CLEAN COOKING

An ACF chef and cookbook author shares tips on how to manipulate whole foods for added flavor and nutrition // By Lauren Kramer

When it comes to food, there’s one thing on which most of us can agree: Sugar, sodium and fat are highly addictive. We love our pizzas oozing with cheese, the deep richness of our creamy ice creams and the satisfying crunch of a fried salted snack. In short, we love food that tastes good.

Food can and should taste good — even “healthier” food, says Chef Jim Perko, CEC , executive chef of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Lifestyle and Integrative Medicine. With Drs. Michael Roizen and Michael Crupain , Chef Perko co-authored “The What to Eat When Cookbook,” a guide to whole-food cooking without the need for added sugar, salt or fat. “If it doesn’t taste good, it becomes impossible to sustain behavioral change over the long-term,” Chef Perko says. “Ours is a technique-driven curriculum that combines evidence-based science of food and medicine with the joy and art of cooking.”

How do you moisten without fat, you ask? Rather than adding oil, butter or cream sauces to grains, Chef Perko suggests using plants, some of which have more water content than others. “There’s so much moisture in a mushroom, for example,” he says. “So, load your grain with green beans, onions, peppers and mushrooms. You could add a small quantity of olive oil, but less is more, and even with a healthy fat, you’re still talking 120 calories per tablespoon.”

Instead of adding more and more salt, consider adding rich, roasted tomatoes for some acid and an umami boost — not to mention a dose of healthy lycopene. Even something as simple as an extra squeeze of lemon or citrus, fresh herbs or spices can balance out natural flavors in a dish better than just salt.

Instead of reaching for full-fat, dairy-based, sugar-laden ice cream, Chef Perko offers this suggestion: “Take a ripe banana, peel it, wrap it and freeze it. Then, blend it with almond milk, almond butter, vanilla and flax seed, and you’ll see it comes out just like a vanilla milkshake: totally delicious. You will love it, and it will love you back.”

Can’t resist chocolate? Chef Perko has an answer for that, too. “Slice that banana and freeze the slices on a skewer, Then dip it into melted dark chocolate, freeze it again, and you’ll have a healthy candy bar. That’s what culinary medicine does: It delivers flavor without sodium, density without a lot of meat and sweets without [added] sugar.”

Take salad dressing, for example. Chefs are trained that a classic vinaigrette dressing should be a ratio of oil to acid, but Chef Perko says there is another way. His recipe involves boiling and reducing figs and prunes before blending them with blueberries, vinegar, garlic, mustard and herbs. “This is a thick, sweet salad dressing sweetened by the prunes, figs and blueberries,” he says. “Since prunes have [natural] sugar, calcium and fiber, this way you’re getting sweetness but with the fiber attached to it.”

This way of eating, Chef Perko says, is “not just for people with health problems or who need to heal and sustain their behavioral changes – it’s also for prevention. We want to teach this to children so they can make the right choices while they’re still young.”

For recipes and more tips and tricks on how to boost the flavor and nutritional component of your dishes, visit WeAreChefs.com

Anytime Cauliflower Rissole

Reprinted with permission from National Geographic ©2020

The ascension of cauliflower as an alternative to potatoes has been impressive. Chef Perko’s rissole recipe doesn’t mash cauliflower, rice it or turn it into a pizza crust. Instead, he showcases centuries-old aromatic and enticing spices, chewy toasted walnuts and umami from reduced tomato in an amazing dish that is great warm or cold.

• 1 t ablespoon garam masala

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

• P inch of cayenne pepper

• 2 t ablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 head cauliflower (about 2 pounds), trimmed, cut into small florets

• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth

• 3 t ablespoons tomato paste

• 1 t ablespoon almond butter

• 1/2 cup (about 2 ounces) walnuts, toasted, coarsely ground

1. I n a small bowl, combine the first five ingredients and set aside.

2. I n a large skillet over medium heat, swirl the oil to cover the bottom, then add the cauliflower and toss. Sprinkle with salt and mix well. Continue to toss and stir frequently until the cauliflower florets become golden brown and crisp-tender, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer the cauliflower to a medium bowl and set aside.

3. To the hot skillet, add the reserved spices, stir until lightly toasted, about 5 seconds, then quickly add the vegetable broth and whisk to blend. Add the tomato paste and whisk until incorporated and smooth. Add the almond butter and whisk until smooth. Return the cauliflower to the skillet and toss until all the florets are well coated. Add the walnuts and toss to coat.

4. A llow the cauliflower mixture to cool 10 minutes, then transfer to a bowl and serve.

Classical

When ACF Chef Blessing Chicah , a recent graduate of Bishop State Community College in Mobile, Alabama, emigrated to the United States from Nigeria in 2015, she missed the egusi soup enjoyed frequently in her birth country. Egusi is a West African name for the dried and ground, protein-rich seeds of squash, melon and other cucurbitaceous plants. For the classic version, Chef Chicah makes a paste with the egusi and some water, cooking the paste with crushed tomatoes, sweet peppers, onions and a touch of hot chili peppers for spice. She brings the mixture to a simmer with stock from cooking goat meat, along with beef bouillon, salt and ground dawadawa (African locust bean) for earthiness. Leafy greens and the reserved goat meat are added just at the end.

