <.5 1 <.5 1 1 1 1 1 <.5 1

# 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 0 0 2 4 19 4 3 3 5 5 4

g g %DV %DV <.5

1

1

0 <.5

1

1

0 1

7

5

2 2

13

7

4 <.5

4

1

1 1

2

4

1 <.5

1

2

0 <.5

1

1

0 1

2

2

1 2

15

8

5 2

13

8

4 <.5

1

1

0 1

4

4

1 6

18

22

6 6

22

25

7 6

19

25

6 8

20

31

7 7

20

26

7 10

24

38

8 8

22

31

7 7

20 7

26

g

g

%DV

%DV

%DV

0

0

27

5

2

1

1

0

1

1

3

1

0

10

4

1

2

0

25

3

1 1

1 0

86 0

9 14

2 4

0

0

27

9

8

0

0

28

7

7

1

1

2

16

4

2

2

1

9

9

3

1

189

3

2

0

0

22

9

1

2

1

15

19

3

3

7

0

1

45

4

7

0

2

35

n/a

7

0

2

23

2

9

0

2

45

3 0

7 7

0 0

0 1

20 32

0

8

0

1

37

0

8

0

2

29

mg mg mg mg mg %DV %DV %DV %DV %DV

7 346 10

60

0

365 10

19

0

16

0

478 14

63

0

354 10

39

0

373 11 357 10

25

0

2 2 2 0 1 2

44

2

11

10

6

36

3

9

18

2

40

2

10

12

2

48

2

12

12

6

43

2

11

10

4

40

3 2

10

13

4

0

11 39

2

40

239

2 46

12

2

7

0 6

10

2

21

239

3

4

1

1

6

0

<.5

9

213

5

15 2

1

2

2

<.5

9

68

38

4

2

2

6

2

8 17

<.5

20

224

2 28

2

0

6

0 37

10

<.5

2

208

12

3

1

1

4

0

<.5

8

148

1

12 2

1

2

0

<.5

15

84

12

1

1

1

2

0

1 3

<.5

8

58

1

1

4

1 2

2 6

<.5

15

135

3

1

6

0 23

4 7

<.5

12

197

1

17 3

1

9

0

1

9

316

5

2

1

2

3

0

1 8

<.5

18

117

1

0

3

0 3

1 3

<.5

1

111

2

2 1

1

1

0

<.5

6

35

5

14

10

*Unless otherwise stated n/a=not available Vegetables contain no cholesterol.

Most contain negligible amounts of saturated and trans fats.

Š2008 Produce for Better Health Foundation (1051-0608)

What’s in a 1/2 Cup* of

VEGETABLES?

Raw, edible portions. Percent Daily Values (%DV) are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

