Be A Pescetarian: What my experience

With the advancement of medical sciences, people prefer living a healthier life because our lifespans are becoming longer than past generations. There are many ways to approach the optimal lifestyle including eating healthier foods, learning how to eat correctly, and getting exercise.

Nowadays, more and more people would like to change their dietary concepts to vegetarianism including being lacto-ovo vegetarians, vegans, fruitarians or pescatarians.

This week, I will become a pescatarian; a type of vegetarian who eats fish and seafood but doesn't eat steak, chicken, pork or any other kind of meat. First of all, I have to arrange my meals according to what most pescatarians usually eat and adhere to this diet for a week.  This is my daily menu below.

	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Breakfast	Blueberry Butterilk Pancakes	Milk / Banana / Mixed Nuts	Coffee/ Whole Wheat Bread	Coffee/ Blueberry Muffins
Lunch	Potato Curry	Vegetable Taco Salad	Vegetable Pad Thai	Mixed vegetable salad
Dinner	Vegetable Spaghetti	Tomato Congee	Mushroom Fried Rice	Spicy White Fish with Rice

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
Breakfast	Sunny Side Up Egg  Milk	Coffee / Cashews / Apple	Boil Egg / Strawberry
Lunch	Kung Pao Mushroom with White Rice	Shrimp and Scallop Ceviche Vinegared octopus Crab Salad	Roasted Shrimp with White bean salad
Dinner	Egg drop Soup / Grapefruit	Sauté Cabbage with White Rice	Mixed Vegetable soup

As seen from my daily menu, pescatarians like to select ingredients that are easy to buy and prepare. I also shared my own creation on my daily menu and it is Spicy White Fish With Rice. There is the recipe below.

Recipe:

                White Fish --------------> 1 piece

                 Rice ----------------------> 1 cup

                 White Onion ----------->  1

                 Tomato Purée ----------> 1 tbsp

                  Potato ------------------>  half

                  Red Pepper -----------> half

                  Green Pepper ---------> half

                  Curry Powder --------->  1 tbsp

                  Cayenne Pepper-------> 1 tsp    

                  Lime ----------------------> 1

                  Vegetable Oil --------->  3 tbsp

                  Water -------------------> 200 ml

                  Salt/ Black pepper-----> taste

Direction:

               1. Chop white onion into finely medium dices and make lime 

                   juice and zest.

               2. Heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil in a medium saucepan with medium-

                    high flame

               3. Sauté white onion until light golden brown

               4. Add curry powder, tomato purée and lime zest. Mixed well.

               5. Add water and rice to boil with a cover.

               6. Once boiled, simmer around 15 minutes or until rice firm but 

                   tender.

                   Let stand with a cover for a few minutes

               7. Place potato into salted cool water and bring to a boil.

                   Simmering until potato is soft

               8. Season white fish with salt / black pepper / cayenne pepper

               9. Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a frying pan with medium flame

              10. Fry fish until golden brown on both sides (around 5 minutes 

                    per side)  

                    Once filets are golden brown and pick them up

              11. Using the same frying pan with a little bit of vegetable oil,

                    sauté red pepper, green pepper and cooked potato.

              12. Add lime juice before serving.

              13. Serve with cooked rice.

See！ The dish looks so yummy and it also tastes excellent.

These are a few pictures of the other foods that I ate as a pescatarian:

As you can see from the pictures, most of my food was raw and fresh ingredients. The first thought in my mind was how would these healthier foods taste? To my surprise, those foods did taste fresh and amazing. I don't struggle with these foods a lot before eating them. I think that's because fish and seafood is a kind of meat to me. So there is no huge difference to my body and mind between pescetarianism and meatatarianism. If you ask me what my experience and thoughts are, I think it is special and valuable to me not only this moment but also my future. I grew up with eating meats such as roast chicken breast and steak although I am not a big meat fan. In this experiment, I didn't starve or feel uncomfortable; on the contrary, I was quite happy and enjoyed these dishes. In addition, I dined on a variety of different vegetables and fruits that I don't usually eat.

After this interesting experiment, I realized that the pescetarianism dietary concept of healthier dining is not only eating raw, fresh and whole foods but also cooking with low fat. In addition, the nutrients of fish and seafood are usually higher than edible land animals such as omega 3, vitamins, protein and minerals. Besides, many varieties of seafood are also low calories and sodium. This knowledge will be brought into full play in my culinary journey. Being successful chefs, we should know what diet trends are and how to make delicious meals while maintaining its own nutrition. In view of this, chefs should learn constantly to enrich themselves no matter how good their techniques are.

