Food Blog

Hello everyone!! Today I want to show my last blog in 2019.

As you may noticed, it is about preservation. So, I decided to make a salted salmon because I did that hundred times. In the video above, you will see all the instructions of how you can make it at home. I hope you will enjoy. I did not provide an ingredient list there due to the fact that even I do not know correct proportions. Every time, I use a different amount of salt and dill because of a different cut of fish. I believe that you will understand an approximate number of tablespoons for yours.

Sensory evaluation will not be that long because the recipe and ingredients are simple. Read it after watching the video!

An all-purpose vegetable makes every single dish better.

During this month, I had a chance to cook the onion many times at home and many times in labs. I roasted, baked, boiled and fried. On that picture above, I would like to show my favorite cooking methods such as caramelizing, grilling and just fresh.

I adore this vegetable due to the fact that it is a good source of Vitamin C, Folate, Vitamin B6 and Potassium. Onions may reduce the risk of cancer, low down blood sugar level and improve bone health.

 References:

This is my 3-minute recipe with 3 ingredients that are high in Vitamin D such as cream, cheese and eggs. 

Is there vitamin or mineral loss when cooking vegetables? If so, what culinary techniques can be used when cooking to minimize this loss?

The best way to prevent losing vitamins and minerals is to eat your fresh vegetables and fruits right away. Also, you can freeze or refrigerate them. The cold temperature will decrease a degradation of nutrients. For this advice you should better not trim the products before putting them into a container.

During the cooking, we lose a lot of useful vitamins such as folate, thiamine, B6 and Vitamin C. If the food will be untouched for 2 hours the number of lost nutrients doubles. Vitamin A, riboflavin and niacin can stay longer. Despite, fiber and minerals will remain on the same level.

There are some tips that will help you to minimize this loss.

1)    Try to do not overcook your veggies. Quick cooking is better

2)    Do not trim too much. Try to cut as thin as possible

3)    Less cooking liquid, better result

4)    Steaming more preferable to boiling

5)    A microwave and a pressure cooker are recommended to use

6)    No baking soda! You will remove the color!

7)    Large chunks

References:

White, D. A. (n.d.). How to Prevent Vitamin Loss When Cooking Vegetables. Retrieved November 13, 2019, from https://www.foodnetwork.com/healthyeats/healthy-tips/2013/04/how-to-prevent-vitamin-loss-when-cooking-vegetables.

What are some vitamins or minerals that we may not be getting enough of in our diets living in North America?

Today, I would like to talk with you about our diet and how we can improve it. What I am trying to say, many Canadians as a population are not well nourished. Living in this region, people may suffer from the lack of nutrients that they do not receive from their daily food. Recent studies show that only 30% of Canadian citizens meet the condition of getting recommended number of serving. If you are a 70% part of the population and you think of changing your life in a better way, you should read this post. I will tell you the most significant nutrients that we miss and how we can retrieve them.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that is responsible for maintaining a normal vision and a proper work of our immune system, skin and eyes functioning. The vitamin, basically, comes from animal-based food, but also consists in some vegetables – carotenoids.

What is this?

Carotenoids can be found in different kinds of fruits and vegetables. Usually, they are brightly colored like orange, yellow, dark green and red. Health Canada suggests consuming at least one dark green and one orange fruit or vegetable each day.

Calcium

Calcium is an important mineral for people of all ages. We use it to build our bones and teeth. It improves your heart and muscles. The nutrient consists in milk, yoghurt, cheese, canned fish, legumes and almonds. Elders should eat more products with calcium than younger population.

What are some easy ways to incorporate these and other vitamins or minerals in your diet by way of foods and/or beverages?

To involve calcium into your diet, you may eat almonds. It is a perfect snack, easy to carry anywhere with you.

For a breakfast you can make a simple recipe that will improve a potassium level. Mix a banana with low fat yoghurt together!

For your lunch or dinner, you should add a medium sized sweet potato to incorporate Vitamin A in a diet. This vegetable has a daily amount of the needed vitamin.

References: 

Goncalves, K. (2018, March 15). Nutrient Deficiencies: Why Nearly Everyone Has Them. Retrieved November 13, 2019, from https://canprev.ca/all/nutrient-deficiencies-why-nearly-everyone-has-them/.

