The Tampa Personal Chef Blog

2012-02-01T21:18:00.000-05:00

Championship Baby Back Ribs Recipe
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

I was watching a show on the Food Network where several cooks were battling it out over BBQ pork back ribs. I observed their techniques and final products, and became very enthusiastic about wanting to be competing with them. Some were good, others were not-so-good, but one thing was for sure - I felt left out.

Feeling ready for a rib-fight, I’ve decided to pull out the proverbial white glove and slap any would-be challengers with my championship rib recipe. I’m so confident that it will knock your socks off, that I don’t mind sharing it with you.

When making the sauce, be sure to use tomato ketchup that is made with real sugar. Sugar will caramelize nicely when on the grill, high fructose corn syrup will not. Also, high fructose corn syrup is something that I always avoid eating as I don’t want to become a diabetic overnight.

If you’re a purist and would like to make your ketchup from scratch you can combine tomato paste with brown sugar, salt and red wine vinegar.

This recipe works best with a pressure cooker. By cooking the meat under pressure, the flavor of the surrounding steam combined with the herbs gets pushes into the meat, as opposed to conventional cooking methods which tend to cause the fluids to exit the meat instead. But if you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can boil the ribs for 1 to 1.5 hours in water with salt and pickling spice, until the meat gets really nice and soft.

Without further a due, I present to you a recipe that, in one hour, will produce ribs you’d swear took all day to make.

Yields: 3 racks of baby back pork ribs

Equipment Needed:
- 1 Pressure cooker (preferably electronic)
- 1 BBQ grill (I used gas to grill them for the recipe, but would use charcoal if I was competing)

Ingredients:
- 3 Racks of pork back ribs
- 1 oz of McCormick pickling spice (cinnamon, allspice, mustard seed, coriander, bay leaves, ginger, chillies, cloves, black pepper, mace and cardamon).
- salt
- water

Ingredients for the BBQ sauce:
- 1 cup of ketchup that is made with real sugar (no high fructose corn syrup)
- 1/4 cup of brown sugar
- 2 tbsp of chipotle mustard
- 2 tbsp of Japanese soya sauce
- 1 tsp of liquid smoke
- 1/2 tbsp of Tigers sauce (tamarind-based sauce)

Instructions:

1. Cut the racks into three or four sections. Put them into the pressure cooker with 1oz of the pickling spice mixture and about a tbsp of salt. Put in enough warm water to cover half the ribs. Pressure cook on high for 23 minutes.

2. Mix the BBQ sauce by whisking together all the ingredients. Set aside. Pre-heat your BBQ grill.

3. When the pressure cooker is done, let out the steam, take out the ribs and place them on the BBQ Grill. Smother them with BBQ sauce and grill until the sauce has caramelized and you’re ready to enjoy some fall-off-the-bone ribs!

A Review of Yummy House Restaurant in Tampa

2012-01-29T00:56:00.002-05:00

A review of Yummy House Restaurant in Tampa
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

I grew up eating sublime Chinese food in Toronto, where one of the world's largest communities of Asians comprises a large portion of the population. Quite simply, I ate like an emperor. Daily, and cheaply.

Second-best to actually eating in China, Toronto's Chinese restaurants can very well serve as a benchmark to compare all other satellite restaurants around the world. The same could be said for Chinese restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Montreal and Vancouver, but I can't imagine anything better than the Chinese restaurant scene in Toronto.

It was with a heavy-stomach that I left Toronto behind when i moved to Tampa Bay a few years back. The one thing I missed most was my beloved Chinese food, and to my disappointment, Tampa Bay had none by definition. It was, until now, a sad excuse of sweet and sour chicken balls, drive-thru McChinese crap, and bottom-of-the-barrel Chinese buffets catering to a crowd that thinks real Chinese food is deep fried chicken covered in high fructose corn syrup and food coloring, reheated five times, and served with Uncle Ben's parboiled rice and frozen peas with a fortune cookie printed in New Jersey. It was a dismal scene, and I soon learned to forget that part of my past. Out of sight, out of mind, I thought.

Several people had mentioned a place called Yummy House. They told me it was the only real Chinese restaurant in Tampa. I had been reluctant to try it, as I did not want to get my hopes up and have my heart broken again. So I took their advice and put it on the back burner, yearning instead for a day where I would once again be reunited with my beloved Chinese food.

I spent the last week of 2011 in Toronto with my wife and kid on vacation. Needless to say, I had a six day torrid affair with Toronto's Asian restaurants. I ate like a hobbit - two lunches and two dinners daily. I had it in the back alleys of Chinatown, late at night, in hotel rooms and even on the Subway. I spent the week jacked up on sublime sauces, scrumptious dumplings, glistening noodles, decadent soups and meats bursting with flavor. Upon my return to Tampa Bay I crashed like a wounded fighter plane, and I needed a fix. But where was I to get it? I dug through my e-mails, and yes, there it was! Yummy House. I had to go to Yummy House, it was my only hope of smiling again. And so I decided to take a leap of faith and tempt my heart in Tampa.

The following is my honest review of Yummy House on Waters avenue in Tampa.

Two things stuck out to me right off the bat before I even entered the restaurant. The parking lot was completely packed, and the place looked like crap - Two excellent signs of a good Chinese restaurant. My spirits began to lift.

The inside of the place was a whirlwind of motion and sound. It was busy, loud, and people could be seen eagerly devouring their meals. My wife and I waited for a few minutes before we were sat at a simple table, with two plates and a fork. "I like this." I said to Kim, "This reminds me of Toronto. The roof panels caving in, dirty floors, jammed tables and the servers moving a hundred miles per hour. This is going to be good."

We did not hold back. I ordered several items, and despite the servers questioning looks, I managed to snap a few photos for this review.

Salt and Pepper Calamari

The first dish to reach our table, was clearly their most popular dish, as plates of fried squid made their way to virtually every table.

The salt and pepper calamari was delicious. The crispy and sweet crust, comprised mostly of corn starch and MSG was really tasty, and I really enjoyed the hot chili flakes and chopped coriander. It was fresh and flavorful.

The only thing that would have made it better would have been a side of lemon, vinegar and smoked or spicy salt, as is usual in other Chinese restaurants. But despite the lack of side condiments, we were very pleased with this dish.

Hong Kong Won Ton Soup

The Hong Kong Won Ton Soup followed the salt and pepper calamari. It had a certain charm. Although the stock was made from bullion and MSG, and was unusually but pleasantly smoky, it was good.

I always enjoy fresh, crunchy bok-choi and the won-ton dumplings, although not nearly as flavorful as they should have been, earned points for having a paper-thin, velvety wrapper that melted in your mouth.

At this point my expectations for perfect Chinese food were not met, but I was still enjoying the meal more than I ever thought possible in Tampa.

Hong Kong Roast Duck

I once drove a Toyota Celica that looked like a space-racer, only to find that it was a slightly fortified go-kart underneath a flashy exterior. Looks can be deceiving - and disappointing. And so it was with the Hong Kong Roast Duck.

It was served luke warm, which is still OK with me, but the taste was just not there. A duck is surrounded by a layer of fat, that if cooked right, can be infused with a tonne of flavor, but Yummy House rushed it and ended up with a duck that looked like Bon-Jovi, but tasted like William Hung.

Although I will admit that it's sitting in the darkness of my fridge at this very minute, awaiting its tragic fate at 4am.

Orange Chicken

The orange chicken was an unplanned accident. My wife had pointed to the table next to us to a luscious plate of chicken with pineapple and green pepper (yes, I'm against sweet and sour, but my wife loves it) however, the server accidentally brought us this meek orange chicken, which, aside from it's just-got-out-of-bed-couldn't-find-anything-to-wear-look, tasted to me like orange Tang sprinkled on deep-fried chicken.

By this course, I hung on to the won ton soup and squid hoping this chicken dish wouldn't be an omen to the rest of the meal. We only had one more course to go - the tie breaker.

Hong Kong Pan Fried Noodle

If there is one dish that could save your dining experience in a situation like this, it's what I like to call Cantonese Chow-Mein. The only problem is that I have yet to ask for "Cantonese Chow-Mein" at an Asian restaurant in Florida without getting a puzzled look and a, "Huh?".

Armed with my photographic memory, I scanned their menu looking for a description that would fit my needs, and lo' and behold, there it was! Hong Kong Pan Fried Noodles.

Was it a perfect rendition of my favorite dish? Almost. They got the noodles just right. They got the toppings of pork, chicken, squid, shrimp and scallop just right, but they missed on the sauce - which was just the won-ton soup, with a sprinkling of MSG, thickened with corn starch. But don't get me wrong. I enjoyed it very much and it saved this review.

Upon stuffing myself with pan fried noodles and calamari, I asked myself if Yummy House could compete in Toronto, Montreal or New York. The answer was, no. But I will say, that like the only girl at the dance, I can get passed her slight blemishes, ugly hair and glasses, and can say happily that I will most definitely be dancing with her again. Yummy house is good. And it's light years ahead of any other so-called Chinese restaurants in the Tampa Bay area.

I can guarantee you that as long as I live in Tampa Bay, the owners of Yummy House will continue to drive around in luxury cars. It's not the love I left back in Toronto, but she's a good dancer, and she makes really good squid!

This year, it's different

2012-01-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

This Year, It’s Different.
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Wow, 2011. What a year! Kim Jong Il is dead, Justin Bieber sprouted a generation of kids with ridiculous hair, Schwarzenegger’s hanky-panky with the cleaning lady came to light, and you probably gained a couple of pounds. But 2012 is going to be different.