Over the past week, I did learn a lot about myself and pescetarianism. Now, I know how to make good food decisions. The most important part of this experience corrects my misunderstanding about non-meatatarian people. Although this experience has taught me a lot, I don't know what I will do going forward. The main reason why I think I couldn't be a pescetarian forever is that the major ingredients are quite expensive such as blueberry, fish and crab. However, I would like to continue this dietary concept in my eating behaviour if I could consume them under my weekly food and beverage budget.

Innovative food presentation

Nowadays, food plating is basic principle but at the same time it is quite important to chefs who want to convey their spirits. The presentation is also significant to diners since it is first impression they receive before eating. There are many positive changes in the way we ate. However, why is plating playing an important role in the culinary industry? Why does it turn into centre of our dinning experience?

With the growth of economy, people are richer than the past generations and pursue high quality lifestyles. They would like to obtain a multi-sensory eating experience. Besides, social media such as instagram has been brought into full play in culinary industry. People prefer to show beautiful and unique images and it results in innovation of staging food. Therefore, food presentation stopped playing a merely minor role. Actually, food always come out with containers such as bowls, plates and saucers in our daily lives and it is a kind of presentation. However, the presentation should not focus on how expensive the containers are. The more important is what chefs' concept and knowledge of ingredients are. 

Cultural historians always surround the presentation of food and such manifestation led customers to understand the chefs' background and thought process of using certain ingredients. A chef’s own culture is quite vital because it assists them to create a good eating experience for diners. As we seen from Japanese plating, the cuisine has delivered their attitude of dealing with ingredients and brought a huge influence on the current gastronomy. In the 18th century, haute cuisine was created in French cuisine.  Chef Antonin Careme combined concepts of culinary and construction and opened up a new horizon. He piled up ingredients and bestowed food presentation more possibilities. Chef Fernand Point created another idea of plating, Nouvelle cuisine during the 20th century.  He selected seasonal ingredients and staged it with graceful and plain style on the plate. Chef Point tried to focus on ingredients and wanted people to experience the nature of food. In today's food industry, information exchange is indispensable because chefs could gain inspirations between individuals. In the year 1960, French culinary school opened in Japan and it also gave another life of plating, called plate dressing. 

With the advancement of science and technology, molecular gastronomy was point by physicist Nicholas Kurti and physical chemist Herve This. It is a culinary breakthrough and totally overthrows our existing concept of a dish. Of course, molecular cuisine is a new and innovative dinning experience. Such cooking style involves many techniques including cookery and technology; therefore, it became a more complex and hot topic. Molecular gastronomy also attracts chefs and people to taste how unique it is. However, some chefs don't like and can't accept this creation since it doesn't taste better than usual and ignore the characteristics of ingredients. They care that their dishes should be absolutely delicious and give diners healthy and natural cooking style.  As a result, such innovation has passed.

                                

Puffballism's channel. (2012, June 24). Molecular gastronomy:Fruit Spaghetti.[Vide file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX4JD7BAOrU

Currently, people tend to eat healthily and plainly, as a result, food presentation turns out to be the sensory qualities of the food itself.  Chef Martyn Meid, is another star of the food industry and opened a new restaurant in London. His concept is fresh and simple ingredients for everyone with using traditional techniques. I totally agree with his idea and was attracted by the photographs of food since they looked so colourful, beautiful and special.  However, I am a little bit confused from such food plating. How can diners be full from such a small portion? Most ingredients seems as decoration such as orchid and lotus leaves. There is no doubt that plating the food is a key to communicate chefs'  creativeness and inventiveness and it also delivers the memory, experience and expectations to diners; however, a good dinning experience should contain a satisfied appetite and vision although dinning experience determined by aspect of food presentation is very common.

                                

Squid dish. Adapted from tofo.me/inkrestaurant by Martyn Meid, 2015. Retrieved from http://tofo.me/inkrestaurant

One the best things in life is the enjoyment of delectable food with visual feast. Being a chef student, I experience how many different creations are between individuals when I study in the cooking Lab. I also learn how to us the characteristics of food to create tasty dishes. I think a successful chef can seen himself/ herself as a artist and creates many works with amply using the feature of ingredients as much as he/ her likes. I hope someday I could convey my idea to diners in the presentation and texture of food. 

