The Culinary Institute of America

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Interview with Chef Humm at Eleven Madison Park Apr 21, 2024

Show notes

Daniel Humm is the chef and owner of Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan, which has held three Michelin stars since 2012 and was ranked first by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2017. In 2021, Eleven Madison Park famously transitioned to a plant-based menu. Chef Daniel Humm talks about how shutting down the restaurant during the pandemic gave him time to think about his legacy, and the impact a plant-based menu would have on the culinary world. He reflects on the challenges of preparing, cooking, and presenting vegetables, and his continued passion to change diner perceptions about plant-based eating.

Watch the full documentary and find recipes here!

Corn Tamales at Dirt Candy Apr 20, 2024

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Michaela Duke, sous chef at Michelin-starred restaurant, Dirt Candy in New York City, shows us a whimsical take on corn tamales. She starts the dish with an intensely-flavored corn puree dotted with mole, corn salsa verde, and raw baby corn slices. She tops the puree with a corn tamale steamed inside of a corn mold.

Watch the full documentary and find recipes here!

Zucchini Spring Roll Rangoon at Dirt Candy Apr 19, 2024

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Michaela Duke, sous chef at Michelin-starred restaurant, Dirt Candy in New York City, shows us how she makes Zucchini Spring Roll Rangoon. She starts with a salad of torn zucchini, squash blossoms, and bamboo, dressed in vegan fish sauce and lime juice. She creates a wanton-like shell by frying a zucchini dusted in cornstarch. The crispy zucchini shell is filled with a creamy puree of zucchini and squash blossom.

Watch the full documentary and find recipes here!

Interview with Michaela Duke at Dirt Candy Apr 18, 2024

Show notes

Michaela Duke is sous chef at Dirt Candy in New York City's Lower East Side. Dirt Candy is a vegetable-focused restaurant with a 5-course tasting menu. She talks about the restaurant’s evolution since it opened in 2008, as well as the culinary team’s creative process in developing the seasonal menu. Dirt Candy’s Michelin star brings in more destination diners, and Chef Michaela loves to change their minds about what vegetarian cuisine can look like.

Watch the full documentary and find recipes here!

Interview with Chef Amanda Cohen from Dirt Candy Apr 17, 2024

Show notes

Amanda Cohen is the James Beard-nominated chef and owner of Dirt Candy, the Michelin-starred vegetable restaurant in New York City's Lower East Side. Dirt Candy was the first vegetable-focused restaurant in New York City, and a pioneer of the plant-forward movement. Dirt Candy was also the first restaurant in the city to eliminate tipping and share profits with its employees. In this interview, Chef Amanda Cohen talks about how diner perceptions have changed, as well as the creative process in developing her whimsical vegetable dishes.

Watch the full documentary and find recipes here!

Introduction to Inside the Plant-Forward Kitchen: New York Apr 16, 2024

Show notes

Inside the Plant-Forward Kitchen: New York is the second edition of a new educational video produced by The Culinary Institute of America—a first-of-its-kind video reference library documenting the best of plant-forward cuisine. In this documentary series, we explore the markets and restaurants of New York with the chefs who are on the leading edge of this culinary mega-trend.

We talk to Chef Amanda Cohen, a pioneer in the plant-forward movement at her restaurant Dirt Candy. We meet Chef Daniel Humm, who discusses how he transformed his world-famous restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, into a fully vegan establishment. We’ll experience the Middle Eastern creations of Shukette, traditional Iranian and Persian food at Sofreh, organic Queens diner fare at Golden Diner, and Southern Soul Food cooking at Cadence. We visit two Mexican restaurants, Cosme and Oxomoco, where the chefs combine Mexican gastronomy with locally grown New York produce. Finally, we leave New York to see how plant-forward principles can be scaled at high volume foodservice, when we head to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst with Chef Alexander Ong.

Watch the full documentary and find recipes here!

Sabich with Watermelon Salad and Watermelon Rind “Amba” Feb 13, 2024

Show notes

A sabich is traditionally pita or laffa bread stuffed with fried eggplant, hard-boiled egg, chopped salad, amba, and tahini sauce. It’s an Iraqi Jewish street food that has become a staple of Israeli cuisine. This creative twist features watermelon salad and watermelon rind "amba." Amba is traditionally a super pungent, tangy mango sauce popular in Iraq and Israel. In this version, Chef Magnus Young, Chef de Cuisine and Culinary Manager at the Bruschetteria Food Truck for Clif Family Wines in St. Helena, CA, makes the sauce using watermelon rind in place of mango. This dish is a delicious way to use all parts of the watermelon and reduce food waste.

Get the sabich recipe here!

Grilled Lamb Chops with Watermelon Molasses, Sofrito and Polenta Feb 12, 2024

Show notes

For a delicious dish that balances the richness of grilled lamb with the bright and fruity sweetness of watermelon molasses, try these grilled lamb chops with watermelon molasses, watermelon sofrito, and polenta. Your guests will love the combination of savory and smoky lamb with sweet and fruity watermelon glaze, spiced watermelon sofrito, and creamy polenta. Chef de Cuisine and Culinary Manager at the Bruschetteria Food Truck for Clif Family Wines in St. Helena, CA, Magnus Young shows us how to make this stunning entree.

Get the Grilled Lamb Chops recipe here!

Melonchelada Cocktail Feb 11, 2024

Show notes

This fruity, sweet, and refreshing drink inspired by the traditional michelada, uses watermelon juice in place of tomato juice. Chef Magnus Young, Chef de Cuisine and Culinary Manager at the Bruschetteria Food Truck for Clif Family Wines in St. Helena, CA, shows us how he makes this watermelon “melonchelada.”

Get the recipe for this Melonchelada Cocktail here!

Watermelon Stack Cake Feb 10, 2024

Show notes

Chef de Cuisine and Culinary Manager at the Bruschetteria Food Truck for Clif Family Wines in St. Helena, CA, Magnus Young shows us how to make a watermelon stack cake. This stack cake filling gets its beautiful color and sweet flavor from watermelon molasses and watermelon butter, and is inspired by a classic Appalachian dessert. Some historians believe that stack cake was a 19th century Appalachian wedding tradition, where each guest brought a single cake layer to the ceremony, which would then be assembled and spread with apple butter. This cake features sweet, jammy watermelon butter in between the layers.

Get the Watermelon Stack Cake recipe here.

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