What resolutions have you made? Have you recycled last year’s resolutions again? Most of you probably woke up (late) on Jan 1st and said to yourselves, “This year is going to be different. I’m going to lose weight, get in shape, make more money, be happier, and make a difference in the world!” And although you may have failed in previous years, this time it’s going to work. You know why? Because one of my resolutions was to help you do it!

When I woke up on January first I tried to remember some of the wise things people have said to me over the years. I knew that I remembered these things for a reason - so, why not actually put them to use? Here they are:

“Money is a result of attracting positive attention by providing people with what is needed and wanted. Find out what is needed and wanted. Provide it.” -- A very wise man with a lot of money.

“Stay out of the attic! There are monsters up there [and a vast collection of gentleman's magazines].” -- My grandfather.

“Every day is a new chance to start again.” -- Tammy.

“Try? Do, or do not. There is no try.” -- Master Yoda.

“The only real pay in life is friendship, and the feeling that you’ve helped another.” -- A Buddhist monk. I don’t know his name.

“Pay it forward” -- I think that was the name of a movie. But I believe in that.

Although I’m not necessarily here to solve your money problems, or help you break in to your grandfather’s attic, I would like to help you get the most out of life when it comes to food.

For those of you who had a resolution to lose weight, and get in shape, here are some tips that will help you.

Cut the fat - As you will read in my upcoming book “Fat Chef, Skinny Chef” you’re fat because you eat fat. There are other less important determining factors, but fat is the big thing. Fat packs the most amount of calories per unit than any other food. By cutting out oils, butter, nuts, and animal fat, you’re not only drastically cutting calories, but you’re also forcing your body to use it’s own fat stores.

Go ahead, eat your carbs - You’ve been told for years that carbohydrates are the devil. And you’ve probably also found that not eating carbohydrates (although it does cause you to lose weight temporarily) also makes you feel tired, head achy, angry, annoyed, anxious, and such other undesirable conditions. It’s OK to feed your body carbs. Your body prefers them as its main fuel source. It’s the type of carb that matters most- avoid processed white carbs, and opt instead for healthy carbs such as sweet potato, al dente pasta, wild and brown rice, or just limit your carb intake to reasonable sized portions without any refined sugar in or on them. You don’t have to give up carbs to lose weight. You just have to be smart about them. You don’t buy 100 galons of gas to drive to the corner store, and you don’t need to eat 1800 calories of carbohydrates when all you do is sit around all day.

Move it, buddy! The easiest way to wreck your car, motorcycle, boat engine, or lawn mower is to let it sit for a long time without using it. You would think the opposite, but I urge you to try it for yourself if you don’t believe me. The best way to keep engines (your body is also a carbon-oxygen engine) working is to use them often. That’s why exercise is so important. This does not mean that you have to be that guy who’s wearing neon tights and a fanny pack, running up the street at the crack of dawn checking his sports watch to make sure that he beat yesterday’s time. You can get into really good shape by simply walking 30 minutes to an hour (continuously) every day. A brisk walk - or “constitutional” - keeps your engine parts lubricated and running well, and uses up that extra fuel you’ve been carrying around in the form of fat.

I guarantee that if you put these three things to use, and you keep it up, you will achieve your fitness and weight loss goals in 2012. And if you need my help to plan your meals, please let me know, I’m here to help!

I trully wish you a year of success and happiness. Thank you.

Resolutions

2011-12-28T16:22:00.000-05:00

Resolutions
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

It's December 28th, 2011. Chunky snow flurries fall in all directions outside the window. It’s the first snowfall of an unusually warm winter. The owner of the restaurant, a small Chinese woman wearing a puffy jacket and knitted cap finds her way to me through a very crowded dining room and greets me, “Oh, I no see you in so long! You like soya chicken?” I am flattered that she remembered me - I haven’t been back in Toronto for over two years. And at the Chicken and Noodle Restaurant nothing seems to have changed. I run my hands over the plastic disposable table cloth, and pick up the oily menu to have a look at the pictures and Chinese characters, but I don’t really need it. I know what I came here for, I knew it before I got on the plane the night before.

I order their specialty - cold soya chicken, chicken rice, and pickled radish. The lady rushes back to the kitchen and yells my order at the cooks. I can see their silhouettes behind the frosted glass wall that separates the kitchen from the dining room. They are blurs of motion. The sounds of fire, heavy woks and clanking metal instruments are soothing to my ears. Oh how I’ve missed this place.

My meal arrives and I find my heart racing. I’m nervous. I don’t know where to begin. Its been so long since I’ve had really good Asian food. The first bite confirms what I expected - nothing’s changed at the Chicken and Noodle Restaurant. The chicken is perfectly cooked - marinated in a salty brine, with white pepper and ginger before it’s steamed just until the meat becomes cooked. It’s then chilled overnight and served cold, chopped up into manageable-sized pieces with a dip of peanut oil, salt, ginger and chopped scallions. The rice is drizzled with subtle - yet incredibly delicious chicken drippings and garlic, and the pickled carrots and radish strips are crisp and perfectly sweet. I’m having one of those moments where all the problems in life recede and I am left in a warm and happy place. For the moment, all that exists is the plate in front of me. My wife is trying to tell me something, but her words can’t quite penetrate the euphoria that surrounds me.

Her words finally reach me and we begin to talk about new years resolutions. The beginning of the year finds most people looking back at the things that went wrong. The missed opportunities. The lack of responsibility. We all look at the new year to wipe the slate clean, to start again. Many focus on losing weight. Crash diets, green smoothies, HGC drops. A week of running on the treadmill, two weeks of knee pain, and back to eating Twinkies in front of the television by February. I think about all the resolutions I’ve ever had. And I wonder if I succeeded in achieving any. Were they even worth achieving in the first place?

My cold soya chicken makes me think. I ask myself what makes it good. It’s simple and healthy. The goodness comes from the skill of the cooks behind the frosted glass. They’ve done this with a thousand other chickens since I've last been back. Each chicken, slightly better than the last. The art polished and honed over time. It’s healthy, it’s good and it’s cheap.

I also look around me and see a very busy and successful restaurant. The tables are too close together, there is cheap plastic sheeting over the tables, there are no knives - just chopsticks and spoons, and the two servers are wearing winter jackets inside because every time someone opens the front doors, a draft of frigid air lets a generous helping of snow into the dining room.

But every table is full, the kitchen is churning out dishes as fast as they can, and there is a line of people waiting to come in. It’s the first place I came after flying in from Florida. People all around me are smiling over their dinners. Friends and family serve each other and share food from the middle of the tables. My kid is eating rice out of a bowl with her hands, and when I pick up my bowl to slurp out the last drop of pork bone soup, no one seems to mind.

This place just feels like home, the food is amazing, and people are happy to be here. For a chef, this is an invaluable lesson - at the heart of every successful restaurant, the food has to be perfect - you can have bad service, a bad location and ugly tables, but if the food knocks your customer’s socks off, you’ll be successful.

My resolution for 2012 - to be more Asian. Which is to say to be practical - why use a spoon, fork and knife when a couple of chopsticks will do? To eat really good, simple, healthy food, to continue to give my customers food that knocks their socks off, and to share life with friends and loved ones across an ugly dinner table more often.

How to throw a perfect holiday dinner party

2011-11-30T11:34:00.002-05:00

The Holiday Dinner Party Guide

By: Chef Cristian Feher

www.tampabaychef.com

It’s that time of year again where friends and family get together to celebrate the spirit of peace, good will, and giving. It can also be a time of spilled drinks, family squabbles, dry turkey and grocery store cheese trays. But I will do my best to provide you with information that will help you avoid unseemly situations, and throw a perfect get-together that everyone will enjoy.

As a personal chef I have done hundreds of dinner parties. And I’m going to share with you some do’s and dont’s.

Drinks

DO - Provide an assortment of, both, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Even if you don’t drink, there may be someone who does. A small assortment of white wine, red wine, beer and a mixed drink or two, will do for most parties. Don’t forget to have bottled water, as alcohol will dehydrate your guests.

DON’T - Leave out any bottles that you don’t want to serve. After a few drinks, some guests may go rooting through your house looking for more booze. So if your inherited bottle of 200 year-old brandy that belonged to King Louis IV is off limits, be sure to keep it off limits and hide it in your closet.

DO - Remember that white wine is usually served cold, and red wine can be served warm. I remember this by thinking “Red Hot.”

DON’T - Forget to offer your guests a drink when they arrive. Especially for work functions, where some guests may not be familiar with your other guests. It will make them feel more relaxed. And having something to hold in their hands can make people feel more comfortable. Remember that binky you held onto when you were a kid? Nothing much has changed.

Food

DO - Expect to have leftovers. Make more food than you think you will need. Feed your guests until they can’t eat any more. That’s the first sign of a good host. It tells your guests that you really want to take care of them. It doesn’t have to be expensive food - it just has to taste good and there should be lots of it. Send your guests home with leftovers.

DON’T - Foist off your dietary requirements onto your guests. It’s fine that you only eat gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, organic, vegetarian, vegan, non-soy, non-GMO, albino asparagus that only grows on the eastern side of a mountain in the Andes. But unless your guests are your friends from Whole Foods or yoga class, you should have regular foods that other people enjoy. It’s no fun to be forced into a diet while visiting someone.

DO - Cook your turkey in a roasting bag. It’s the safest and best way to ensure that your turkey will be cooked-through, and deliciously moist - even if you over-cook it. Yes, it’s very tempting to show off with other methods of cooking your turkey, but you want to avoid the embarrassment of serving under-cooked, or dried out turkey. If you want to impress your mother-in-law, don’t tell her that you used a roasting bag.