VEGETABLES

#

Artichoke

38

Arugula

3

Asparagus

13

Beets

29

Bell Peppers

15

Broccoli

15

Broccoli Rabe

6

Brussels Sprouts

19

Butternut Squash

32

Carrot

25

Cauliflower

13

Celery

8

Collard Greens

5

Cucumber

8

Green Beans

17

Green Cabbage

11

Green Onions Iceberg Lettuce Jicama

16 5 25

g %DV <.5 0 <.5

# 1

0

1

0

1

0

1

<.5 <.5 <.5 0 <.5

1

0

2

0

0

0

1

0 <.5 <.5 0 <.5

1

0

1

0

0

0

1

0 <.5 <.5 0 <.5

1

0

1

0

1

0

0

<.5 0 <.5 0 0 0 <.5 0

1 0 1

g g %DV %DV 4

9

18

3

<.5

0 0 1 2

1 0 1

10

6

9

8

5

1

0

6

19

2 1 1

7

0

0

1

26

31

n/a

7

1

1

7

62

7

1 1 1

3

5

1

1

0

39

7

3

1

0

5

3

5

2

24

11

7

0

1

2

1

7

1

1

8

15

5

4

1

1

1

27

5

3

6

0

1

2

0

0

1

<.5

1

5

6

5

1

25

204

1

4

149

1

1

3

1

3

2

4

2

7

<.5

2

2

68

3

0

100

6

1

1

6

1

1

2

1

1

1

3

2

5

2

6

14

1

6

3

16

1

1

8

0

5

2

4

3

2

0

1

1

3

1

3

%DV

5

5

1

%DV

0

1

3

%DV

0

2

7

g

1 1

3

g

13

1 1 1

1 0 0

10 4 0

16 2 22

8 3 2

mg mg mg mg mg %DV %DV %DV %DV %DV 76 3 3

300 9

36

37

16 1

135 4

16

0

221 6

11

2

7

0

130 4

21

1

144 4 n/a

9

1 53 2 15 6

34

0

20

2

195 6 152 4

11

1

131 4

20

2

30

26

42 15 40 4

76

18 36

0

51

6

4

0

3

2

1 6

<.5

1

1 2

0

0

0 7

<.5

2

1 14

1

3

3 5

<.5

1

1 10

1

3

4 3

<.5

1

1

1

8

<.5 1

2 8

<.5

8

98

7 1

4

1

0 3

6

3 <.5

2

138 4

8

24

<.5

2

2

3

3

1

0

10

1

3

20

8

1

2

115 3

2 n/a

<.5

1

0

3

10 2

2

2

2

1 <.5

3

0

7

<.5

8

76

4

3

2

1

0 1

16

1

1

246 7

3

2

8

2

18

9

1

1

171 5

1

1

1

0

11

5

<.5

2

0

12

6

2

0

49

1 4

2

2

®

HUM M US and beyond Innovation pushes more plant-based purées into the spotlight

By Katie Ayoub Flavor and the Menu

It wasn’t so long ago that hummus was only found at Middle Eastern restaurants and in grocery stores. But thanks to a number of drivers, this unassuming spread of chickpeas, tahini, garlic and lemon juice is seen on menus across the country.

In fact, hummus is familiar enough to the average consumer now that chefs are spinning it into signature iterations—playing with both the build and the application.

For example, the classic American eatery King & Duke in Atlanta serves a White Bean and Rosemary Hummus with toasted pita chips.

E+O Food and Drink, a global-focused restaurant in Mount Prospect, Ill., menus a Smoked Pea “Hummous” with fried cauliflower and toasted almonds.

And at Cava, a Mediterranean fast casual based in Washington, D.C., hummus is offered as a component of its salads, grain bowls and wraps.

The drivers that have propelled all this hummus play include an enthusiastic embrace of Eastern Mediterranean cuisine, the red-hot veg-centric movement, a culinary exploration in smooth textural contrasts, and a continuing love of shareable, snackable foods.

32

With so much momentum behind hummus innovation, a new opportunity has taken shape, where chefs are looking beyond traditional hummus and exploring the menu

potential of other plant-based purées.

with harissa, spooned as a base for wood-grilled sirloin.

Create Flavorful Plant-based Purées

At Young Joni, a modern woodfired pizzeria in Minneapolis, an appetizer of cauliflower, shishito peppers, saffron chermoula, pickled Fresno, golden raisins and almond picada sits on a purée of creamy cauliflower.

“The trend in plant-based purées was inevitable, as a natural continuation of the hummus boom,” says Brian Darr, managing director at Datassential. “With the growing popularity of vegetables like kohlrabi, beets, sweet potatoes, cauliflower and carrots, finding another way to feature them in a flavorful, veg-forward, colorful application is a smart strategy.”

Carrying a solid narrative around nutrient density and wholesomeness certainly has helped give plant-based purées the edge they need to elbow their way into a mainstream menu opportunity.

But if flavor falls flat, any chance of long-term success is pretty slim.

Flavor intensity and complexity are giving today’s plant-based purées wings, letting them soar with serious potential.

The wide world of produce informs this trend, with avocado as one of its standout stars. It brings its buttery flavor, creamy texture and healthful attributes to items like green goddess dressing, aïoli and hummus itself.

Jeremy Kittelson is culinary director of Denver-based Edible Beats restaurant group, which he describes as a “vegetablefocused company.” Now overseeing six restaurants, including fast-casual Vital Root, and Root Down, serving modern American small plates, he’s been perfecting the development of vibrant vegetable flavors for almost a decade. “We often run hummus in some format across all of our restaurants. We start with a baseline of traditional hummus, then enhance it.”

