A Conversation with Chef Chris!

Happy Soul Sips on Sunday. Today looks a little different because I’m here with the famous and also long-time family friend, Chris Byrne. He is a chef and he is at the County. The reason that I asked Chris to come is that I…we have a little background music…we’re going to go with the background music. We think it’s meant for us. Yeah.

So I’m talking to Chris, I recently ran into him, and I’m talking to him about wanting to step into the vegan world. And I can’t quite figure it out, and right now, frankly, I have a bad relationship with food, in that I don’t want to cook. I am done with cooking; I am so done with Mom! Cooking lousy food and people complaining about it!

So anyways, then I’m talking with Chris and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this is like so meant to be, that Chris is here and I’m chatting with him” and I said, “Hey, I really want to step into this vegan world and I bet there is other people out there who would like to step into it a little bit more, take away a little bit of that meat and mix up those proteins.

So, on that note, I said, “Hey Chris, want to come on Soul Sips on Sunday?”

Chris: I sure did!

Andrea: Hell yeah! And so he has a few tips. I’m literally going to hand the phone over to him and when he’s done, he’s going to say, peace out baby, have a great Sunday! Alright, take care, enjoy Chris!

Chris:
Thanks Andrea. You know I’m always excited…I’ve been a plant based chef for over twenty years, so I like to give a few tips to people who are making plant based food because even if we do want to make a change, and eat a little less meat here and there, if it’s not very tasty, then it’s kind of like pulling teeth. It’s not as fun. Luckily, we can make really delicious plant-based food that will get everyone in your family excited about it, eventually.

So, I’m going to give you three tips. There are a million recipes in this world. We live in this age of knowledge. You scan the Internet for any food that you’re interested in, you will get a vegan version of that as a recipe. But as we all know, cooking is more than just following a recipe, you’ve got to have some skills, and some ideas in mind, so I’ll give you a few tips. And basically, I’m looking at food from basically a chemistry standpoint, so you’re taking out this meat from your plant, and what does that meat have? And do we’re going to want to replace that for our plant-based food because we want people to feel just as satisfied.

So, one of the big things that meat has, I’m going to start simple and get more interesting as I get along here…of course is sodium. If you take sodium out of your diet or if you take meat out of your diet, you’re taking a tonne of sodium out of your diet. Good idea! And I’m not here for people to increase their sodium intake in any way, and depending on who you are, or what your health history is and such, I would approach with caution.

Having said that, when you do take that meat out, you’re taking all the sodium out, you might want to consider making your plant-based food, adding just a little more salt than you would if you’re making a sauce for tofu, you might want it to be a little saltier than a sauce for steak because steak is full of sodium, and sodium is not. So that’s just a quick tip on sodium, and again, depending on who you’re cooking for and all that, maybe a lack of sodium is appropriate, but I do know people who have gone plant based, have watched their salt, continued to watch their salt, got a little light headed with low-blood pressure. So just want you to be thinking about that when you’re making your plant-based meals. Also, salt makes stuff delicious, so if that sauce is a little saltier, it will balance out the lack of sodium in the other parts.

The other thing that you’re taking out when you take out a piece of meat from your plate is fat. And not always the fat you want though – again, good move – but we still need these fats in our diet and we still want to eat these fats to be satisfied with our meal.

So we have, pretty much when we’re talking about saturated fats, there’s only two sources that I can really think of in the plant world, one is avocado and one is coconut. So, you’re going to want to include those when you can, appropriately, because we do need some saturated fats, and then all these other great vegetable fats that you have at your disposal.

A lot of people just use canola, vegetable, and olive oil, but now you can go into a health food store, and avocado oil, pumpkin seed oil, all this beautiful stuff, and you can choose the right oil for the right dish that you are using. You want to consider the flash point, grape seed oil has a high flash point, and that was not to despair, the wonderful olive oil. It’s gorgeous. So you know…

Andrea: Wait, what’s a flash point?