The Extras

DON’T - Let your pets slaver on, hump, bark at, bite, scratch, or fly at your guests. I’m sure you think 200Lb Smoochy Bear is the cutest thing on Earth, but your guests might disagree. If your pet recognizes your guests as food, a toy, or a potential mate, keep them in a bedroom or take them to the pet sitter.

DO - Avoid awkward beginnings by making guests feel like royalty. Introduce new arrivals to other guests by telling them something positive about the arrival like, “This is Steve and his beautiful wife who is a marathon runner. Steve and Barbara just came back from Hawaii.” or if you can’t find anything nice to say, you can always use geography, “This is my brother Jim. He lives in St. Pete.”

You should also have music and TV on in the background, and it helps to have things for your guests to do like; hot-tubbing, dinner party guessing games, gift exchanges, interactive video gaming (XBOX Kinect is a hit at many parties), photo albums and videos made for or by the group, sushi rolling stations, pasta bars, backyard fire pits, fireworks, etc.

DON’T - Forget to enjoy your own dinner party. I recommend hiring a personal chef who will take care of all the shopping, planning, and cooking so that you have nothing left to do but enjoy the company of your friends and family who will rave about your party for weeks.

Florida's New National Dish: Alligator Balls

2011-11-23T21:32:00.002-05:00

Florida's New National Dish: Alligator Balls
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

There is nothing more telling of a place and its local culture than the food. Regional foods are the culinary map of the world.

Take sushi; everyone knows that sushi is representative of Japan and its people. Pasta (although a Chinese invention) puts Italy on the map. OK, maybe that makes it a bad example. Fried chocolate bars are a Scottish regional specialty. If you’ve ever been to Trinidad and Tobago you wouldn’t go home without eating “Roti” in Trinidad, and “Crab and Dumpling” in Tobago. Every Canadian knows where to get some good Poutine (fries and cheese curds smothered in gravy). And if you should find yourself in Holland, how about “a schmoke and a pancake?”

Finally we arrive in America, jet-lagged and hungry. And although we could say that there is nothing more American than apple pie, the truth is that each state and city can seem like its own little country (some can even seem like third world countries, but we won’t go there, Detroit).

Erie, PA is known for their pepperoni balls, New Yorkers are known for their pizza, Memphis has finger-lickin’ BBQ ribs, Californians made the California sushi roll - lame, but popular, and finally we arrive in America’s pe...- third leg - Florida. And what do we have to show? The grouper sandwich? Which is fed to tourists and can occasionally contain actual grouper. Give me a break! That’s more lame than the California roll.

Due to the current scene, I’ve elected myself to be Florida’s new unofficial PR chef. We need to add some culinary razzle and dazzle to this place, and come up with a regional food we can be proudly known by. So after much deliberation I’ve come up with “Gator Balls”. It’s edgy, it’s fun, and they taste pretty good too!

If you live in Florida it’s easy to get good quality, fresh alligator meat. And if you’ve never tried it, you’re in for a treat. I like to put mine through a meat grinder for this recipe, but chopping it up into small pieces with a knife works just fine. Recipe below.

Gator Balls Recipe:

Ingredients:
- 1 quart peanut oil for frying
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup corn meal
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 cup chopped or ground raw alligator meat
- 1/2 onion finely diced
- 2 cloves garlic finely diced
- 1 stalk of celery finely diced
- salt and pepper to taste
- pinch of yellow curry powder to taste
- pinch of cayenne pepper to taste (optional)

Dipping Sauce:

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 to 2 tbsp of Tiger Sauce (tamarind sauce)
- 2 tbsp of Tequila (optional)

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in a deep fryer or large pot. It’s much easier with a deep fryer. Make sure it’s at least 365 degrees so that the gator balls don’t soak up too much oil while cooking.

2. In a bowl, mix the flour, egg and milk. Season with salt, pepper, curry and cayenne. Mix in the alligator meat, onion, garlic and celery.

3. Drop small lumps of batter using a spoon into the hot oil and fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.

4. In another bowl you will mix the dipping sauce by combining the mayo, ketchup, tiger sauce and tequila. Serve dipping sauce on the side of the gator balls. Enjoy!

How to choose the best olive oil

2011-11-18T09:14:00.002-05:00

How to choose the best olive oil
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Choosing the right olive oil can be a daunting task. Going to the olive oil section at your local grocery store can seem like shoe shopping at the sporting goods store - an entire wall of goods, all similar looking, and all advertised to be the best. But unlike shoes, you can't usually try out the olive oils before you buy them. And even if you could, what should you look for?

In this article I will provide you with a crash course on olive oil so you can reign supreme in the salad arena, and be an envied oil know-it-all at your next dinner party.

A marketing mistake
Almost all olive oil you find nowadays come in clear plastic or glass bottles. The manufacturers have figured out that the average consumer is more likely to buy their bottle if they can see the product. But those beautiful amber and green lipids can be deceiving.

Let's go back to chemistry class for a moment - assuming that you took chemistry (if you didn't, just smile and nod) - olive oil is liquid vegetable fat from olives. A much closer look would reveal chains of fatty acids, and an even closer look would reveal chains of carbon and hydrogen mollecules.

The problem is, that unlike water, these fat chains break up into smaller chains in the presence of oxygen - they oxidize. So when olive oil (or any oil) is exposed to oxygen, it begins to go bad and eventually becomes rancid.

Another problem is that light can also break it down. So as olive oil sits in a clear bottle, it's slowly breaking going bad. Depending on how long it's been sitting under the lights of the store, it could be bad before you buy it. And even if it's just a little rancid, once you open it and let oxygen into the bottle, the process of decomposition speeds up.

So, even though olive oil looks really nice, you should only buy it in a tin container so light has not broken it down, and unless you use an insane amount of olive oil every day and can go through a large tin quickly, you should buy small tins to lessen the amount of time the oil would have to break down in the presence of oxygen.

How can I tell if olive oil has gone bad
I once went into a fine food store (I won't mention which one) where a guy - let's call him Johnny - was demonstrating a variety of fine olive oils to customers at the store. He soaked a crouton in fine olive oil and passed it to a customer who bit into it and said, "Ooh, it's like, spicy!" To which he replied, "Yes, that little kick is what makes this oil special."

I fixed him with an crooked eye and waved my index finger at him. Don't do what Johnny-don't does. If your olive oil has any bitterness or spicy taste, it's going bad or has gone bad - it's rancid. Olive oil should be pleasant-tasting and have the aroma and taste of olives. It should not be spicy or bitter.

Consuming rancid oil can cause headaches, tiredness and feeling "flushed out". In order for your body to get rid of rancid fats, it has to use a lot of its mineral stores. This may leave you with a temporary deficiency in vitamins and minerals, and that can make you feel like crud after eating it. If you've ever eaten deep-fried foods that were fried in rancid oil, you know what I'm talking about. And bad olive oil can do the same.

What is the best olive oil?
Choosing the best olive oil is like choosing the best wine. And while some may profess a fine knowledge of which ones are the best, I say the right one is the one you like best. We all have different tastes. Some people like mild olive oils, others like strong, flavorful oils. I personally like strong-tasting Spanish and Greek olive oils that come in a tin.

What's the difference between virgin, and extra-virgin olive oil?
This explanation could get complicated, but to put it simply, the more virgin, the purer and higher quality oil you're getting. There are many ways of making olive oil. Some ways make it cheaper for the factory to produce the oil, but make the oil more acidic and less "good". So, the more virgin it is, the better processes were used to make it, and the better quality you're getting. It also has to do with how pure it is. Some olive oils can have other lower-quality oils added to it, and this would affect their overall "virginity". Virgin is supposed to mean that it's only oil from an olive, and no other oil.

If you want to know whether your olive oil is truly extra-virgin. Put some in a little bowl and stick it in your fridge for a couple of days. If it becomes crystalline (crystals form in it) it's a high quality extra-virgin olive oil. If it solidifies into a solid block, then it's a cheap, chemically-refined oil. Extra-virgin olive oil is supposed to be cold pressed (not chemically refined).

Now that you're armed with a knowledge of fine olive oils, go out there and make some salad!

An East Indian Thanksgiving Dinner

2011-11-04T22:24:00.000-04:00

An East Indian Thanksgiving Dinner
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

It was November of 1620. Nine months prior to this date, a colony of separatists left England in search of a new land to call home. A land where they could practice their religion, raise their children, and enjoy the freedom that Americans know today. But it turns out that the Mayflower’s navigator held the compass backwards, and instead of landing in Cape Cod, they somehow ended up in the bustling city of Thiruvananthapuram on the ardent southern shores of India.

Only half of the pilgrims survived that scorching summer. The rest of the pilgrims hooked up with a guy named Raj Sharma who helped them integrate into this ancient culture. He showed them the ways of India - The arts of barter, trade and of course, the Kama Sutra. What, you don’t believe me? Well, I’m the one writing this article, and this is how the story goes.

Where were we? Oh, yes. So when Thanksgiving came around, the menu was a little different.

The pilgrims roasted chickens inside clay ovens. The birds were rubbed with a mixture of cardamom, cloves, garlic and Kelapo virgin coconut oil (actually from Sri Lanka) to crisp up the skin.

A stuffing was prepared using dhal (a type of lentil) with flat bread crumbs, chicken livers, a spicy curry mixture, golden onions and coconut milk.

The pilgrim women showed the Indians how to make fruit pie using millet flour, and they all washed it down with India’s favorite drink - Fenny (liquor made from coconut sap).

By now you’ve guessed that my history lesson is nothing more than fantasy. The menu, however, is fact. This Thanksgiving, why not experiment with a little fusion and add a different twist to your American style turkey dinner?