Let's go shopping--- Meat

Today, I am going to enjoy my shopping journey at St. Lawrence Market. The main reason I choose this market for purchasing meats is that there are diversified meats and cuts. In addition, it is a farmer market so their ingredients are usually fresh. Actually, I am always excited when I walk into the market because I really love conventional markets and like to explore traditional and classical foods and dishes. I personally believe that a traditional market is a good place where you can experience their traditions and hospitality.

                                              

                           

                 

            

Wow...There are many kinds of meats and different cuts depending on animals. You might feel how excited I am during this journey through these pictures. Here! Chicken, is one of my favourites.  It is very popular and the most common type of poultry in the world especially in these past decades due to promotion by various groups. Indeed, chicken is highly nutritious containing, about 20 % of protein and it is low in fat. Chicken isn't divided into many cuts; however, it usually consists of white meat (breast and wings) and dark meat (legs). Both of them are main parts of chicken. Besides, there are some edible components such as chicken feet, kidneys, neck and giblets. For main cuts, Taiwanese would like chicken legs more than breast in my hometown because they are juicier. Therefore, I chose chicken legs for making a presentation this time.

To begin, I think most of us are familiar with chicken legs and know they are below the joint of the back. However, there are specific and different cuts from legs such as chicken thigh with back portion, chicken leg quarter, chicken thigh and chicken drumstick. A chicken thigh with back portion consists of a thigh and some back.  Therefore, it contains a thigh, the upper part of the leg, a drumstick, lower part of the leg and some back. Sometimes pelvic meat and fat are attached. Chicken leg quarter is similar to chicken thigh with back portion. The only difference is chicken leg quarter includes some stomach fat and tail. However, all of them are dark meat and it means more fat, more connective tissue and more cooking time compared with light meat. Dark meat is usually muscle tissue and it needs more oxygen during exercise and movement. When muscles are used more frequently, the become darker. Therefore, we could know there is more myoglobin protein in dark meat

Chicken is subject to federal inspection the same as other meats such as beef and pork and it also could be graded including Canada Grade A, Canada Utility Grade and Canada Grade C. However, grading is not compulsory. All right, let's go to purchase chicken leg quarter and see what price is.

Well, as we can see from photo below, 1 lb for $2.19 so 1 kg for $4.84. It is not expensive compared with other cuts, breast, wings, drumstick and thigh are 4.99, 3.99, 2.89 and 3.19, respectively.

But how do I utilize this cut for optimum cost benefit? I am for sure that I usually won't waste any meat even bones when I prepare to cook. Today, I have chicken leg quarter so I am going to make Three-Cups Chicken, famous Taiwanese cuisine. First, I debone from chicken leg and separate bones and meat. I only use meat and fat to make the dish; therefore, bones will be stored in the refrigeration for creating my own stock next time. Here is my mom’s recipe below.

Ingredient:

                Fat from chicken---------------------------------> several pieces

                 Vegetable oil-------------------------------------> 1 tablespoon

                 Chicken legs, boneless and bite-si-------------> 2 pounds

                Ginger, thinly slice-------------------------------> 8 slices

                 Dried red pepper----------------------------------> 4 

                Fresh red pepper----------------------------------> 4

                   (2 for cooking/ 2 for garnish)

                Garlic, peeled and minced----------------------->1 head

                 Green onion, only white part/medium dice --> 1 bunch 

                Rice wine------------------------------------------>1/2 cup

                 Soy sauce ----------------------------------------->1/3 cup

                Basil leaves----------------------------------------> 4 stalks

                   (save some for garnish)

                Light brown sugar--------------------------------> 1 tablespoon

    Direction:

                   1. Heat up  a wok and then render chicken fat. Strain it         

                   2. Add chicken oil  in a wok over medium flame 

                  3. Add chicken meat into pan and pan fried until golden brown. Dish up and
                       set aside

                   4. In the same wok add vegetable oil over high heat then follow by chopped

                       garlic, sliced ginger, white part of green onion and dried red peppers, and

                       sauté until fragrant. 