At El Five in Denver, a Mediterranean small-plates concept in the Edible Beats restaurant group, the Chicken Kofta is served with a golden beet yogurt—beet purée folded into housemade yogurt.

The Evolution of Plant-based Purées “Hummus has opened the door for any creamy dips and sandwich spreads, and everything in between,” says Maeve Webster, president of Menu Matters consultancy.

“It’s a natural evolution to expand upon the chickpea base and include other vegetables, with so many directions to go in. Plant-based purées can act as a base for bowls or salads, or be used as dressings with more body and a great splash of color.

Texturally, they have a lot to offer, too.”

In modern menu development, where intriguing flavor is king, it makes sense that plant-based purées carry huge potential— from hummus transformed into a dressing or drizzle to mashed potatoes thinned into a purée with butternut squash and seasoned

At Village Burger Bar, with multiple locations in Dallas, the Southwest Turkey Burger features jalapeño Jack cheese, baby spinach, tomato and avocado aïoli.

In Los Angeles, Elf Cafe’s starter of Tahini Avocado Purée is topped with chopped Castelvetrano olives, garlic confit and pita strips for dipping.

“This trend is a celebration of the health halo around veg-centric purées—whether it’s an avocado tzatziki or a beet hummus,” says Kara Nielsen, VP of trends & marketing at CCD Innovation.

“I think consumers have been ready for some time now to see this wider variety that carries on from the familiar hummus we all know and love.”

El Five’s Charred Carrot Hummus showcases roasted carrots and seasonings, like caraway and paprika. “If you boil the carrots, you’d get a watery purée,” he says.

“Using sous vide or roasting them concentrates the flavors.” He says vegetable powders and reductions can also help boost flavor.

(article continued on next page)

33

“We make a lot of powders where we take the scraps of beets or carrots, for instance, dehydrate them, then run them through a spice grinder. Or we’ll reduce carrot juice, again, concentrating the flavor, so when you add it to a hummus or yogurt or use it as straight purée, it’s got vibrancy, freshness, and delivers that vegetable flavor in a clean, delicious way.”

Another method for concentrating flavor, says Kittleson, is to spread the purée onto a Silpat, then roast in a 250˚F oven for about an hour. “It gets rid of excess liquid and makes the purée richer and deeper in flavor,” he says.

For El Five’s Peanut Hummus, he boils peanuts down in a liquid flavored with garlic, cooking them in a pressure cooker to soften, then purées them with the hummus, adding extra-virgin olive oil and paprika to finish.

Michael Slavin, VP of culinary & menu innovation for Houlihan’s Restaurants, is also leveraging plantbased purées, looking to them for flavor-forward textural interest. “They work really well in modern pastas and salads, where you swipe them on the bottom of the dish, bringing the eye in and also giving a nice flavor surprise whenever the fork finds it,” he says.

“I like combining produce for different depths of flavor, like a sweet potato and parsnip purée at the bottom of a pasta build or gnocchi, maybe with a toasted marshmallow butter tossed throughout. You get two different sauces, two different dimensions. The beautiful thing about purées is that

34

they’re concentrated, so you get a big flavor impact.”

Another flavor combination Slavin likes is cauliflower and apple. “Use it as a schmear on the plate—it gives you thoughtful flavor intent under a protein,” he says.

To intensify flavor, Slavin will salt carrots or beets, then freeze them. “Once you purée, you get this beautiful, raw flavor. It’s almost like you’re curing them,” he says.

For salads, he says the purées act as a great flavor pop. “Dress your salad with a vinaigrette, then drizzle a little bit of the purée on top. You don’t want to weigh the salad down, but it’ll give you great pockets of flavor.”

There’s an operational upside, too: Puréeing vegetables means you can make use of the untidy bits. “For the chef, these plant purées offer various colors, textures and flavors. They also tend to be more cost effective, as the product being used is often a scrap or byproduct,” says Chris Casson, chef and director of produce & specialty foods with foodservice distributor Shamrock Foods.