Happy Thanksgiving! Or as they say in India “Khuśa turkī dina!”

What to do with Leftover Halloween Candy

2011-11-02T18:12:00.001-04:00

What to do with Leftover Halloween Candy
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

As I look across my living room where there was once a dining room table, now stands a glistening pile of Halloween candy - Kit-Kats, M&M’s, Jujubees, Snickers bars, and many other brightly colored, crisply wrapped candy treats. My kid just woke up from a sugar coma and things are going to be OK. But what to do with this mountain of candy?

When I was a kid I had a special drawer in my desk. It started out as my secret Halloween candy stash, but by March it became the place where candy goes to die - kind of like a Florida for candy bars. If you’re like me, you probably can’t stand the thought of taking all that candy and throwing it out, right? So what can you do with it?

Last week I dragged an old air conditioning unit out to the curb where it was quickly picked up by an old guy in a pickup truck. He told me that he drives around town pillaging people’s garbage for scrap metal, which he then sells by the pound. He’s turning free stuff into cash. Pretty smart, right? Well, this gave me an idea. Why not take all this free candy, strip the valuables from it and turn it into edible gold?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups - Take all of your peanut butter cups and put them into a food processor with a bit of peanut oil (enough to make the mixture smooth like peanut butter). Then process it into a paste which you can use to spread on sandwiches, or warm croissants. If you think peanut butter is hot stuff, wait till you load your kids up with this in the morning.

M&M’s and Reeses Pieces - These candy-coated chocolate chips are extremely versatile. You can bake them into cup cakes, mix them into pancakes, sprinkle them into your cereal, mix them into popcorn (after popping), use them as ice cream topping, and bake them into cookies.

Kit-Kat Bars - My kid, an experienced candy connoisseur, likes to put them in her pocket for 5 to 7 minutes before eating, for a perfectly warm and soft consistency. Pinkie fingers out.

Solid Hershey’s Chocolate Bars - Can be melted slowly in a metal bowl over a steaming pot of water while stirring with a rubber spatula. The resulting melted chocolate can be used to dip fruits and strawberries into, or it can be cooled and consolidated into a big chocolate brick which can be shaved for cakes, or gnawed at when you’re trying to gain weight in front of the television.

Note that if you get it too hot, it will get grainy and/or separate, and if you get water in it, it might split. But hey, if that happens, you’re not a Swiss chocolatier, and they were free anyways.

Pixie Sticks - You can use the sugary filling to sweeten your coffee in the morning. Or, if you’re an undercover cop about to bust a drug lord, but the drug lord wants you to snort a line to prove that you’re not a cop, just cut a line of pixie dust on a mirror and snort away. Pixie sticks can sweeten coffee, fight crime and keep our streets safe.

Snickers, Musketeers, Milkyway and other chocolate bars - Can be rolled up in puff pastry and baked until golden brown for an amazing, crispy, warm chocolate dessert. You can also do it Scottish style (minus the kilt) by freezing them, dredging them in beer batter, and deep frying them for a red-bearded carnival treat.

If all else fails, just save them for your Christmas gingerbread house where the Lifesavers will turn into roof shingles, Hershey’s bars will turn into front doors, Jujyfruits will line the garden, and Nerds will pave the driveway. You can also awaken your gingerbread men by Frankensteining them to life with Milk Duds, Gobstoppers, Sweet Tarts and a 9-volt battery.

The Simple Things

2011-10-31T13:10:00.003-04:00

The Simple Things
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

People have many sayings. Some say it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Others say you can’t have your cake and eat it too. And I’ve heard it mentioned that the best things in life are free. And while I don’t agree that the best things in life are always free - worthwhile things usually require a certain amount of sacrifice - I do believe that they can be simple.

The battle between simple and complex has been fought in the kitchen arena for as long as there have been culinary arts.

The idea for writing this article came to me last night as I snacked on fresh green avocados from my neighbor's yard. They were perfectly ripe, warm, and velvety smooth. As I enjoyed them with sea salt, fresh cracked black pepper and red wine vinegar, I realized that many of the best things I’ve eaten have been incredibly simple.

If you’ve ever been on a movie set, you’ve probably heard it said that location is everything. Well it’s certainly true when it comes to my memories of the simple and sublime. I recall the warm air rushing through my hair as we headed up a small branch of the Orinoco river in the Amazon jungle of South America. The water was a silky, black mirror reflecting an image of the sky ahead of us. I remember looking at the jungle on either sides and coming to the conclusion that if our boat broke down or sank, I probably wouldn’t make it through the night - they would never find us. But as most deadly things are, it was overwhelmingly beautiful with it’s bright flowers, dense vegetation, and live orchestra of wildlife sounds.

We arrived at a native indian tribe on the bank of the river, deep inside the jungle. The Indians were very interesting, some wearing nothing but a loin cloth and sticks through their noses, and others donned old Coca-Cola t-shirts. The day was spent learning about their culture and taking in the dramatic surroundings.

Towards the end of the day, an Indian brought us a couple of fresh pineapples that he had chopped down from a nearby patch. It was the juiciest, sweetest thing I have ever tasted. I lost my civility and devoured it with juices running down my face - the Indian looked at me as if thinking, “They call themselves civilized?”. I can still remember that perfect taste of natural fruit sugars, vitamins and minerals, grown on the fertile, virgin soil of the jungle and ripened slowly under the equatorial sun. Simple perfection.

I could write about many other simple things, but I feel they each deserve their own articles.

What are the simple things that you enjoy? You can email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com.

How to Make Italian Pressed Panini Sandwiches at Home

2011-10-21T11:57:00.002-04:00

How to Make Italian Pressed Panini Sandwiches at Home
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

I've had hot pressed Italian sandwiches on my mind lately. For the past few weeks I've been frequenting a local Italian deli here in Clearwater, FL (Cesarina's Italian Deli). She makes a mean Italian sub - fresh baked bread, cold cuts, shredded lettuce, tomato, onions, provolone cheese, and it's finished off with extra virgin olive oil and vinegar. It is then hot-pressed to a perfect crust, and wrapped in foil. The secret to great Italian food is not a secret, it's simplicity.

The only drawback to Cesarina's subs is that, with the dripping oil and melted cheese, they're not a low calorie item. And at the rate I'm consuming them, this could be detrimental. So I've set out to make my own pressed Italian sub with some twists and substitutions to make them low(er) in calories and somewhat healthier (primarily by eliminating any oils used in making them). And best of all, as I found, you don't need to have a sandwich press to make a really authentic pressed sandwich at home. Two frying pans will work just fine.

Ingredients:
- Whole wheat french baguette or Italian loaf
- Reduced fat provolone cheese
- Shredded lettuce
- Thin sliced tomatoes
- Thin sliced white onions
- Fat free bologna
- Low fat ham
- Smoked turkey breast(optional)
- Fat free Italian dressing or balsamic dressing (no high fructose corn syrup)
- Fat free mayonnaise (no high fructose corn syrup)
- Red wine vinegar (optional)
- Salt and fresh cracked black pepper
- Dijon mustard

Instructions:

1. Prep all of your fillings.

2. Place your bread on a cutting board and slice through on one side only, leaving the back side attached so it opens like a book.

3. Place the fillings in the sandwich and close it up tight. This includes the mustard, italian dressing, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, etc.

4. If you do not have a big enough pan, cut the sandwich in half so it will fit.

5. Place the sandwich in a hot pan at medium heat. Have another pan heating on a different burner so it's very hot.

6. Place a piece of aluminum foil on top of the sandwich and then place the second hot pan on top of the aluminum foil.

7. Put on some oven mitts and press the pan down to flatten the sandwich while it cooks. Cook the sandwich until the insides are warm and the cheese starts to melt. You can flip the sandwiches over half-way through cooking so that the bottom doesn't burn. My sandwiches only took about 5 minutes to crust up and heat through.

8. Enjoy!

The Mystery of the Orange Underwear

2011-10-20T19:05:00.001-04:00

The Mystery of the Orange Underwear
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

I was reluctant to write this article, but after realizing that it would be a public service, I decided to do it.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a chef - let’s call him, Daniel. He had some friends over for dinner one night. The beer was golden, the shrimp cocktails had quickly become extinct, the steamed fish was applauded, and dessert was relished. All in all, an excellent dinner was had by all.

The next morning, after running some errands around town and coming back home from the bank, Daniel went to the bathroom. He pulled down his pants and sat on the toilet. He was surprised to see the back of his khaki pants full of orange-colored oil! Had he sat in something? Car seat.... sofa.... nope. “What did I sit in?” He wondered. This was highly irregular. It appeared as if he had sat on a really oily slice of pizza. But there was no pizza around, nor had he recalled sitting on anything.

He threw his laundry in the hamper and changed into a new pair of pants and underwear. Still wondering what he had sat in, he quickly realized that the back of his new pants had become saturated in orange oil again! Was this a joke? This couldn’t be. What was happening?

After consulting WebMd and Google (while sitting on a plastic shopping bag), he came to the conclusion that he was experiencing what medical professionals refer to as “anal leakage”. He furiously Googled the items he had eaten in the past 24 hours, and it wasn’t long before the perpetrator was discovered - Escolar.

Daniel had purchased a few pounds of escolar fillets for the dinner party, and also for some of his customers a few days prior. This was a new fish the seafood market had introduced. It turns out that escolar is a bi-product of the tuna fishery. Against recommendation by the FDA, it is sold in many markets as an edible fish. Escolar has a clean taste and firm, white flesh. But it has one problem.