Chris: A flash point is where oil starts to smoke. You generally really don’t want to get to that point because then you’re denaturing the oil, and then goes the idea of replacing the oil we took out of our meal with these good oil that hasn’t been denatured, and it’s fresh and such.

So, again, when you’re going through these recipes and you’re making your plant-based food, but a little extra fat in. Again, making a sauce for a piece of tofu, I want it to be fattier than a sauce I’m making for a steak because a steak has all this fat inherent in it. So just another little tip.
Now the third and most important concept, I think, I like to share this with everyone at all my cooking classes, is umami. Do you know what umami is Andrea?

Andrea: No

Chris: Good, a lot of people don’t. So umami, if you Google umami, the first thing that comes up.

Andrea: How do you spell it?

Chris: U-m-a-m-i. Umami. You Google that and the Urban dictionary comes up and it says, “An imaginary flavour that hipster chef’s talk about to make themselves sound smart.” No, that’s not true! Step back Urban Dictionary! But what it is, is the fifth taste. We have sweet and sour, bitter and salty, those are easily identifiable.

Umami is harder to identify than those other things, in fact, it was kind of found in a reverse manner. It was discovered by a Japanese guy in the twentieth century. He was looking at our taste tracks – we have all these receptors down our taste track – he found fifty-three of these receptors on our taste track, that did not get activated by the other four flavours. So what is this? He was like, there’s another flavour. So, that’s when we discovered that umami is a flavour.

Now the closest you’ve ever had to having umami that wasn’t bound up in salt and fat and other things, is in a fresh cherry tomato. You know you eat a fresh cherry tomato off the vine, and you’re like, this is so good, and you eat another one, and another one, and you can’t stop. They’re so good. And they’re sweet yeah, and they’re sour yeah, but really what’s sending those endorphins into your brain is the umami. And meat is full of umami, and so we’re taking that out of our plate, and I have this whole theory about how we kind of got off on the wrong foot in North America, culinarily-wise with plant-based cuisine in the sixties and such, when, we’re heavily influenced by France and Italy and their cuisine’s, and so they’ve got a big piece of meat, full of umami, and they’ve got some steamed broccoli and mashed potatoes – delicious meal. That’s all fine, wonderful.

You take that umami out and add, you know brown rice and sweet potatoes, say, like we may have done here in the past in plant-based cuisine, and you haven’t replaced that umami. So, when you finish eating that meal, you haven’t lit up those receptors, you’re left wanting. Hey, when’s the rest coming, I’m still hungry. I’m going to eat a bag of chips or whatever.

So, umami foods, tomatoes, I mentioned, mushrooms are rich in umami, and then we go into fermented foods. So, nutritional yeast is one, and then all the fermented foods, the meso, the soya sauce and tamari’s, sauerkraut, kimchee, fermented black beans. More and more artisan companies are producing these non-pasteurized fermented foods. And you don’t need a lot, you can just put a little bit in there, and you will be replacing the umami that you have taken out.

I would say put a little soy sauce, say you’re making a curry tomato sauce, put a little soy sauce in there. Again, not a lot, you don’t want it to taste like soy sauce, but by adding that umami in it, it’s just going to elevate the flavour. It’s going to activate the taste receptors, and it’s going to make people feel more satisfied, with their meal, and that is what we’re going for.

So, those are the three things I want you to think about, whenever you’re following any recipe, or whenever you’re trying, if you’re doing a meatless Monday, or what have you. Think about the amount of sodium, think about the fat, and the good fat, and think about putting umami in there somewhere.
And if you think about those three things, your dishes will be elevated, satisfying, the whole family will be happy. And that’s what I have to say here.

Andrea: Thanks Chris!

Chris: It was a real pleasure Andrea!

Andrea: Amazing! Umami! Umami

Chris: Have a great Sunday!

Andrea: Happy Soul Sips Sunday!