“Examples include utilizing the cauliflower or broccoli stems, as they’re typically flavor-packed and still provide the color pop that chefs desire. Kitchens can take the scrap as they prep the vegetables and go virtually ‘no waste.’”

Casson suggests blanching the vegetables in salted water or highly seasoned stock, then puréeing and chilling them for use in multiple applications.

There’s More to Hummus One thing that’s clear with this trend: There’s still a lot to explore within the hummus universe. Whether it’s enhancing with other ingredients or flavors, or adding signature toppings, chefs are dialing up the delivery.

“Offering a familiar dish such as hummus made with peas or beets is a great way to expand diners’ palates,” says Amanda Topper, associate director of foodservice research at Mintel. According to Mintel Menu Insights, hummus menu mentions grew 11 percent over the last two years. “That shows that there’s still opportunity to expand the dish as an appetizer, spread or side dish with various ingredients or flavor profiles,” she says.

Hummus can help ratchet up seasonal efforts, switching out toppings or add-ins depending on what’s in season. “In the spring, for example, operators can include green peas, fava beans or carrots as ingredients in hummus, and pair it with spring ingredients such as jicama and radishes,” says Topper.

A good example is seen on the menu at Twenty Five Lusk in San Francisco, with its Pea and Mint Hummus, black pepper cracker, endive and cucumber.

Sweet Pea Hummus, highlighted by mint oil and lemon sabayon and served with lavash, is a topseller at Sur Lie in Portland, Maine. “The sweet pea hummus has been a Sur Lie staple and fan favorite from day one,” says Emil Rivera, executive chef.

“It is also a reflection of our cuisine: simple, elegant and approachable. The beauty lies in its vibrant explosion of flavor and smooth texture.”

Ian Ramirez, director of culinary innovation & operations, recently launched the Za’atar Hummus Bar in a pilot program at Jackson National, a life insurance firm in Lansing, Mich.

It’s a bowl concept, where guests start by choosing from a selection of hummus varieties: charred carrot and ras el hanout; spring pea and spinach; and beet. It gets swiped across the bowl’s base, then choices of protein (chicken shawarma, falafel, pakora, tandoori chicken, za’atar tuna or garlicpreserved lemon shrimp) are added, followed by toppings like turmeric-roasted cauliflower, baba ghanouj, pickled beets and quinoa, along with sauces like yogurt-cucumber and garlic tahini. The bowl is accompanied by a warm pita.

“It’s doing so well, we’re going to try it next in a college setting,” says Ramirez. “Hummus carries with it a lot of positives—it’s familiar to diners and can take on so many different flavors. It also adds this great color and texture to a bowl build.

We’re finding that guests really respond to that.”

Plant-based purées serve up a golden opportunity for modern menu development. “There are endless possibilities to use various legumes, produce, oils, dairy, vinegars, juices, spices, etc., to create that signature flavor profile beyond traditional hummus,” says Dennis Samla, chef/founder of Creative Culinary Concepts.

“A Moroccan-style roasted ginger-carrot-harissa purée can be turned into a dip for housemade flatbread, or into a dressing or sauce for seafood or grilled meat. With consumers’ fascination around veg-centric, we will definitely see more creativity and innovation with plant-based purées.”

Creative Dining Services, a hospitality and dining services provider based in Zeeland, Mich. — whose clients include colleges and universities, business and industry, conference centers, senior living, K-12 schools and camps — sees huge opportunity in hummus.

35

by Piet Jones

INCORPORATING

MUSHROOMS in your menu

Typically, we look at our food as only belonging to one of two groups: plant or animal. But there is a third group that we regularly consume, one that belongs to a separate branch on the tree of life and is, oddly, closer to animals than to plants: mushrooms.

One bite and it makes sense. The texture? More like meat than most any plant. The taste? Rich and deep, sometimes woodsy, a real departure from vegetables and unlike any meats. Perhaps that is why they are such a great complement to nearly any dish and are increasingly taking center stage.