It contains large amounts of a waxy, oily substance called gempylotoxin. In some people it can be digested with no problems, but in others it can cause abdominal cramping, diarrhea, and orange oil that will leak out of your butt, onto your pants, unbeknownst to you, for the world to see. If you like to play Russian roulette with your keister, I highly recommend this fish.

A chill hit Daniel when he realized that he had fed this, not only to his dinner guests the night before, but to some of his customers a few days prior. After some hasty emails, he got word from two dinner guests who were less than pleased about their new, albeit temporary, condition and stained pantaloons. But the worst part for Daniel was having to write one of the most embarrassing and awkward emails he had ever written to his customers.

Try writing this in a polite and professional way. “I’m sorry, but I fed you toxic fish. By now you’ve probably realized that orange oil has uncontrolably leaked out of your butt - that’s from the fish. Won’t happen again. My bad!”

The Easiest Way to Roast Turkey

2011-10-08T23:07:00.001-04:00

The Easiest Way To Roast Turkey
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Why do you need an excuse to eat turkey? You can have a whole roasted turkey whenever you want. No, I’m not practicing hedonism. I’m just stating a fact - a delicious, crispy, fact. We’re so used to having turkey as a celebratory holiday meal that we forget it’s also a regular every-day food.

Aside from the obvious pleasure of a roast turkey, there are many more practical reasons - it’s delicious, it’s cheaper than chicken (I picked up a 22Lb turkey in the frozen section yesterday for $0.98/Lb), and it provides you with leftovers for the next few days: Turkey noodle soup, turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, turkey stir-fry, pasta with turkey and pesto, turkey Caesar salads, did I mention turkey sandwiches?

You’ve read this far, but you’re still skeptical. If memory serves you right, turkey dinners take a long time to make. So how can that be easy? Well, yes, turkey does take some time to roast. But preparing good turkey is the easy, and with my method, you won’t have to baby-sit it throughout the cooking process. Here’s how:

Thanks to modern science and technology, there is such as thing as a plastic roasting bag. If this is new for you, hold on to your pants because the roasting bag is the greatest thing to come along for turkey since corn on the cobb.

Roasting bags are made of a special plastic that won’t burn or melt in your oven. You simply season your bird, stick it in the roasting bag, tie it up and roast. The bag holds in all the heat and moisture, making for a really juicy and tender roast turkey. The best part is, even if you over-cook it, it will still be juicy - the moisture doesn’t escape from the bag. No basting. No turning. Crispy skin. Great results. You can find these bags at most grocery stores, and they come with instructions for cooking times on the back of the box.

Thaw your turkey, rub it all over with a bunch of corn starch and adobo seasoning (or your favorite all-purpose seasoning), stuff it with a couple of peeled onions and some garlic cloves, stick it in the bag, tie it up, put in a roasting pan and cook in the oven. The instructions on the box tell you cut slits into it, but I find it better not to do that, I just let it puff up. My 22Lb turkey took 4 hours to roast to perfection and during that time I was able to surf the net, clean up the house a little, and get an oil change. No baby-sitting required.

I used the last hour before the turkey was done to make a batch of garlic mashed potatoes, chicken liver, pumpernickel and onion stuffing, gravy, and corn. But if you’re feeling lazy, just toss a couple of foil wrapped potatoes next to the turkey in the oven during the last hour and twenty minutes (to make baked potatoes) and whip together a quick green salad.

All that turkey sure made me sleepy. But I won’t have to do much cooking for the next few days. And I love leftover turkey sandwiches.

What to do with Halloween Pumpkins

2011-10-04T21:02:00.000-04:00

What to do with Halloween Pumpkins
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

It’s officially November 1st and your kids are in a sugar coma. Pirate capes and princess costumes hang on the edge of the hamper, and you’re still trying to get that fake blood off the carpet. But miraculously, no one stole, blew up, or smashed your pumpkins! And it’s a good thing, because you can now turn them into delicious meals for the rest of the week.

The first thing that comes to your mind is pumpkin pie, right? Well I’d like to expand your repertoire, so I’m going to share with you a few ideas that you’ve probably never tried.

Curry Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Hopefully you kept the seeds. This is a very quick and easy snack. I made these for my kid last year, but she found candy and chocolate much more interesting. My wife and I, however, found them quite delightful.

Simply toss the seeds with a little bit of curry powder and salt in a bowl, place them on a non-stick baking sheet, brush with a little Kelapo virgin coconut oil and bake at 325 for about 45 minutes, or until golden brown. The light combination of curry powder (just a little sprinkle) with the aroma of coconut from the coconut oil will make you a batch of roasted pumpkin seeds like you’ve never had before!

As for the rest of the pumpkins: I like to cut off the hard rind and dice or mince the flesh in a food processor. Now you should have a bowl of minced pumpkin flesh, and a bowl of diced pumpkin flesh. I have two great recipes below.

Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

Cook about 4 cups of pumpkin flesh with two garlic cloves, a tbsp of fresh minced ginger, two diced carrots, one diced onion, sea salt, and fresh pepper to taste. Cook this mixture with a tbsp of Kelapo virgin coconut oil for 15 minutes. Add just enough chicken stock to cover the veggies and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. When all the veggies are well cooked, puree the soup with a hand blender, or a regular blender. Adjust the salt and serve with warm Naan or pita bread.

You can experiment with different flavors by adding a pinch of curry powder, cinnamon, cumin, or nutmeg.

Peach and Pumpkin Ice Cream

Cook the remaining diced pumpkin flesh in a skillet with a little bit of Kelapo virgin coconut oil, and a teaspoon of cinnamon just until the pumpkin gets soft. Take off the heat and let it cool to room temperature. Once the pumpkin is cooled to room temp, you want to spread the pumpkin out on a cookie sheet and freeze it over night. But make sure to spread the chunks so that they freezes in small separate lumps no bigger than a grape without really touching each other too much. You also want to get a bag of frozen peaches and make sure that the pieces are easy to separate. The smaller the better. The next day, you can add 5oz of frozen pumpkin, 5oz of frozen peaches, 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, ¼ tsp of salt, and ½ cup of sugar to a food processor. Turn it on and let it run until you have ice cream - it took me less than 90 seconds to make a batch. Enjoy!

Cooking With Squash: Recipe Ideas For Fall

2011-09-20T23:29:00.002-04:00

Cooking with squash: Recipe ideas for fall
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

It’s that time of year again - Fall. A time just after summer, and just before the holidays. So we, in the culinary field have developed the odd tradition of celebrating and marketing the heck out of squash. Why squash? I’m not sure. I must have missed the meeting. However, I did get the memo, and will hold true to my profession by giving you some interesting ideas of what you can do with that ingredient that is supposed to be the quintessence of the north American fall season - the squash.

Before I get into the fun, let’s first define what we mean by “squash”. There are many varieties of squashes throughout the world. But in this article I’ll be discussing the most popular varieties. Namely, zuccini (yellow and green), pumpkin, butternut squash, acorn squash, and spaghetti squash.

Zuccini Squash. The zuccini is a soft squash that usually comes in green and yellow varieties.

Zuccinis can be roasted on the grill, rubbed with a little olive oil to help them cook faster. What you’re looking for are grill marks on the skin and that the flesh becomes soft. I like to cook slices of zuccini in a skillet with fresh herbs (like dill), sea salt, fresh ground pepper and garlic until it breaks down to a sort of “mush”. It’s a really tasty side dish despite it’s low visual appeal.

Spaghetti squash. I have been holding a grudge with spaghetti squash since the time I went on a low carb diet many years ago. I found people online touting spaghetti squash as a good zero-carb substitute for pasta. They had recipes, photos and videos on YouTube. So I thought I’d give it a try. They lied. How someone can eat spaghetti squash and think that it comes anywhere close to resembling the taste or texture of pasta must have been born without a mouth or bodily senses. If spaghetti squash resembles pasta, then so do soap shavings, green beans, and wheat grass. To those people who attempted to fool me, I only have this to say: You deserve to eat spaghetti squash.

Acorn Squash and Butternut Squash. These two squashes are great for soups. You can peel the hard skin of the butternut squash, scrape out the seeds and membrane, boil the flesh in chicken stock and make a great pureed soup flavored with curry or ginger. I used acorn squash cut into quarters for my world-famous “Possibly the healthiest soup in the world” (Google it). You can also roast acorn squash by splitting it into quarters and roasting them in the oven with some olive oil, salt and honey. I’ve also cubed these two squashes into small pieces and incorporated them into risotto with different cheeses (like Boursin, and Manchego).

Pumpkins. These squashes are not only great for carving scary faces on them and stuffing them with candles, but they are also the ideal bait to put in the middle of a bear trap if you want to catch some teenage neighborhood vandals on Halloween.

Pumpkins are also great for soups and can be used the same as the acorn and butternut squash above. The seeds can be roasted in the oven with Cajun spice for a great snack while you interrogate the kid with droopy pants and ridiculous hair who tried to steal your pumpkin.

My favorite way to use pumpkin is to simmer the flesh in chicken stock until soft. I then puree the mixture and thicken it with a roux (oil and flour). To this sauce, I now add a small amount of chipotle peppers, cumin, soy sauce, a couple of drops of liquid smoke, salt and pepper to taste. I use this sauce to blanket shredded beef and chicken burritos which I bake with white cheddar over top. This makes a delicious Mexican dinner with saffron rice, and sour cream on the side.

There you have it! Squash. It’s what’s for dinner. Hurry up and get your fix before the end of November. This message has been approved by the Culinary Professionals of North America.