 What You Need to Know About Vitamin A. (2019, March 21). Retrieved November 13, 2019, from https://www.unlockfood.ca/en/Articles/Vitamins-and-Minerals/What-You-Need-to-Know-About-Vitamin-A.aspx.

 What You Need to Know about Calcium. (2019, February 14). Retrieved November 13, 2019, from https://www.unlockfood.ca/en/Articles/Vitamins-and-Minerals/What-You-Need-to-Know-about-Calcium.aspx.

Venison loin with cocoa and sea buckthorn.

Hello guys! Recently, I went to a Montreal city to find something that I have never tried, and I FOUND IT! It was an incredible and memorable experience that I want to share with you!

One day, I and my friends went to ITHQ culinary school where we had a Lab with an Italian chef. He prepared for us a 6-course menu that we had to cook by our own. The dishes were oriented to the seafood like sea urchin, scallops and razor clams. I did not try them before, but it did not surprise myself as another food did. Our main course was a Venison loin with a sea buckthorn; what is more – I cooked it. I will not lie that the chef helped me to make my plate look fancy. Before I will tell you my sensory evaluation, I want to talk about the technics of cooking that I used and what was new for me.

Firstly, I had to make a sauce. It was something special. During my mice on place, I found out small yellow oval balls that were sour. As I understood later, it was a local product that you cannot find in Toronto. The name is a Sea Buckthorn. Chefs use these berries instead of lemon for their dressing, desserts or even garnish. So, I did shallots brunoise and fried it with no color. After 5-6 min I added a cup of sea buckthorn and braised for three minutes maximum. Then, I poured two glasses of wine and reduce it in half. After that, added three cups of veal stock and reduced again. The consistency should become thicker and smooth. Finally, I added three tbsp of cocoa powder, mixed and strained.

The most significant part. I have never cooked venison before, so I decided to tie the meat with a string. I did not know how to do it properly, that’s why I asked the chef to help me. It seemed so easy; however, it is not. Venison is so tender and soft, so that I wanted to be careful. In the middle of the process, I approximately got the main point of tightening. One more technic I have learned during this class! Let’s stick to the cooking process, I used butter and rosemary to boost the flavors. Before frying, I seasoned the venison with sea salt and allspice. For beef steaks, I usually heat my pan on a high flame for a couple of minutes and add a tbsp of olive oil. For the venison I did the same. I placed a one kilo piece on a super-heated pan and start marbling with butter and rosemary. Basically, this kind of meat we do not need to cook more than rare doneness, so 2-3 min from each side is enough. Then I putted on a tray to rest for a couple of minutes and let the temperatures come inside. Before serving, I added the rest of the sea buckthorn into my sauce and bring to a boil once.

Tasting!

An aroma of the venison is something different from all kinds of meat that I ate before. It has that specific smell according to its origin – wild nature. Also, I increased richness of its flavors by marbling with rosemary and butter. Taste is unique. First bite, you think that it’s just a regular beef; however, venison is tender as wagu, so meat falls apart rapidly. Some spices are playing on your tongue and giving you a complete profile of the product. Second bite, you add a little bit of sauce and put in a mouth. Your tongue is confused by the juiciness of meat and richness of the sauce. Sea buckthorn gives a sour shade that is combined with a strong chocolate taste. When you swallow, you can feel a bouquet of red wine.

Care about your body more than it does!

Recently, I asked myself this question “what influence on my health?”. After some research, I found out an article about Strokes and Heart Attacks. I do not know a lot about this topic due to my age, however, I would like to get more information. Therefore, it will help me in the future. Besides, nutrition is also a common thing in this situation. And I hope that in the future, nutrition will have more influence to prevent strokes by improving people’s diets to the excellence. On recently discovered website, I learned that cholesterol is the one of the most dangerous reasons of heart attacks. To expand my knowledge, I went to the Internet. Unfortunately, I realized that in social web we have billions of websites that are not credible and can spread fake information. Therefore, I did some research to help you with that.

I bumped into to two sources which I analyzed by 3 criteria such as who wrote the website, what are the qualifications of the author(s), how do the author(s) reference the information in the website?

I want to start from a “Heart and Stroke” site, it is a credible site by all criteria. At the top, you can clearly see the name of the writer - Dr. Eric Smith. He is a stroke neurologist. In the article, he refers to his research that was funded by the United States National Institute of Health, Canadian Stroke Network and Canadian Institutes for Health Research. Eventually, people can rely to his words.

