The Silpat

The Silpat is a non stick baking mat that is made of a silicone material that is often used for baking, it's widely used in the industry and one of my most used pieces of equipment. The Silpat is manufactured by a company based in France that was founded in 1965 by a man named M. Guy Demarle. The silpat is used world wide from home cooks to 3 Michelin stared chefs. The Silpat falls into the category of a product because it can be bought and sold. M. Guy Demarle was looking for a better way to make baguettes at the time and created the first no stick baguette moulds and from that he created the original Silpat.I think its an important kitchen tool because of its versatility, from breads to cakes, to polenta, when its used the product comes out much better. Not only dose it make the product better but it also saves you time because its easy to clean and helps prevent burning food witch in return can help save money as well. This product has affected me in such a positive way, when i was interning I had to bake cakes on a regular basis and the Silpat always helped my cakes come out clean and not burned, other than that example I use it almost on a daily basis and it gives me an extra sense of security when baking.  

Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian

Being a vegetarian isn't as straight forward as you might think it is. there are many variations and personal choices people make that can differ their vegetarian  diets from on an other. For this week I chose to be a lacto-ovo vegetarian, that means that other than eggs and milk I would not consume any other animal by-products. This is a fairly common diet among people in India, and since im of Indian decent i thought i would give it a try. 

lets start by talking about a typical day for me in terms of the foods i would eat.

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs on a toasted English muffin topped with sautéed portabella mushrooms and sprinkled with fresh chives.

Lunch: Vegetable biryani served with cucumber ratia .

Dinner: Black chickpea curry served with roti, salad and mango pickle 

Recipe for  Open Faced Breakfast Sandwich

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

20 g sliced mushrooms of your choice

1 english muffin

15 ml 2%milk

25 g unsalted butter

3 sprigs of chives 

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1. In a small sauté pan melt 10 g of butter and add in sliced mushrooms, cook on medium heat until mushrooms have released most of their moisture and reserve

2. in the same pan add remaining butter and add in the eggs that have been beaten lightly with the milk. Add salt and pepper,stir constantly until you have reached your preferred doneness

3. Toast english muffin and top with eggs, mushrooms and freshly sliced chives.

Next let me tell you about my daily experiances throughout the week.

Day 1: Today was the day I started my lacto-ovo vegetarian diet. The only other experience I have had with a diet that resembles this is a lacto vegetarian diet I did for a couple of month in 2013, at that time it was very hard for me health wise so my doctor recommended I go back to my regular diet. I started my day with some cereal and milk and a cup of coffee, I had cucumber sushi for lunch witch was extremely unsatisfying and just left me craving real sushi. For dinner I had sagg (Indian spinach dish) and some roties.

Day 2: My friends and I decided to go out to a pub since it was half off wings, at my favourite wing place. I had an order of onion rings and was kind of sad that I couldn't have any wings. My friends weren't very supportive and kept taunting me the whole time we were there.

Day 3: I had a really satisfying breakfast sandwich witch had eggs and mushrooms in it, it was really yummy. I found myself thinking alot about what I could eat that would leave me not wanting more. I got my dad to cook me up some vegetarian briyani with cucumber ratia, it was good but could have used some chicken.

Day 4: Just had coffee in the morning. All day i was craving a bacon poutine, sadly I have 3 more days of this. For dinner I had dall (lentil soup) with steamed rice

Day 5: I had to taste my food in lab (chicken liver parfait) so i think I've broken the rules of the diet but I'm going to continue to follow it to the best of my ability.

Day 6: I had a super fresh croissant from the local cafe and it made me really happy and gave me hope for this diet. I tried to get vegetarian sushi again this time but opted for the yam this time... it was somehow worse than the cucumber roll. For dinner I had an Indian squash dish called tinda sabzi with roti and yoghurt, it was really spicy so I didn't eat to much of it.

Day 7: Being the last day I thought it would be a good idea to make something that I've never tried. I made fresh pasta with a mushroom and leek cream sauce. This is a recipe from Gordon Ramsay's YouTube channel and it turned out okay, it was lacking in flavour I think. 

Final Thoughts: It was really hard. I was thinking of meat the whole week and was just daydreaming about what I would eat the second it was over. I also started thinking about people who don't have the luxury of eating meat whenever they please. Even though I'm of Indian decent and a lot of Indians are vegetarians I don't ever think that I could be a vegetarian for more than a couple of days at a time. I think for a chef to be a vegetarian would be difficult considering that they would have no choice but to taste the food there making 

, for a chef to be able to do this would have to work in a vegetarian restaurant in my opinion. I think I could follow this diet but first I would have to gradually eat less meat rather than going cold turkey.

  

Lamb Chops

The cut of meat I have selected is lamb chops. The reason I chose this cut is that the meat from this cut is both extremely tender and flavourful when prepared correctly.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/02/raw-meat-mono-diet-nutritionists-comment

Lambs are domesticated farm animals and are believed to be some of the earliest animals to become livestock. The terms lamb is used for sheep that are under one year of age, Sheep older than one year are commonly refereed to as muttons. 

http://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/as_sheepc.html

 The lamb chops are cut from the back area refereed to as the rack, behind the shoulder but in front of the loin. The Lamb chops are often sold as a rack of about 6-8 ribs and are best when cooked whole. Lamb chops are quite pricey I looked on line for a grass fed lamb and found a farm that is selling a rack of lamb for about $53.00 per pound, this is extremely premium meat and I am sure that tastes wonderful but the usual price for a non grass fed rack would be around $26.00-$32.00 per pound. The best way to this would be a quick sear on the to lock in the juices and then to cook it to a medium rare, anything over medium doneness I believe would ruin both the texture and flavour of the meat.

Gordon Ramsay has a great lamb chop recipe that show cases the flavours and the techniques stated above.

Lamb Rack recipe