The problem for any chef is finding the right mushroom out of the myriad of choices, not to mention simply procuring

them

consistently.

Mushrooms

are

notoriously hard to cultivate and many still must be harvested by hand in the wild. Science has helped, and exotic mushroom farmers have cropped up, but there’s still plenty of progress to make.

Which mushroom is right for your dish?

Button/White Mushroom - It’s easy to dismiss the button mushroom as pedestrian and boring but it really is the most easily sourced and consistent mushroom out there. It’s also flexible, from soups to sauces, simply sautéed with butter and thyme over chicken or steak, raw in salads, or larger mushrooms stuffed with meats and cheeses. It can also be used as a stretcher to help keep food costs down; mixed with more expensive and exotic mushrooms without diluting taste or quality.

Shiitake - Probably the best-known Asian mushroom but not limited to Asian cuisine. Grown on logs, they don’t really need to be washed, just dab with a damp towel. Sliced into strips and sautéed with a little butter and sherry, they create a slightly sweet creamy sauce that can top a steak or be tossed with pasta. The stems are normally considered too tough and fibrous to eat but don’t toss them. Instead, add them to the pot to enhance that veggie stock or add another layer to your house made chicken stock.

Crimini - Basically an immature portobello mushroom, sometimes called a baby bella. Similar in shape to a button, they’re a nice alternative for stuffing and

roasting, imparting more flavor than their more-common cousin. They also hold up well in soups, creating a darker, richer bisque. Don’t purée all of them though.

Sliced and sautéed, they add a nice visual touch to the bowl. Also, the right choice to add to rich and tangy tomato sauces for pasta.

Portobello - A decade ago, portobellos all but jumped the shark. They were everywhere, from fine dining to your neighborhood grill, mainly as a substitute for meat on a burger at a time when vegetarian options were limited. Choices for vegetarians have exploded since then and perhaps it is time to let the portobello creep back onto menus. Just move away from the expected grilled and balsamic vinegar combinations that dominated before. Try stuffing with meat and cheese for a Philly Cheesesteak version or use as an amazing layer inside your veggie lasagna.

Morels - Pairing mushrooms with seafood can be tricky; the flavors don’t always mesh well together. But the morel can fit right in, pairing well with delicate fish like Dover sole and excellent tossed with pasta, shrimp, and chopped asparagus. Morels shine when served with a little dairy, so a creamy morel and bay scallop casserole makes a rich and decadent dish.

Chanterelle - Instantly recognizable, chanterelles always stand out on the plate. In a soup you’d be remiss in not floating some on top of the bowl for that “wow” factor. For a special appetizer or small plate, sauté chanterelles with chopped bacon and serve simply on toast with a little shaved Parmesan. Offer a pairing of a nice Riesling to increase enjoyment.

Matsutake - Extremely popular in Japan and wildly expensive there, fortunately they’re much cheaper and affordable here in the U.S. Try a classic preparation, like Matsutake Gohan, to really give this mushroom the platform it deserves: with the mushrooms cooked in the rice, which absorbs the flavors as it cooks. Or, even more simple, sliced and simmered in a clear dashi broth. For a bar snack, fry them tempura style and present with a citrusy ponzu sauce.

The potential is endless

Porcini - Probably the classic Italian pasta mushroom, especially with cream and a little thyme then tossed with fettuccine. Sometimes hard to find fresh in the U.S., dried versions are more common and less expensive. Remember to reserve the liquid when rehydrating, it can be used to intensify the flavors of the dish or repurposed into your next batch of stock.

Oyster - The perfect base for any wild mushroom sauté. You can also pair it with other wild and cultivated mushrooms, from crimini to chanterelle, to make an amazing wild mushroom pâté. Sautéed with butter, shallots, and sherry, then puréed with cream and freshly-toasted ground almonds before being baked in a terrine, you’ve got the texture and mouthfeel of a traditional pâté for the vegetarian crowd.

Hen of the Woods/Maitake - This hand-foraged mushroom is probably the hottest mushroom on menus right now. Pan-roasted in one piece, it’s the kind of vegetarian dish that will also appeal to steak lovers.