The less popular meat cuts: A guide to butchers favorites

2011-09-20T21:58:00.001-04:00

Unfamiliar Meat Cuts: A Guide to Butcher Favorites
By: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com/

Chef Cristian's Sunday BBQ © Cristian Feher 2011

Like Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, we’re all familiar with the popular cuts. New York strip steak, T-Bone steaks, rack of lamb, and baby back ribs have all had their names displayed in bright lights. And it’s very likely that they’ve headlined a show on your kitchen table more than once.

But what about the less popular cuts? Don’t they deserve some publicity? I figured if anyone would know, it would be a butcher. And that’s just what I set out to find.

My good friend Dave Bowman grew up in Mount Airy, NC (known fictitiously as Mayberry, where the Andy Griffith Show was filmed). His family owned a grocery store where Dave began working as a butcher since the age of 12. With 30 years of experience under his cleaver, it’s no surprise that he is my “go to” guy for anything meat-related. I paid him a visit at the Fresh Market butcher shop in Clearwater, Florida to get some insight into a butcher’s favorite cuts of meat.

As it turns out, Dave likes them all! But after much deliberation, we managed to narrow the list down to his five favorite cuts.

#5 Top Sirloin Beef Steaks

The top sirloin cut is something many people pass over on the way to the rib eyes, strip steaks and tenderloin. “At first glance” says Dave, “most people notice that the sirloin has very little fat. It’s a lean steak. They’re also quite large compared to strips and rib eyes.” For these reasons, people assume that top sirloin would cook up tough and be too much. “However,” explains Dave, “top sirloin is a muscle that the cow does not use very much, and because of this, it’s actually quite tender.” The top sirloin is a close neighbor to the softest muscle on the cow - the tenderloin. In fact, it resides right underneath of the tenderloin in the rear part of the cow.

Top sirloin steaks may be large, but can easily feed a family of four for less than the price of one premium steak. They are also great on the grill. And because they are lean, they cook faster and have less calories than fattier steaks. It’s often been described as “poor man’s tenderloin”.

#4 Beef Skirt Steak

At first glance, the skirt steak just looks like a long band of stringy meat and it may not impress you.

It comes from the under-side of the cow. It’s cut from the plate along the cow’s diaphragm. The skirt steak is similar to the brisket and flank in that it’s made up of long strands of meat. Dave explained, “This is possibly the tastiest piece of beef on the cow. The flavor is amazing. And if you cut it right, it’s very soft”

The skirt steak has been used in Tex-Mex and Mexican cuisine for as long as there have been cattle. It was once considered scrap, and although it’s now considered marketable, it’s still rather affordable.

Skirt steak is the choice most fajita enthusiasts go for. It is often marinated with lime or lemon juice (as the acidity breaks down the toughness of the muscle fibers) and a blend of cumin, black pepper, hot sauce, and soy sauce. It is quickly seared and cut thinly across the grain. If you’re looking for the ultimate in beefy flavor, give skirt steak a try.

#3 Lamb Shoulder Steaks

“Lamb shoulder is probably the best part on the Lamb.” Explains Dave, “it comes from the chuck [the front legs of the animal] and since the animal doesn’t use those muscles very much, they are fatty, meaty, juicy, and tender.”

Lamb shoulder steaks have since become a regular menu item on my traditional Sunday barbecues. And I would take them over rack of lamb any day.

I like to marinade them with fresh garlic, red wine, olive oil and lots of fresh oregano for a couple of hours before I grill them. They are cheap and delicious. The fat gets crispy very quickly, and the meat can be enjoyed medium rare (as all read meats should be).

If you’ve never tried lamb, or have only had the prime cuts, I would highly suggest you give lamb shoulder steaks a try.

#2 Boston Butt Roast

The last time I roasted a Boston butt roast I commented to my wife, “I don’t know why we ever spend money on standing rib roasts [beef]. This pork is sublime. And it cost $0.97/lb.” Dave agrees.

A properly seasoned and roasted butt roast is arguably better than any beef roast you can make. The sheer volume of fat stacked in between the layers of tender muscles, melt and trickle through the meat during the roasting process. This creates one of the most tender and juicy roasts you will ever savor.

The butt roast comes from the pig’s front shoulder - so why do they call it a butt roast? Dave shrugged his shoulders. But I can tell you that the best way to flavor it before cooking, is to stab deep holes into the meat with a knife and then stuff the holes with your own combination of garlic, herbs and spices. Soak it in beer or wine overnight to let the flavors seep into the meat, and you will have a world-class roast after cooking it the next day.

You can also make amazing pulled pork and smoked meat with this versatile cut.

#1 Beef Shanks

“Beef shanks are the whole package” explained Dave, “you’ve got a good amount of fat and connective tissue spread evenly throughout the meat. You have soft fat on the outside, and you’ve got a bone with marrow in the middle. What more can you ask for?”

If you’ve ever had Osso Bucco or any such slow cooked shank dish, you know what Dave is talking about. Let me take you on a tour of what happens when you slow cook shanks.

That connective tissue in the meat starts to melt and separates into collagen and oils. The collagen is a jelly-like substance that gives the sauce and the meat a fatty, and wonderfully unctuous texture. It also helps to break down and lubricate the meat. The bone heats up hotter than the meat and helps to cook the shank from the inside out. Finally, the marrow inside the bone softens and releases all that beefy flavor into the the sauce.

After two or three hours of slow-cooking beef shanks in an oven with red wine, herbs and garlic, you will end up with sumptuous fork-tender meat, and an incredibly flavorful, satisfying sauce made from the beef juices and red wine. Dave is right, when it comes to beef, the shanks are the whole package.

Wild Turkey Sandwich Recipe

2011-09-20T21:26:00.000-04:00

Wild Turkey Sandwich Recipe
By: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com/

Wild Turkey Sandwich © Cristian Feher 2011

If you’re looking for healthy, low-fat, high-protein recipe loaded with flavor, then look no further. This wild turkey sandwich is sure to please.

If you don’t have wild turkey, you can easily substitute it with regular ground turkey breast or ground chicken breast.

Wild turkey, like a lot of game birds, can be tough. A way to get around this is to grind the meat and form it into patties, loaves, or incorporate it into stews, chili and sauces.

This recipe makes 4 sandwiches.

Ingredients:

• 1 Lb of Ground Wild Turkey (ground chicken or ground turkey will work)
• 5 minced garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp of Cajun seasoning
• 1 tbsp of dried Italian herbs (rosemary, basil and oregano)
• ¼ cup of fresh chopped basil
• ½ cup of bread crumbs
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 1 tsp of sea salt
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1 head of romaine lettuce
• 1 red onion
• Spicy brown mustard
• Alfalfa sprouts
• Whole wheat multi-grain bread

Preparation:

In a large mixing bowl, combine the ground turkey meat, minced garlic cloves, Cajun seasoning, dried Italian herbs, fresh chopped basil, soy sauce, sea salt, and bread crumbs. Mix well with wet hands until the mixture is incorporated.

Make a large meat ball in the palm of your hand with a quarter of the mixture, and flatten into a non-stick skillet to no more than ½ inch thick. Cook the turkey patty on either side for 5 minutes or until cooked through. Depending on your appetite, you can make the patties bigger, or smaller.

Place the cooked patty on a slice of whole wheat multi-grain bread and top with lettuce, tomato slices, red onion slices, spicy brown mustard, alfalfa sprouts and another piece of bread.

Game Meats for Beginners

2011-09-20T20:46:00.003-04:00

The Health Benefits of Game Meats
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

In this day and age, more and more people are adopting healthy lifestyles. And as part of a healthy lifestyle, we’re always in search for new and better ways to eat.

For some people, the mere mention of healthy food can have a negative connotation. They sneer, berate and avoid. They turn the idea down, like a child refusing a piece of broccoli. And although I feel that eating habits during childhood are an important factor, that would be better addressed in a different article.
We simply get bored. And healthy food can be boring. But since variety seems to be the spice of life, I would like to suggest some ways to make healthy eating adventurous and exciting again.

As a health-conscious eater, you’ve probably tried every vegetable, fruit, grain, and variety of rice out there. You’ve been there, eaten bean thread noodles, and done that. But I bet your protein sources have not changed much. You’ve probably gone on safari through the jungles of fruit and vegetables with the same ol’ trusty companions - chicken, beef, pork and fish. It might be time to get new friends.

To avoid a lengthy dissertation - this is my philosophy on food: you’re at the top of the food chain. Anything under you is fair game (pun intended). Game meats offer us a whole new world of healthy protein to explore.

Game animals like deer (venison), elk, buffalo, bison, quail, emu, ostrich, pheasant, rabbit, and several others are more readily available than you might think. You can purchase them online through e-retailers such as www.exoticmeatmarket.com. They may also be available locally at specialty stores and even your local grocery store (my grocery store carries venison and ground buffalo throughout the year).

What’s so healthy about game? For one, most game meat comes from the wild, or are farmed without growth hormones, antibiotics, and synthetic chemicals. Since they live more active lifestyles than domesticated animals, game tends to have less fat. And their natural diet produces meat that is more nutritious with higher levels of minerals and good amino acids.

In the mood for chili? Ground buffalo meat is lean, flavorful and satisfying. Cook it with onions, peppers, carrots, garlic, chipotle peppers, canned tomato and kidney beans for a healthier version of the every-day beef chili. I like to top it off with a scoop of fat free yogurt and eat it with warm naan bread (Indian flat bread similar to pita).

Alligator has become one of my favorite white meats since moving to Florida. It’s low in fat, has excellent texture (it’s between chicken and pork) and is most often organic. I like to grill it, stew it, and I even make my kid alligator salad sandwiches - a quick way to make friends at school, “Woah! You’re eating alligator? Cool!”