Modern

For the modern version, Chef Chicah presents a deconstructed, seafood-forward take of egusi soup. She starts off making the soup in the classic way but adds ground crawfish to the simmer. Traditionally, egusi soup is eaten with your hands by tearing off a piece of fufu, a semi-thick starch patty or soft dough made with pounded yam flour and hot water. In this case, the cooked elements of the soup are removed from the broth and served alongside the fufu. Blackened shrimp and shaved blanched carrots round out the dish.

For recipes, visit wearechefs.com

Have a plan and stick to it

In order to make a positive careerenhancing choice, you need to have a plan, says ACF Chef Chad Young , culinary arts educator at Greater Lafayette Career Academy in Lafayette, Indiana. “Know your passion and stick to it, trusting your gut feeling,” says Chef Young, who loved cooking from an early age, but pursued careers others thought were best for him. He first majored in voice performance and then elementary education before realizing that cooking was all he wanted to do all day, every day.

“I finally went to culinary school and never looked back,” he says. While he didn’t have the resources to go to culinary school early on, he now believes that those who are passionate about the trade will find a way to make it happen. “Had I known from Day One that I love culinary arts and cooking, I would have found a way versus jumping through hoops for others and being a people pleaser and not a me pleaser.”

Now, Chef Young combines education and culinary, teaching culinary students in a career tech education program. At 48, he is finally realizing a dream of opening a restaurant — without using a dime of his own. The school is opening a studentrun restaurant over which Chef Young has complete oversight, “and now I’m getting to do any- and everything I wanted to do without the burden and stress of financial backing. If you know what you want to do, follow it. Go for it.”

Choose advancement over money

Some of the best career- and goaladvancing jobs may not pay well. Instead, choose based on the experience the job offers, says Chef J. Kevin Walker, CMC , AAC, executive chef at the 5-star Ansley Golf Club in Atlanta. After working for mom-and-pop restaurants in the early 1980s, Chef Walker landed a job at a small country club. But when the door opened for him to work at the esteemed Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, he left his $12 per hour job to work at the Biltmore for $3.35 per hour. “I went from being financially OK to selling my car, having to walk home from work most nights and having only $20 to $25 to my name after paying rent for about three years just because of the experience,” he says.

One time, while living in New Jersey with his grandparents, Chef Walker walked up and down the street cold-calling restaurants looking for a job. “I got offers from a lot of places, but none seemed right,” he says. “Then, I walked into the back of a French restaurant, and it was clean, and they were all in uniform with hats and neckerchiefs. I realized I had been missing professionalism. They asked if I could work nights. I said ‘yes,’ and I didn’t even ask what the pay was. I just knew that’s where I wanted to be.”

Determine the ideals you’d like to emulate and choose jobs that will take you to those ideals.

Say yes to opportunities outside your comfort zone

Whether they be employment prospects or dish-creation challenges, jump at the chance to pursue new opportunities, setting aside fear of failure, says Chef Emilia Tomaszycki, CEPC . At 24, she became the youngest person to pass the certified executive pastry chef exam, and now, at 25, is the executive pastry chef at the renowned Bonita Bay Club in Bonita Springs, Florida.

“It doesn’t matter what the opportunity is, make yourself available to whatever may come your way,” she says. “Always be open to move, change or jump out of your comfort zone. Don’t ever get comfortable somewhere.”

With that mindset, Chef Tomaszycki doesn’t refuse to take on a cooking challenge for fear of burning something. “You will make mistakes. Don’t be afraid of that. It doesn’t mean you failed. It means you found another way of how not to do something.” That’s the advice Chef Tomaszycki says she would give her younger self.

Train under a mentor

“Find a mentor to lead you through the disciplines of the fundamentals until they become second nature,” says Chef Jason Hall, CMC , vice president of research and culinary development for kitchen equipment manufacturer Southbend (a Middleby company) in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina. He was fortunate to find such a mentor at age 19 or 20 when he went to work at a country club for a chef he knew little about. Chef Hall says he was grateful to learn scratch cooking from his mentor.

“Learning those skills from a young age set the roots for my path.” It turns out, his chef mentor was Chef Jimmy Corwell, CMC, who had just been selected for ACF Culinary Team USA to compete at IKA/Culinary Olympics. Chef Hall embraced the wealth of information he gained, including classical sauces, classical fabrication techniques and ways to use the trim.

“Fast forward to what I do now, and I couldn’t take a client’s recipe apart and build it into a piece of equipment if I didn’t understand a perfect poach or braise, for example,” he says. “Now those things are second nature.”

Build your network

Start with your mentor. “If you have good mentors, they have fantastic networks,” Chef Hall says. “Then, if you stand out in business or in their kitchen brigade, you will get involved volunteering, catering and traveling with them to help transport food to competitions, for example.” He became immersed in Chef Corwell’s network of master chefs and was invited to their master chef dinners.

This network of master chefs and competition teams was a guiding light for Chef Hall. In 2012, he successfully passed the certified master chef exam. He also was a member of the ACF Culinary Team USA 2016 that represented the United States in international cooking competitions across the globe. In October of that year, the team dominated the cold food/culinary art category as world champions, placing first out of 42 countries and placing fourth overall at IKA Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany.

While in culinary school, Chef Walker volunteered for any dinner that needed help as part of his strategy to meet people and network. He even got to cook an event lunch for renowned French Chef Paul Bocuse and was able to meet the legendary Julia Child.

“Work for reputable people who do things correctly and who are willing to teach you,” Chef Hall says. “Know the difference between something done right and with quality versus something that just gets done. Don’t sacrifice your own moral standard.”