                 5. Add light brown sugar, stir fry until sugar melts. Add pan fried chicken,

                       stirring evenly around 2 minutes 

                   6. Add rice wine, soy sauce and fresh red peppers and bring to a boil 

                   7. Once it boils then turn it down to low heat and simmer until sauce is

                       reduced to reduce to half its original volume. Sauce should be getting

                       thicken

                       8. Add basil and lightly stir all ingredients until fragrant around 30 seconds

                 9. Turn off the heat

                 10. Serve

      

 

See! It looks so tasty. I chose from many ways to cook it such as pan fried, sauté and simmer since chicken leg is dark meat. The reason why I pan fried chicken at first is because this way of cooking could sear meat and keep the juice inside. The second way is sauté, making flavour more incorporated. In the end, it is simmer, keeping meat moist and tender, making flavours are more concentrated.

In summary, this is a good journey not only purchasing meat but also creating dish. The more important thing is that I obtained knowledge about cooking ways depending on their property of animals and cuts. Indeed, this mission enriches my techniques and thinking.  Being a student in chef school, I should start trying to  learn and grow from different missions. I believe each mission brings a lot of valuable experience and  improves my skills. They will be highly useful for my future career.

Reference:
Smart Kitchen (n.d.). Chicken Pieces. Retrieved January 22, 2016 from https://www.smartkitchen.com/resources/ingredients/protein/poultry/chicken-pieces

My favourite soup-- Hot & Sour Soup

Today, I would like to introduce and teach you guys how to make perfect Hot and Sour Soup.  This soup tastes both spicy and sour at the same time as the name. Hot and sour soup came from Sichuan of China. People who live in Sichuan need hot and spicy food to warm them up since the weather is chilly. However, this soup becomes common and popular in my hometown, Taiwan since it is easy and quite cheap. Besides, people usually have the ingredients of hot and sour soup in their refrigeration so we could make the soup effortlessly. Overall, that's why I like to make this soup and want to share with you guys.

Actually, there are various recipes about hot and sour soup. Some of them are made with pork, but I will be going over the vegetarian version today . 

Ingredient: 

                

                Ginger, julienne ----------------- 10  gram

                Carrot, julienne ------------------ 50  gram

                Dried mushroom----------------- 50  gram

                Enoki mushroom ---------------- 50  gram

                Chinese cabbage, julienne ----- 60  gram

                Soft tofu, slice ------------------- 40  gram

                Green onion, dice --------------- 0.5  sprigs 

                Large egg, lightly beaten ---------1

                Soy sauce -------------------------- 1  tablespoon

                White vinegar --------------------- 4  tablespoon

                Dried mushroom water ---------- 2  cup

                Vegetable oil -------------------- 1/4  cup

                Sesame oil ------------------------- 1  tablespoon

                Cornstarch ------------------------- 3  tablespoon

                Cold water ------------------------- 4  tablespoon

                White pepper ------------------- 1/2  teaspoon

                Salt --------------------------------- to taste 

                Water ------------------------------ 1000 ml

Direction: 

               1.  Place Dried Mushroom in cold water until soft. After that, cut it into slices. Leave dried 

                     mushroom water for  stock

               2.  Heat up a small stock pot with vegetable oil and sesame oil

               3.  Place ginger and carrots in the pot and stir evenly and until carrots are 70 % cooked

               4.  Add dried mushroom, cabbage, enoki mushroom and mix well

               5.  Pour dried mushroom and stock into the pot and wait for boil

               6.  Add soy sauce for colour, salt for taste

               7.  Mix cornstarch and cold water evenly. Pour it into the pot and stir regularly

               8.  Add tofu and slightly stir around 3 minutes then turn off the heat

               9.  Add egg, stirring gently. Turn on the heat after egg is cooked

             10.  Add white vinegar, white pepper for seasoning

             11.  Drizzling green onion on the top

 

The aroma of soup is a little bit sour and tangy. Visually it is colourful and looks yummy. What I noticed from the soup is the multi layers of taste, which includes spiciness, sourness and slight umami of mushroom. It is so palatable and satisfying. I really enjoyed the soup since it warms me up during the cool days. Besides, this soup has high nutrition containing diversified vegetable to increase in enterogastric peristalsis and tofu supply of protein, essential amino acids, iron, calcium and some vitamin. I would certainly share it with my friends because this soup is so wonderful and savoury. They all love it no matter Asian or Western. Asian are used to sour taste so they are happy with it since it is the type of food they usually grow up with.  People from the western world don’t necessarily incorporate this type of sourness into their cuisine; however, they do like it because it tastes very smooth and balanced although the taste could be quite complex.