On the other hand, I found a suspicious website that tells you “10 Easy Ways to Prevent Stroke”. To begin with, an author of this article is not a scientist. When I tried to google her qualification, I did not see any account with her name that were connected to the medicine. So, she does not have an appropriate level of knowledge in this case. Then, she refers to the real cardio scientist - Salim Yusuf, but the problem is that his quote does not expand or prove the topic.

Overall, I would like to say that you should be more careful when you search the information in the internet because it might be dangerous for your life. If you will use my 3 criteria, you will not get confused. Good luck!

References:

Smith, E. (n.d.). Stroke and dementia. Retrieved  from https://www.heartandstroke.ca/stroke/what-is-stroke/stroke-and-dementia.

Allen, J. G. (2016, July 22). 10 Easy Ways to Prevent Stroke. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://contemporaryclinic.pharmacytimes.com/preventive-care/10-easy-ways-to-prevent-stroke.

Every day, I am trying to pay attention to the products that I consume. Every day, it is a challenge to find a proper restaurant that does not use too much fat. Every day, major part of people take care of their health. Each of us should know what is good for their body. That is why I decided to study for Culinary Management – Nutrition.

This modern trend interests me for a couple of years. I am a sportsman and nutrition play a significant role in my success. I must know what I can eat or what I cannot. To be more accurate in those decisions, I need to find some credible resources that I can trust. In the Internet, it becomes harder and harder to find a website with an appropriate information. Fortunately, I would help you with that.

I would take one of my recent experience. I was looking for topic “coffee” and recent studies. In the future, nutrition will have more important role in the coffee industry. People love coffee but sometimes they can overdrink it and do not realize that it harms their health. What is more, nutritionists could find some new components that influence on our bodies positively. To prove that I found two websites. Let’s compare them together.

To begin with, you should look at the author, what qualification he/she has and how he/she reference the information on the source. First website “Caffeine and Health” does not have certain author, but it refers to the government sites that are absolutely credible. Second website “12 Health Benefits and 6 Disadvantages of Coffee – SMASHING IT” does not author either. However, it is a company that sells coffee and they do not reference to any sources. Therefore, the facts that you will find there could be wrong.

References:

Caffeine and Health. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.dietitians.ca/Dietitians-Views/Food-Regulation-and-Labelling/Caffeine-and-Health.aspx#.

Production... takes much more time than cooking. 

Anyway, my food blog is going to be here soon!

My philosophy of cooking.

Recently, I found this amazing food blog from David Lebovitz. It is a French Chef who was born in the US. He has a world-famous book “My Paris Kitchen: Recipes and Stories” that won a Good Reads Choice Award in 2014.

My first and last experience that I had in a restaurant industry was 2 years ago.

My mom has a friend who runs her own restaurant in a small town. During my summer vacation, we went there. When I said to my parents that I want to become a chef, they made a call to this restaurant and asked about my candidacy. They replied, surprisingly to me, very positively, thus I started to prepare for my first working day. On the week, I went to the establishment and met other chefs. I was so nerving but they were good to me, thus we became friends too quickly. My role was a prep-cook. This means that I did a lot of cuts, peels etc. After a quick excursion of the kitchen, I moved to my workplace. I did know how to hold a knife properly but did not have too much experience to prevent cutting myself. Therefore, my first day finished with two small wounds on fingers. So now I pay much more attention to knifes that I use and sharp them systematically.

Hello guys! I would like to share with you my first dish that I made in Toronto! 

My story starts in December 2015. I remembered this day for the whole life. And I will tell you why. 

It was a rainy day and I was alone at home. My parents were late from their jobs and our fridge was empty. I tried to spawn some products in it by opening a door each 15 minutes. Eventually, I found out a couple of ingredients. It was a salmon and a slice of lemon. I put them on a table and grab a pinch of Italian spices. 5 minutes after, I had a raw salmon fillet that dressed by a few drops of lemon. I did not even know how to cook a simple omelet, thus I tried to use as much as possible my knowledge about cooking to feed myself this evening. I opened an oven and set up a program “baking” for 180*. I was so nerving that 20 minutes when I was waiting for the time when I will be able to try my masterpiece.