For the adventurous, slather with an anchovy sauce or go simple with a miso butter. Either way, it’s a visually exciting entrée that will dominate your Instagram tags.

Truffle - Truffles have been complicated of late.

The trend to truffle oil has been giving it a bad name, especially since, while it may be cheaper, it contains no truffle and is basically a chemically-enhanced perfume. Diners are increasingly left thinking they don’t like truffle. Dump the truffle fries. Introduce them to cacio e pepe, one of the most classic Italian pasta dishes—simply cheese and pepper—and shave a little truffle on top of dish. Your diners will walk away with a new appreciation of the elusive fungus.

Between the global supply chain and better applied technology for cultivation, there’s never been a better time to add mushrooms to your kitchen’s pantry in a significant way. With more and more professional foragers, even the mushrooms that must be handforaged are easier for restaurateurs to procure and consistently offer. Add to that, their appeal to both meat-eaters and meat-avoiders and it becomes clear that you need fungus on your menu.

37

Raw, edible portions. Percent Daily Values (%DV) are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

FRUITS

#

Nectarine

31

Orange

42

Papaya

27

Peach

30

Pear

41

Persimmon (1 fruit)

118

Pineapple

39

Plum

38

Plum, dried

204

Pomegranate (1/2 fruit)

52

Pummelo

36

Raisins (1/2 cup, packed)

247

Raspberries Star Fruit

32 17

Strawberries

27

Tangerine

52

Watermelon

23

Wild Blueberries

45

g %DV <.5 0 <.5

# 2

0

1

0

1

0

2

<.5 <.5 <.5 0 <.5

1

0

3

0

1

0

2

1

3

<.5 <.5 <.5 <.5 0 0

2

0

0

1

3

<.5 <.5 1 <.5 0 <.5

4 2

0

2

0

3

0

1

<.5 <.5 1 1

5

g g %DV %DV 1

8

5

3 2

11 4 2 2

10

4

0

15

72

7

6

6

1

8

0

0

8

0

1

62

3

5

8

1

6

13

1

24

32

2

13

1

1

6

12

49

3

0

3

1

16 6 2

2

1

0 1

27 31

3 2

1

0

81

5

7

10

1

13

43

4

1

5

0

9

10

1

2 3

2

1

4

<.5

9

3

7 2

4 2

1

97

1

6

8

0

2

13

2

1

4

6

1

n/a

3

4

13

4

3

2

1

4

1

7

5

3

2

22

0

21

4

65

0

55

<.5

9

7

1

6

13

1

5

1

18

6

21

3 54

5

24

3 9

1

7

1

10

6

80

6

31

%DV

4

9

4

%DV

1

2

11

%DV

8

1

7

g

9 1

7

g

8

5

1

2

23

6

mg mg mg mg mg %DV %DV %DV %DV %DV 144 4

4

0

36

0

163 5 180 5

17

0

146 4

5

0

83

6

0 0 2 0 1

0

84

10

1

130 4

5

0

622 18

37

0

2

0

199 6

4

0

205 6 618 18

41

0

93

15

0 2 2 1 9 1

162 5

36

85

5

1

0

2

35

1

1 6

1

1 26

2

7

9 14

<.5

3

2 5

0

1

0 11

<.5

3

2 12

<.5

3

1

4

8

<.5

2

1

1

5

<.5 1

9 2

<.5

10

56

4

5.77 1

<.5

1

2

0

1 4

0

0

2

2

1

2

0

1 <.5

4

13

4 9.3

<.5

0

2

15 1

0

127 4

1

1 <.5

4

0 1

5

<.5

2

72

2

1

1

3

0 1

7

<.5

1

2

2

0

1

0

7

0

1 13

2

1

0

2

9

<.5

2

270 8

2

1

4

0 2

6

<.5 0

2

1

*Unless otherwise stated n/a=not available Fruits contain no cholesterol. Most contain negligible amounts of saturated and trans fats. Advocados contain 1.6g saturated fat in 1/2 cup.

Š2008 Produce for Better Health Foundation (1051-0608)

What’s in a 1/2 Cup* of

FRUIT?