It seems the soup is so perfect, but it is not actually excellent. How to cut tofu into equal sizes so it could be cooked evenly is a big challenge to me since tofu is really soft and it breaks easily. It probably will be improved if I use firm tofu next time. Another problem is the white vinegar; it gets its tang and it may be different depend on brand, ingredients and making methods. I learn how to control the heat when I pour the cornstarch mixture and balance  the flavours of all ingredients from this experience. I know I still need to accumulate my experience  for my future culinary technique and I also know I will grow  and obtain valuable knowledge from each experience. That will enable me to stand on vantage point and I could apply everything I  gained from every experiment to my cooking skills. Now, being a beginner, I need to learn step by step and pursue improvement in order to fulfill my culinary dreams. I also expect myself to be an outstanding chef who has the ability to create new and delicious dishes for everyone

Pickle--Green Bean

Pickling, the old generations used as a way to reserve food of out of season use such as in the winters. Nowadays, people don't need to pickle food for reserving; however, we still enjoy making pickles because of the resulting flavours. Pickles need time to process and could be made with different ingredients, such as salt and sugar, both of these have anti-oxidant efficacy that could prevent corrosive in food. We usually see pickled cabbages, pickled cucumbers, and pickled olives in markets. Actually, pickling food is not a difficult task. Therefore, I decided to give pickling green beans a try.

Ingredient (Ann, 2013):
                 Green beans ---------------1  pounds
                 Jalapeño peppers ---------2
                 Small sweet peppers -----3
                 Garlic -------------------------1  head
                 Vinegar -----------------------1 1/4  cups
                 Water -------------------------1 1/4  cups
                 Pickling salt -----------------2  tablespoons
Tools:
                 Jars with lids and rings-----2
                 Small stock pan--------------1

Direction:

                1. Prepare boiled water in stove and place jars, lids and rings into small stock pan for

                    sterilizing.

                2. Place all green beans, jalapeño peppers, sweet peppers, garlic in to sterilized jars with

                    lids and rings. Making all ingredient tightly.

                3. In a saucepan, bring the vinegar, water and pickling salt to a boil. Then pour the vinegar

                    mixture into beans in the jars until 80% full and top with lids and rings on.

                4. Prepare water bath around 185 F degree. Place whole jars into water bath     

                    around 30 minutes.

                5. Turn off the heat and leave jars in the water about 10 minutes.

                6. Remove the jars from water bath and let the jars cold until they seal. Keep the rings

                   on for 1 day and then take off rings before storing.

Finally, I could enjoy my own pickles! Different from when the beans were still fresh, they became dark green in colour instead of bright green. Although I could smell the sourness when opening the jars, it isn’t so strong that one couldn’t stand it. This isn’t exactly surprising because it was made with vinegar. What took me by surprise was the texture of the pickled beans; unlike how I first expected, they are pretty crispy and not soft, which I quite enjoy. Moreover, it was a little bit spicy when I took the first bite but sourness and saltiness are in large part of the taste.

Now I think I am able to create my own recipe with the green bean pickles I made.

My recipe:

                     Green bean pickles ---------5 

                     Tuna in water, canned -----1

                     Red onion -------------------2  tablespoon

                     Celery -----------------------1  medium stock 

                     Olive oil---------------------1  teaspoon

                     Lemon, peel and juice ----to  taste

                     Salt / Black pepper --------to  taste

                     Unsalted soda cracker ----10  pieces 

Direction:

                1. Chop green beans, red onion and celery into dice. Grind lemon peel. 
                2. Mix all ingredients into a large bowl. Serve with soda crackers.
 
                      

I felt so satisfied and content when the mixture of food filled up my mouth. The overall taste of finished product has multi-layers of taste including the tanginess combined with the sourness brought by the pickles and lemon juice, as well as the sweetness came from the tuna. Besides, adding diced celery and red onion to this pickle dish really increased crispiness. 

Pickles are good for adding more flavours into food. Apart from sourness and sweetness, it sometimes also adds in some savoury flavour to the dish. From pickling the raw vegetables to using it in an actual dish, I consider this to be a wonderful and successful experience. However, I think I will include other ingredients, such as hot chilli pepper, to my pickled vegetables since I was expected it to be spicier. 

I totally enjoyed the entire process and am happy with the final result. I also obtain some valuable knowledge and experience of pickling vegetables. As a result, I will definitely keep the recipes in my book and I will continue to explore more varieties to further perfect my creations.

 

Reference:

Ann. (2013, n.d.). Crisp & Spicy Pickled Green Beans. Retrieved
from http://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/crisp-spicy-pickled-green-beans/