Toastmasters Speech #7- Research Your Topic

Delicious!

What makes a food DELICIOUS? (Write word on board). Is it your favorite foods? Is it a comfort food? Is it only food that is not good for us? :) In taking a few cooking classes, I have learned a lot of different food combinations that I would never have thought would taste good together. One was a something called a “fig bag.” It was a fig, stuffed with gorgonzola cheese, wrapped in prosciutto – which is a salty, Italian aged ham, then wrapped in a very thin dough called phyllo dough, baked and then served with a reduced cream sauce and toasted pine nuts. Not in my wildest dreams would I have come up with this food combination, nor think it would be good. There are things in there that sound good. But, a fig with prosciutto? It sounds bizarre. Yet, it was an excellent combination, making for an appetizer that was quite DELICIOUS (point to word- have everyone say it with me). Combining flavors such as in the fig bag has interested me ever since. From my cooking classes, lots of experimentation and a little research, I’ve learned about some of the basics of making food delicious- combining flavors, combining textures and using fresh ingredients.

My fig bag example shows some of the art of combining flavors. In some research I did, I came across Chef Rocco DiSpirito who had this to say: “The world of ingredients breaks downs into four basic flavors the same way the world of colors breaks down into three basic colors.” DiSpirito says those four basic flavors are sour, salt, sweet and bitter. The key is to balance these basic flavors. Dave Lombardi, the chef who taught my gourmet cooking class, is a teacher at the Kendall College in Chicago in the School for Culinary Arts. Dave also described the fig bag appetizer we made as a balance: The pungent cheese balanced with the sweetness of the fig, balanced with the saltiness of the prosciutto and the mild flavor of the dough balanced with the richness of the cream sauce with nuts. Other combinations that surprised me were things like cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto- a sweet and salty balance. How about strawberries and balsamic vinegar? It was described in The Flavor Bible as “sweet and rich, with a tang of tart.” If you think of balancing flavors in food, rather than just looking at ingredients to tell if you like them, then creating different dishes become a completely different thing. What I have learned from this is that when I am served a dish with different ingredients and perhaps a sauce on the side, I make sure to take a bite with every ingredient in it, dipped in the sauce- because this was the intended effect of the dish, and it is often DELICIOUS!

You may not recognize the name of Chef Al Yeganeh- but, you may recognize the character he inspired- the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld. A spokesperson for his restaurant gives this advice: “Use experience, passion and the freshest ingredients, with great combinations of flavors and textures.” A soup example they give to demonstrate combining textures is to puree soup into a creamy texture and then top it with something crunchy. Again, I go back to the fig bag example and note that when you take a bite of this appetizer, you get a crunch, but then bite into the soft fig. The sauce is creamy, but the nuts also give it a crunch. These types of textures add to your enjoyment of the food by giving your mouth several textures to decipher. My mom taught me to balance my meal with meat, vegetables and starch, but she never mentioned that balancing textures might make it more DELICIOUS! :)

What else makes food delicious? I’ve often heard: fresh ingredients. A lot of chefs shop at farmer’s markets and buy their food organically for the freshest possible ingredients. One chef that takes this almost to an extreme is Greg Christian of Greg Christian Catering, who I saw speak at the Taste of Chicago this past year. This Chef talked about driving hours to pick up ingredients from farms and he boasts a completely zero-waste, green kitchen, composting all his food waste and only working with companies who will provide his ingredients in 100% recyclable containers. I guess that shows how important fresh ingredients are to him! Many chefs may not go to this extreme, but talk about fresh ingredients giving them the edge to make their meals not just good, but great. Back to Dave again, the chef from my cooking class- he was hilarious in describing the difference between making your own chicken stock from scratch vs. buying chicken broth in a can from the store. He would say, “Why would you buy that tasteless stuff? Why would you buy flavored water?” I have to admit that this chicken recipe I make that I learned from class is always made from homemade chicken stock… I can’t imagine substituting Collage Inn chicken broth or it wouldn’t be nearly as DELICIOUS.

This picture is a meal I prepare for friends of mine on a hiking trip I take each year. The menu is: Chicken Duxelle- chicken breast in a cream, white wine, mushroom sauce, wilted spinach with garlic and onion topped with toasted pine nuts, baked beets, tossed in balsamic vinaigrette with crumbled blue cheese on top and baked squash, sautéed in butter and fresh sage. For dessert: warm chocolate middle cake with raspberry puree, vanilla bean ice cream and freshly whipped cream sprinkled with cinnamon. This meal embodies a combination of flavors, textures and fresh ingredients… the flavors: the beets are bland and balanced by the flavors of the blue cheese and vinaigrette. The bitterness of the spinach is balanced with the onion, garlic, salt and pepper. The baked squash has a bit of sweetness and is balanced by the butter and fresh sage- which is an almost peppery flavor. The dessert has a tart raspberry puree which balances the sweetness of the cake. There is a mixture of textures on the plate from mushy with the squash, to firm with the chicken to crunchy with the nuts on the spinach. The dessert has a liquid center with the spongy cake and the cold, firm ice cream. The ingredients, though they were mostly bought at a supermarket, were fresh and used within a day or two, I used fresh herbs rather than dried and I personally made the chicken stock used to flavor the sauce for the chicken. Keeping in mind these three principles- combining flavors, combining textures and using fresh ingredients made this meal- and Beth can attest to this since she has had it- was DELICIOUS!