Every ingredient has its cooking method

Identità Future, at Host 2015, today focused on the perfect marriage between ingredient and cooking method. Science and technology strive to offer chefs the necessary tools to respect and enhance every product and fully express their “flavours” and “knowledge". The day began with the duet between Giancarlo Morelli, patron at restaurant Pomiroeu in Seregno (Mb), and Elena Piovanelli, dietician from Andid (Italian National Association of Dieticians). They presented “Cooking methods in the kitchen” in collaboration with Ballarini.

Morelli cooked a good but most of all healthy dish, in which all the ingredients preserve their beneficial characteristics. The sapidity is given by the care with which every ingredient is prepared, without being “covered” with salt or fats. The crispy outside of the black pig loin, previously vacuum cooked, is made by cooking the meat on a low flame. The black cabbage served on the side is only blanched with a quick dip in boiling water and then tossed in the pan preserving the easy to absorb calcium and the vitamins of which it is rich, as explained by the dietician. Finally, the sweetness of the apples, added as a purée and caramelised using only their sugar and a high temperature. The lesson’s message: different food needs to be prepared following its characteristics.

Andrea Incerti Vezzani, of restaurant Ca' Matilda in Rubbianino, Quattro Castella, and Gianluca Orto, chef and consultant at Irinox, later presented state-of-the-art blast chillers. Much more than an immediate polar cold: these multifunctional machines cover all the production: you can cook, chill, make high with the same tool. Vezzani showed the potential and versatility of the new Irinox chillers in two recipes in which meat and fish were “matured” in the chiller and served in a shell of crispy bread, also prepared with the same machine, to be eaten without fork and knife.

«Making high means extracting the humidity from the meat, it’s a balance of temperature and time», explained Vezzani who, after lots of experiments, found the right process for his Flank steak with quince and fermented cabbage. The monkfish also underwent a similar process and was “matured” as a salami for at least 70 hours, a slightly more cooked sashimi, but still delicate, served with onions with liquorice and seaweeds.

Once the two “T’s" (temperature and time) are perfectly calibrated for every ingredient, you can save the programme to guarantee consistency during the process and always obtain the same result, even in kitchens with itinerating staff. There’s no space for mistake given the ease of use that makes state-of-the-art chillers also suitable for domestic use.

Monday ends with the lesson on “The future of induction in tailor made kitchens”. Every ingredient has its cooking method and every chef his stoves, this is the challenge of Berto's, a firm that makes personalised kitchens in terms of design, so that every master chef can express the flavours of his cuisine to the fullest. Nicola Dinato of restaurant Feva in Castelfranco Veneto (Treviso) chose induction as the ideal cooking method for his Finger-pacchero filled with polenta cream and creamed salted cod wrapped in tapioca red and green chips (aromatised with beetroot and onion or celery and parsley).

The technical benefits of this method were explained by Marco Lebiu, sales director at Berto's: temperature precision, better quality of life in the kitchen (induction stoves don’t overheat the room and are easy to clean with a cloth), but most of all energy-saving. «Induction is a way of conceiving cooking, it’s not just a tool» he explained.

Tomorrow’s programme, Tuesday 27th October:

11.30 am Fabio Giavedoni, Slow Wine: “Wine glass choice, service and cleaning” in collaboration with Caraiba and Winterhalter.

3.00 pm Massimo Stronati and Hoshizaki ice machines: “Ice, what with cocktails and new ideas”.