Impress yourself with easy alligator curry by cooking the alligator with onions, garlic, carrots, celery, potato, chickpeas, a little chicken bullion and curry powder. Add coconut milk when the onions are mushy, and simmer until the potatoes are soft. Serve over warm basmati rice. I guarantee you’ll go back for seconds.

In the mood for a BBQ this weekend? Why not invite your friends over for a “safari on the grill”?
Thanks to fast shipping, and large variety of game meats available on the internet (www.exoticmeatmarket.com) you can grill up some yak burgers, antelope sausages, ostrich fillets and alligator ribs. Your friends and family will be astounded at how delicious, and healthy, game meats can be. And best of all, it’s just plain fun to try new, exotic foods.

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be boring. You can expand your meat repertoire and add some excitement back into dinner time. Give game a try.

The Garbage Can Chicken Shack: Street Food in Playa Del Carmen

2011-09-20T20:14:00.004-04:00

The Garbage Can Chicken Shack: Street Food in Playa Del Carmen
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

For some it’s about the people. For others it’s about the architecture or about finding themselves - which makes little sense, since you can’t help be anywhere but where you stand.

For me, traveling is about the food. I’ve always said that you can tell much from a culture by it’s food - the arrogant portions of French cuisine, the proud dishes of Spain, and the simply divine meats of Argentina which show decades of unyielding tradition are but a few examples of this.

I’ve been fortunate to have done a lot of travel in my life - not enough - but more than most. Until our technology advances, the next best thing to space exploration is to sit inside a flying bus, and burn fossil fuel through the clouds of Earth. It’s relaxing, exciting, dangerous and new, all at the same time.

I like the unique smell each country has. I enjoy watching locals walking through a place, that I find intriguing, with complete indifference; I live vicariously through them for a moment, imagining what it would be like to have a life there - my family, problems, and bills, all against a different background. I enjoy the temporary detachment from society as you wait in an airport terminal far beyond customs and security.

With each country, city and place, I can always think back to a great meal.

Playa del Carmen is a seaside city in Mexico, south of Cancun. Off the main strips, away from the tourists and wealthy Mexicans visiting from Mexico City, there are busy taco restaurants lining the streets. The locals congregate. Mothers wipe avocado off their children’s faces. Roasted meats hang on the windows. Busy cooks chop away at their greasy cutting boards and pump out plastic plates of corn tortillas filled with various meaty delicacies. But as delicious as these local hang outs were, they were no match compared to, what I dubbed, “The garbage can chicken shack.”

During an afternoon stroll, I was ambushed by an intoxicating aroma. It seemed to be coming from around the corner. The smell carried me, like a cartoon Pepe LePew to the edge of a burnt-down restaurant. A Mexican family had built a rudimentary shack on the corner of the abandoned lot. Four posts, barely sturdy enough to hold up a rectangular piece of zinc roof, surrounded by four short walls made of cinder blocks. Under the roof was a picnic table, and several metal barrels roaring with wood fires inside. A sweaty man with a torn shirt smiled at me. His family moved about industriously behind him. The smell was unbelievable. Chickens, skewered through metal bars, roasted to perfection over the barrel fires. In the background, bubbling pots sputtered with steam. I decided to give this place a try. So I handed over my $4 (I would happily hand over $500 to have this meal again).

The whole chicken was split into six pieces by the expert chop of a heavy cleaver. It came efficiently packaged inside of a large plastic bag - no frills. The steam made the bag puff out like a balloon. Hot tamales and corn on the cob joined the chicken in another Ziploc bag, both passed to me inside a plastic shopping bag with a small containers of salsa verde (green tomato sauce), chipotle vinegar sauce, tomato salsa, paper plates, napkins and plastic cutlery. A picnic in a bag.

I intended to eat this on the beach, but as I recall, the farthest I made it was a park bench just a half block from the shack. It was insanely delicious. The world around me faded away. There were no sounds that I could recall. I began to wonder where these street chickens had been caught, but all I could focus on was the perfectly roasted skin - it tasted like limes, garlic and cilantro had a wild orgie on the chicken, giving birth to a whole new, perfectly delicious flavor. The meat, marinated in a salty brine, was so juicy and tasty that I wanted to cry. The tamales, warm and moist, peeled out of a yellow corn husk, were the perfect vessel for the sublime sauces (which were a masterpiece in themselves). I’m quite sure the recipe for that salsa verde had been made before; passed down with the strictness of a Vedic priest from mother to child.

The entire meal was out of this world. It was an event I can’t forget. “I didn’t know you could do that with chicken.” I mumbled to myself incoherently with pieces of chicken falling out of my mouth.

I have yet to have anything that even compared to that chicken. Had I not been so drugged up on chicken fat and hot sauce, I would have offered him money for the recipe. Hindsight is 20/20, they say. But I will never forget this happy moment in time, on a park bench in Playa del Carmen.

Easy Ways to Lower Fat in your Diet

2011-09-14T14:10:00.002-04:00

Easy Ways to Lower Fat in your Diet
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Most doctors, nutritionists and fitness experts agree that lowering your intake of fats and oils can go a long way towards achieving a healthier weight and lowering your risk of heart disease and other annoying body complications. For those with a sedentary lifestyle, taking in too many calories can be detrimental. And fats (and oils) contain way more calories than carbohydrates or protein.

I look at it like this; When I eat too much fat, I get too fat. And this prevents me from performing vital tasks like running for more than 100 feet without losing my lunch (as in the case of a zombie outbreak or escaping from a flash mob at the mall). My graceful David-Hasselhoff-run on the beach becomes more like a sweaty scene from Biggest Loser, and it now takes three YMCA employees to hoist my rotund behind up the rock climbing wall as children look on in dismay.

If you don’t share my concerns, maybe you can agree with the fact that there are virtually no old people over the age of 70 that are fat. Have you noticed that? Really old people are all skinny. Being a Florida resident, you can trust my observation.

The choice is yours. You can go out like Elvis with a peanut butter and bacon sandwich, or you can tweak your diet and live a longer, albeit less glamorous, life.

Cutting fat out of your diet does not mean checking your happiness at the door and conceding to an insipid life of celery sticks, yoga and canned tuna. You can still enjoy most of the foods you eat by making low fat substitutions. Let me show you a few tricks to cut the fat and keep the taste.

Oils and Fats. Yes, many oils are “healthy” for you. But we’re talking about pure mathematics here - too many calories. A little bit of oil goes a long way. Oils, cheeses and fats are very high in calories. Even a little tablespoon of olive oil packs a whopping 120 calories (that’s the same as two slices of white bread). So the first and most effective thing you can do if you’re packing too much fat, is to stop eating it. Just stop using oils.

Instead of frying with oils, butter or fat, just use a non-stick pan. For mashed potatoes, just add skim milk, garlic and herbs. For salads just use herbs, garlic, sea salt, pepper and red wine vinegar. Steamed rice goes great with a little soy sauce instead of butter. You can thicken sauces with corn starch and water (called a “slurry”) instead of oil and flour. And instead of mayonnaise in your sandwich, use Dijon mustard, or ketchup. And keep the cheese to a minimum.

Meats. We all love a nice fatty steak, pork chop, meat sauce, chili, fajitas, sausages, etc. But the next time you grill, use a lean beef tenderloin steak. Use pork tenderloin instead of pork chops on the grill, or season it with soy sauce, cumin and fresh pepper for low-fat fajitas. Grilled chicken breasts are fat-free and juicy if you don’t overcook them. Fat-free hot dogs still taste great. And I use lean ground turkey in most recipes that call for ground beef (I add a little bit of egg whites to the mixture for added moisture in the case of burgers or meatloaf).

Fish and Seafood. You can make tasty, gourmet dishes using white fish, fresh tuna, shrimp, scallop, and clams. Sushi (if not eaten with mayonnaise-based sauces) is actually a really low-fat and tasty food that you can enjoy often.

Starches and Pastas. I’m sure the low-carb junkies are squirming. Don’t worry, pasta is actually very low in fat, and has way less calories than oils or fats. If you skip the fatty ground beef, cream sauces (made with cream, butter and oil) and skip the olive oil in the tomato sauce, pasta can be enjoyed daily. And if you’re still worried, you can use low-carb and whole wheat pastas to combine the benefits of low-carb and low-fat eating. Whole wheat breads are also good to eat.

Potatoes, sweet potato, and all types of rice are also virtually free of fats.

Basically, if you are carrying with you a supply of body fat, you don’t need to eat any more of it. Let your body use the fat it already has. And if you use the tips and ideas above, you can still enjoy your meals.

A bomb best diffused with your mouth: Venezuelan Street Food

2011-09-06T00:19:00.006-04:00

A bomb best diffused with your mouth: The Venezuelan Bomba
By: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com/

View of Caracas, Venezuela at night.

Have you ever had a meal that burned itself into your memory? Can you recall the taste, the texture, the conversation? Can you feel the breeze caress your skin? Does the mention of that meal transport you back in time to that moment?

I have had several of these life-altering moments. Each of these meals were a meaningful event. A pinnacle of culinary discovery and sensation. A moment in time so thoroughly enjoyable that I snatched it from the universe and locked it away in my mind to be kept, admired, savored and remembered forever. Mine, all mine.

For some it’s the art. For others it’s the architecture or the culture. For me, it’s the food. And rightly so - food is art, and much could be known about a culture simply by its food.

We sped along a winding freeway weaving our way through the heart of Caracas. Warm air rushing into the car. The raspy sound of night traffic as people made their way to clubs, restaurants and parties was somehow soothing to my ears. The bright lights of a city that stretches out through a great valley light up the dark sky. In spite of the car exhaust and sewage, the smells of perfume, tropical plants and mountain soil all mix together to create an aroma that makes me happy. I like Caracas. I miss it.