Raw, edible portions. Percent Daily Values (%DV) are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

FRUITS

#

Apple

33

Avocado

120

Banana

67

Blueberries

42

Cantaloupe

27

Cherries

46

Fig, dried

186

Fig, fresh (1 large)

47

Grapefruit

38

Grapes

55

Guava

56

Honeydew

31

Kiwifruit

54

Kumquat (6 medium)

81

Lemon (sections)

31

Lime (1 medium)

20

Mango

54

g %DV <.5 0 11 17 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 1 1 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0 1 1 <.5 0 <.5 1 1 2 <.5 0 <.5 0 <.5 0

# 1 99 2 2 1 1 6 2 1 1 7 1 4 9 3 1 2

g %DV 9 3 6 2 17 6 11 4 7 2 12 4 48 16 12 4 10 3 14 5 12 4 8 3 13 4 18 6 10 3 7 2 14 5

g %DV 2 6 5 20 2 8 2 7 1 3 2 6 7 29 2 7 1 5 1 3 4 18 1 3 3 11 7 30 3 12 2 8 1 6

g

g

%DV

%DV

%DV

6

0

1

5

0

0

2

2

13

15

9

1

1

11

4

7

1

1

12

1

6

1

54

49

4

9

1

1

8

1

36

2

0

1

2

10

0

2

2

1

8

1

1

64

3

12

1

1

14

0

7

2

10

314

10

7

0

1

26

4

8

1

n/a

138

0

11

2

7

83

5

3

1

0

94

3

1

0

1

33

1

12

0

13

38

3

mg %DV 1 0 5 0 1 0 1 0 13 1 0 0 7 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 15 1 3 0 11 0 2 0 1 0 2 0

mg %DV 67 2 364 10 269 8 57 2 214 6 161 5 507 14 148 4 170 5 153 4 344 10 194 6 278 8 212 6 146 4 68 2 129 4

mg %DV 4 0 9 1 4 0 4 0 7 1 9 1 121 12 22 2 14 1 8 1 15 1 5 1 30 3 71 7 28 3 22 2 8 1

mg %DV 0 0 <.5 2 <.5 1 <.5 1 <.5 1 <.5 1 2 8 <.5 1 0 0 <.5 2 <.5 1 <.5 1 <.5 2 1 5 1 4 <.5 2 <.5 1

mg %DV 3 1 22 5 20 5 4 1 10 2 8 2 51 13 11 3 10 3 6 1 18 5 9 2 15 4 23 6 8 2 4 1 7 2

®

40

GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR PRODUCE

ROOT-TO-STALK COOKING

Featured on National Restaurant Association's web site Sliced-off carrot tops, torn-away fennel fronds and leftover Swiss chard stems may look like trash to some chefs, but to Chef Jonathan Luce they are culinary treasures that he highlights at Bellanico in Oakland, Calif. “The whole vegetable is fair game,” says Luce.

“We use anything and everything.”

Luce embraces one of today’s hottest culinary trends, rootto-stalk cooking, in which chefs utilize most, if not all, of a plant in their dishes. In a National Restaurant Association survey, chefs identified root-to-stalk cooking — along with nose-totail cooking using the whole animal — as one of recent year’s 25 top table service menu trends.

“It’s actually an old concept, though,” Luce says. “We’ve come full circle back to the days when nothing gets wasted.”

Waste not, want not Customers love Bellanico’s malfatti, tender dumplings made from Swiss chard leaves, cooked with browned butter and sage. “We go through four to six

cases of Swiss chard each week making malfatti,” says Luce. “That generates about 20 pounds of stems. We don’t want to throw all that away.” Instead, Luce grills the stems, featuring them as a side dish for pork chops.

At Chicago’s Publican, sous chef James Lyons transforms leftover carrot tops into a pesto and incorporates sautéed turnip tops into turnip side dishes. “The less you throw away, the more money you save,” he says.

With today’s emphasis on farm-to-table cooking, many restaurants pay a premium for local, sustainable produce. Using the entire vegetable keeps rising food costs in check, notes Tara Duggan, author of “Root-to-Stalk Cooking: The Art of Using the Whole Vegetable.”

