Recipe: All With the Stem

 
 
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 ALL WITH THE STEM

By Santiago Rosero

The stem of broccoli is rich in protein, fiber, calcium, iron, and vitamins B1, B2, B6, C, K, A, and its consistency allows it to be prepared in various ways. To consume, it's necessary to peel the outer layer (of a more intense green) that remains after separating the branches. The interior, which is a pale green and almost whitish color, is the one that is eaten.

Here are three ways you can prepare the broccoli stem:

  1. Pureed

  2. Sliced

  3. Chips-form

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 Broccoli

  • Other vegetable remains (optional)

  • Oil of your choice

  • Butter

  • Flour or cornstarch

  • 1 Egg white

  • Salt and chili powder

  • Onions

  • Balsamic vinegar

  • Cane sugar

PREPARATION:

Pureed:

Cut the stem and cook it in water with salt. You can add other vegetable remains to give it more flavor. When it is soft enough, finish cooking and make sure to sift all the water, because otherwise the purée can be very soft. Pass it through a blender or a processor. Season to taste.

Sliced:

Make slices from the peeled stem and fry them with butter until they are golden and crispy. Season to taste.

Chips-form:

Cut thin strips from the length of the stem. The strips can be seasoned to taste and fried (in very hot oil) directly, or they can also be covered with flour or cornstarch for a crunchier texture. In this recipe, I covered them with egg white seasoned with salt and chili powder.

To add a distinctive touch to the flavor, I prepared a black sauce of burnt onions and balsamic vinegar. I baked, until almost burnt, layers of onions. Then I boiled them in a little bit of water to extract the flavor and color. Afterwards, I removed the layers, added balsamic vinegar, and a little raw cane sugar to get a thicker sauce.

Mount the plate with mashed potatoes at the base, the slices in the middle, and the chips on top, so you can taste the mixture in one spoonful.

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Reducing Food Waste

would help counteract the devastating effects this phenomenon has on the environment, the economy and, above all, on the hungry people who could provide themselves with enough food if a third of the food produced in the world did not end up in the garbage every day.

I'm Santiago Rosero. I am a journalist and a cook. When I lived in Paris in 2015, I was working as the head chef at Freegan Pony, a restaurant focused on fighting food waste using good recovered from a wholesale market. That experience allowed me to learn about the phenomenon of food waste and made me commit myself, politically and humanely, to that issue. When I returned to my hometown of Quito, Ecuador, I created a project inspired by that experience.

Idónea-Rescate de Alimentos is a social and gastronomic project that seeks to raise awareness about the various devastating effects of food waste. Periodically, with the participation of volunteers, we rescue food from markets and fairs or receive donations of surplus or production waste. We then transform it to share it with people in need and set up dinners open to the general public. We practice plant-based cooking that we call of optimization, through which we seek to make the most of all the elements of the products (shells, stems, leaves, branches), in order to further reduce waste and obtain the nutritional advantages of these components.

Although the impact of our actions is small in the face of the great global phenomenon of food waste, I believe that the sum of our wills can create an even greater force to combat it.

 
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