UW Health at The American Center Community Open House Culinary Demonstration

On Sunday UW Health at The American Center, their new health care and wellness facility on Madison's east side hosted an open house to the public.  As a part of the open house chefs from the Madison community were asked to come in and do a fifteen to twenty minute demonstration featuring healthy ethnic styled foods.    The featured chefs and restaurants were Bunky's Cafe Teresa Pullara, and her husband, Rachid Ouabel, Chef Patrick DePula from Salvatore's Restaurant, Chef Kevin McGuinnis from Madison College and myself.  The center features a brand new demonstration kitchen to be used to educate the community on the benefits of healthy eating, and at the same time assist patients who may have to change their own personal eating habits due to their current health.   UW hospital has opened two demonstration kitchens in the Madison area, the other being on the west side of Madison.  The significance of this for Madison College will be in our networking with UW and connecting our future demonstration kitchen with UW’s.  The open house featured some key athletes; legendary Donald Driver of the Green Bay Packers and recent star of UW basketball Sam Decker. Thus the open house was packed and of course filled with folks wanting to meet and maybe get an autograph! I am sure having the two stars on site helped us but we did have standing room only for our presentations!

You can view my demonstration at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2OkFt-ImLegVG9nM0dMTEFZck0/view?usp=sharing

For my demonstration I only needed to head up to our garden and have a look at what was growing in abundance. Our carrots and beets this year are exploding and we have been thinning them out over the last couple of weeks.  Normally I will harvest my root vegetables after the first frost; I cover them with hay when the weather starts to chill and a frost is coming. When we get that first frost we will go out and harvest all of our root vegetables. The sugar content in the root vegetables will increase exponentially and thus we end up with sweeter flavors. We have done this in years past and I can tell you of times we were being snowed and rained on while we worked into the night pulling up those tasty vegetables!  When I cook our root vegetables I prefer to roast them in the oven; roasting will caramelize the sugar in the root vegetables creating a great flavor profile.  For my demonstration I choose to Spanish Pinchos. They are similar to Spanish Tapas but have their own twist on tasty appetizer portions; you can order several different types, like Tapas but usually they are in the form of a type of sandwich or served with a bread component.  Typically you will find some kind of omelet or something prepared with cod.

Our fresh beets and carrots

Map of the Basque region

The Basque region of the world sits in two countries, Spain and France; the people of the Basque region are rich in culture and history. The region spans about 100 miles from Bilbao, Spain to Bayonne, France. Politically the Basque have undergone much, and yet despite the efforts of Franco, to wipe their culture from the maps of Spain, they are still a thriving community of people.  An interesting part of their language is that it is the only language in the world that does not have a similar dialect anywhere else in the world! During the Franco era the Basque were forbidden to speak their language and because of that there are older generations who do not know their language and yet it is the younger generation who speaks the language; this is definitely unique in the world of language as most often the language is lost when it comes to a younger generation. 

Fresh fish Pincho

While traveling in Northern Spain, Basque Country, I learned of Pinchos or Pintxo; they are found in Pincho bars in the Basque country.  At the time we were traveling with students and others in the Northern Spain region specifically for the Basque cuisine.  The trip was quite memorable and of course the food and wine were nothing short of spectacular! One of the fascinating aspects of the Pincho bar is the wine; when you order you simply ask for blanco vino or tinto vino or white wine or red wine.  The server behind the bar pulls one or the other from the wall of wines on the shelf and pours your selection. There is no sommelier or specific winery from which they make the selection; in fact you have no idea where the wine was produced! I can honestly state I did not have a single bad glass of wine! Each bar has a chef who has developed the menu of different pinchos offered and in fact there is a competition held in the Northern region to find who has the best dish for that year. We dined at one of the winners for the 2009 competition.  The bars will keep track of how many pinchos, what kind of pinchos consumed by the number and size of tooth picks left behind after you have eaten your pinchos.  I should state this was clearly not always the case when we dined but on some occasions the toothpick count was happening. 

Spanish award winning Pincho Chef; they earn the hat he is wearing in this photo when they win! 

The Pincho I choose to create follows in the recipe below. Feel free to ask any questions regarding the recipe and hopefully I can assist you! I will post a picture of my pincho later in another blog; the video did not really do it justice when I finished preparing. 

This is the recipe for my dish:

Grilled Beets, Roast Carrots, Pimento Aioli, Seared Chicken Breast Pincho

Yield: 4 Pinchos

1 Medium Red beet roasted in olive oil, salt and pepper and peeled

1 Medium Carrot roasted in olive oil with salt and pepper

1/8 cup Honey (used for seasoning the vegetables)

½ cup Olive oil (used for vegetables, bread and searing chicken)

¼ cup White wine vinegar (used for seasoning vegetables)

¼ cup Pimento puree (you can purchase canned pimentos for the puree)

½ cup Aioli (see recipe)

1 cup Brine (for chicken breast) see recipe

1 - 4 to 6 ounce skinless Chicken breast

4 Slices crusty French bread (use a good quality French bread for this)

To taste salt and pepper

1 tablespoon minced chives

4 Small beet greens the smaller ones are the best as they are tender.

4 Long sandwich skewers (skewers should be able to go through all of the items on the pincho)

Method:

1.            Slice Beets into 4 slices and brush with olive oil, honey and white wine vinegar. Places beets on a very hot grill and mark both sides quickly being careful to not burn the honey. Season with Salt and pepper.

2.            Slice roast carrot into 4 even slices, lengthwise. Brush with honey and white wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

3.            Brine the chicken breast for about 1 hour. Remove from the brine and pat dry. Season lightly with salt and pepper and sear the chicken breast in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Finish in the oven until the chicken is completely cooked.  Let the chicken breast rest and slice into 4 equal slices.

4.            Rub sliced crusty French bread with olive oil and lightly brown each slice in the oven.

5.            Whisk in pimento puree to the aioli.

6.            Brush pimento aioli on each slice of bread and layer first with beets, carrots, small beet greens, and sliced chicken breast. Using a squeeze bottle squeeze bottle drizzle aioli on to each pincho and sprinkle with minced chives. Skewer with a large sandwich pick and serve. 

Brine

Yield:  1 cup

½ cup kosher salt

¾ cup Water

½ cup Ice

1 tablespoon Honey

1 Sprig Fresh thyme

1 Sprig Fresh Italian Parsley

1 Bay leaf

Method:

1.            Combine salt and water and bring to a boil. Add ice and chill. Mix in honey and add herbs. Chill completely before using.

Aioli

Yield: 1 pint

1 Egg yolk

1 teaspoon Garlic mashed to a paste (1 toe of garlic will work)

½ ounce white wine vinegar

¼ ounce Water

½ teaspoon Dijon vinegar

1 cup vegetable oil

5 ounces Extra-virgin olive oil

To taste kosher salt

To taste Pepper

1 Tablespoon Lemon juice

Method:

1.            Combine egg yolk, garlic, vinegar, water and mustard. Whisk them to together and slowly whisk in the vegetable oil at a very slow stream to form the emulsion. Continue adding the oil slowly; when finished with the vegetable oil continue with the olive oil. When finished it should be the consistency of mayonnaise. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice and chill immediately.

Note on roasting vegetables

Wash the outside of the vegetables thoroughly before roasting. Try to have equal sized vegetables for roasting as they will vary in their cooking times.  Beets tend to take a long time to roast; I like to season them and wrap them in aluminum foil when roasting. This does two things, one it keeps the flavor of the beets contained to the beets and does not dry out and two it assist in the cooking time of the beets. I usually roast my vegetables at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  You can also roast them with some aromatics; using fresh herbs for example will offer a nice additional flavor.