“But it’s not just about economics,” she says. “It’s about discovering new flavors and new textures.”

On the menu Find out how to transform leftover vegetable scraps into culinary

delights anywhere on your menu: Stocks, soups, stews. Leek tops, leftover carrot tips and the outer leaves of Romaine lettuce boost the flavor profile.

Salads. Cauliflower leaves, turnip greens and beet leaves add variety to salads.

Braises and roasts. Fennel stalks and fronds infuse flavor into braises and roasts, even replacing traditional ingredients like celery and dill.

Sauces.

Carrot tops and fennel fronds add a new dimension to pesto, salsa verde, gremolata and other sauces.

Garnishes. Carrot tops and fried fennel fronds serve as garnishes at Bellanico.

Side dishes. Swiss chard stems have inspired many dishes at Bellanico, says Luce, who has prepared them as a gratin as well as tempura-battered and deep-fried.

41

Creative spin on standards.

Duggan’s “Chard Stalk Hummus,” uses puréed chard stalk, instead of chickpeas. She features leek tops, rather than garlic chives, in a stir fry with salty pork belly.

The recipe was inspired by a dish served at Eric’s Restaurant in San Francisco.

Getting to the root of the matter.

Some quick tips for getting started, from root to stalk: Establish precise produce specifications. If you want beets, carrots and leeks to have tops attached, specify so.

Talk with farmers. They can introduce you to “exotic” vegetable parts and share cooking tips. Chicago’s Publican

highlights sweet potato greens on its menu, a gem the culinary staff found when a farmer shared that she cooks them at home.

Make sure it’s worth the work.

With some recipes calling for peeled tomatoes, Duggan decided to dehydrate the leftover skins to produce a flavoring powder.

“But I ended up with a tablespoon of powder that didn’t have a ton of flavor,” she says. Clearly not worth the time or energy.

Be flexible. When a crop of Swiss chard has short stems, Luce forgoes their use as a side dish, puréeing them instead for a sauce.

Plan ahead. Some vegetable parts have a shorter shelf life than others. For example, carrot tops

won’t stay fresh as long as carrots.

Extend their longevity by freezing items such as carrot-top pesto.

Do a safety check. While most plant parts are edible, some aren’t. If you haven’t heard of an item being used, Duggan advises that you research it before incorporating it into your dishes.

creating a plant-

centric menu

Environmental initiatives extend beyond the building and into our daily decisions. Through aggressive composting and recycling, we hope to divert 90% of our waste from landfills.

We are buying more local and regional products and working with our customers and vendors to reduce packaging.

With a renewed focus on locality and sustainability, Dartmouth Collegeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dining Services continues to operate as one of the top rated college foodservice facilities in the country. This is all achieved under the leadership of director Jon Plodzik, and these initiatives helped diminish their carbon footprint! A few members of our specialist team partnered with Culinary Operations Manager C. Robert Lester to create a more plant centric menu at one of their locations, Gathering Greens at the Courtyard CafĂŠ.

At Gathering Greens, students choose from a variety of salad options to be hand tossed by staff members. Countless customization items are offered, rotating by availability and seasonality to keep the concept fresh. During our visit we introduced two plant-centric salads into the mix, a Mediterranean Pasta Salad and the Southwest Salad. Moreover, the Lemon Chicken Salad was pilot tested through a sampling with the students, incorporating a portability option by utilizing lettuce cups.

In addition to the salad build options, we offered red lentil pasta, prewashed quinoa and power salad blend separately, including superfood items, to add substance to potential customized dishes. The student response was incredible: these base options were added onto their customized creations, taking preference to the Mediterranean Pasta Salad components. Furthermore, the Lemon Chicken Salad Cups received tremendous success, and the lettuce cups are now under consideration for their grab and go concept to appear next Fall.

On behalf of our specialist team, it was truly a pleasure working with the Dartmouth culinary team and it was such a rewarding experience. Thank you for the opportunity to help conceptualize a plant-centric menu, and we look forward to the continued innovation in the dining services department!