My heart raced as we began to climb up a steep, winding road. We drove higher and higher into the hills. The air growing more cool and fresh with every turn. At last we arrived. “Calle de hambre” is literally translated to mean “Hunger street.” Rudimentary outdoor restaurants, food trucks and stands. Where Caraqueños would swarm in the late hours of the night to satiate their ravenous hunger and sober up after a long night of festivities, partying and having fun. It was 11:30pm when we arrived, the “early-bird” hour. We had all the stands to ourselves. The proprietors were busy cooking and prepping, having opened their shops only two hours ago.

Standing next to a picnic table with my friends, overlooking a city of lights below, and the stars above, is where I had my first Bomba.

A Bomba “Bomb” is not for the faint of heart. It is a marvel of engineering and a culinary feat of prowess and strength. A soft-steamed over sized hamburger bun filled with a fresh ground beef patty, fried ham steak, grilled pork shoulder, Swiss cheese, coleslaw, alfalfa sprouts, shredded lettuce, sliced ripe tomato, pickles, thinly sliced crispy onions and avocado with a fried egg thrown in there for good luck. Eating it is just as complex. As you consume this culinary juggernaut, you continuously squirt it with a combination of garlic sauce, ketchup, mustard and tahini mayo.

As I stood there looking out onto an ocean of shining lights, cradling my paper-wrapped Bomba, I distinctly recall a tear streaming down my face - a tear of joy. “This is life.” I thought to myself. If you have ever wondered how people can put up with a fascist president, communism, capitalism, inflation, rampant crime and poverty, it’s because of this sandwich - the $4 Bomba. This sandwich makes life worth living. When you’re sharing a Bomba on a breezy hill under a tropical sky, the problems of life dissipate into trivial murmurs. I doubt rapid gun fire could rip your attention away from a proper Bomba once you’ve embarked on the intricate journey of devouring it with all four sauces.

I have no recollection of how I got home that night.

This is the closest I can get to reproducing a Bomba here in America. It’s not the same without the city lights, the mountain air, the car exhaust, distant gun shots, and the company of my good friends. But it comes pretty close.

Venezuelan Bomba Recipe:

Yields: 1 big F*#@ beauty of a sandwich!

Ingredients for the Bomba:
- An over sized hamburger bun (I sometimes make bread-dough and custom bake them extra big)
- ¼ Lb of ground beef (seasoned with salt, pepper, soy sauce, and liquid smoke)
- 1 ham steak
- ⅓ cup of thin-sliced roast pork shoulder (for faster recipe, use pork tenderloin and grill with Cajun seasoning)
- Alfalfa Sprouts
- Shredded Lettuce
- Swiss Cheese
- Tomato
- Kelapo Virgin Coconut Oil
- Kosher pickle slices
- Fried Onion slices
- Coleslaw
- Avocado

Instructions:

1. If you’re baking your bun, you can use pizza dough or bread dough. These sandwiches turn out even better when the bun is warm and fresh-baked.

2. Have all your ingredients diced, sliced, and prepped.

3. Take a deep breath. Do some P90X. Buy your wife something nice.

4. Put a tbsp of Kelapo Virgin Coconut Oil on a skillet and fry your burger patty (flatten it), fry the ham steak and throw in the pre-cooked slices of roast pork.

5. Begin to assemble your sandwich and finish it off with a fried egg.

The Sauces:

This is my rendition of the sauces

Garlic Sauce: Mayonnaise with a tonne of fresh minced garlic and parsley.

Mustard: Yellow mustard.

Ketchup: Ketchup (made with sugar - don’t use the stuff made with high fructose corn syrup)

Tahini Mayo: Mayonnaise mixed with a little bit of tahini (sesame seed paste) and black pepper to taste.

Beef or chicken fajitas recipe

2011-08-29T10:42:00.002-04:00

Beef or Chicken Fajitas
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

With this recipe you can make delicious beef or chicken fajitas, Tex-Mex style. You will be pleasantly surprised how the use of Asian soy sauce blends these south-of-the-border flavours so well!

You can cut a lot of fat in this recipe by using a non-stick skillet, using lean meats, and omitting any oils.

Yields: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:
- 1 Lb of beef (Sirloin, Tenderloin, or New York Strip)
or
- 1 Lb of boneless, skinless chicken breast.

- ¼ cup of soy sauce
- ½ tbsp of cumin powder
- ½ tbsp of minced garlic
- ½ tsp of liquid smoke
- 1 tbsp of chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 large red bell pepper
- 1 large red onion
- Sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
- Tortilla shells
- Shredded cheddar cheese
- Fresh guacamole
- Low fat sour cream

Instructions:

1. Flatten out the steaks (or butterfly the chicken breast) to no more than a ½ inch thick and coat with the soy sauce, cumin, garlic, liquid smoke, cilantro, sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Rub the spices into the meat and let them sit in your fridge for 1 to 3 hours.

2. Julinenne the onion and pepper into slices and fry on a non-stick skillet until soft and cooked through (about 20 minutes). Remove and set aside.

3. Add the meat to the non-stick skillet and cook until done. As for the steak, it can be cooked medium, rare or well, as you prefer.

Easy ways to add fresh fish and seafood to your diet

2011-08-25T11:56:00.001-04:00

Easy ways to add fresh fish and seafood to your diet
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Adding fresh fish and seafood to your diet can jazz up your regular repertoire of weekday meals and provide you with low-fat, nutrient-rich, lean protein that tastes great. When you think about the inherent health risks of consuming meats and poultry laden with antibiotics, growth hormones and saturated fats, switching to a natural protein source like fish and seafood, with healthy essential fatty acids, is a no-brainer for health.

You may have kept away from seafood for several reasons. Maybe you don’t really know how to prepare it, or you don’t know what to buy. Or maybe you tried a really “fishy” (oily) fish when you were young and you never gave it a second chance. Whatever your reason, these easy tips and techniques will help to put it back on your menu.

Why is fresh fish and seafood healthy?

“Healthy” can mean different things to different people. But we can all agree that excessive fat, growth hormones and antibiotics are not healthy to eat. Most fresh fish and seafood just happen to be organic. It lived a natural life in a lake or ocean before it was caught, and ate a natural diet. Most seafood is free of growth hormones, drugs, and antibiotics. Fish is also high in protein which is easily digestible, so your body can make the most out of it. Some fish, like Salmon, even have healthy oils (omegas) that your body needs.

Yes, there are some farmed fish that are given growth hormones (Basa and Tilapia) and are fed synthetic fish food. Some are given food coloring in their feed to color their flesh (as in farmed Salmon). But the majority of fish and seafood out there is quite natural and free of unhealthy additives. At the end of the day I would rather eat a farmed salmon fillet, than a chemical-laden beef steak or chicken breast.

Easy ways to prepare fresh fish and seafood.

Some people may be intimidated by seafood simply because they have no idea how to prepare it. They probably don’t realize that fish cooks very fast and is actually a lot easier to cook than land animal protein. The basic rule of thumb with fish is: When the flesh flakes apart easily, it’s done. Shrimp are fully cooked about a minute or two after they change color to red or pink. Scallops cook quite quickly and can be eaten medium rare. In most cases, your fish monger can steam crab and lobster for you, or you can find it pre-cooked (when the shells are red) in your local grocery store. Start by adding fish or seafood to your diet once a week and work your way up as you become more comfortable with it.

The easiest way to prepare a nice fish fillet is to put it into a baking dish or cookie sheet lined with non-stick foil, sprinkle with fresh minced garlic, sea salt, pepper and butter or olive oil. Bake in the oven until fish flakes apart easily and serve with your favorite side dishes. You can also cook your fish in a non-stick skillet with the same ingredients I mentioned above. You can add different variations to change it up as you become more comfortable - soy sauce, ginger, garlic and chopped scallions, for example. Or you can take a whole fish, wrap it completely in foil with onions, olive oil, salt, garlic, and herbs and grill it in your BBQ until the flesh comes off the bone easily. Experiment, and have fun!

Shrimp can be sauteed in a non-stick pan with butter (or olive oil), salt, pepper and a pinch of curry powder, or Cajun spice for a few minutes. Cooking them on a skillet with white wine, salt, garlic and butter (or olive oil), and sliced mushrooms is also a great way to enjoy shrimp. They don’t take very long to cook. You can also add shrimp, crab meat, and scallop to fresh tomato sauce, or cream sauce for a great pasta dish.

How to choose fresh fish for sushi and sashimi

2011-08-24T09:57:00.003-04:00

How to choose fresh fish for sushi and sashimi
By: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com/

You’re having one of those do-it-yourself weekends. Your bathroom is a new “sea foam” color, you gave your car and oil change and there is something resembling a wooden deck in your yard. Why stop there? You’re hungry. Why not make sushi? Sounds like a plan. But first, how are you going to ensure that the fish you’re buying is fresh? And more importantly, how can you assure it's safe to eat raw?

Frozen vs. Fresh.

Most people assume that sushi requires only the freshest fish. This is true. But a lot of the sushi you have eaten at your local Japanese restaurant has been previously frozen. And this is not necessarily a bad thing.

Ideally, your sashimi has been cut from a fish that, only hours ago, was swimming happily in the ocean. Many sushi restaurants use fresh fish that have arrived on ice (not frozen). These tend to be the more expensive restaurants. Your local seafood store may also have fresh tuna or salmon that arrived shortly after being caught. The positive side of this is that you end up with a really good, fresh product. But if you’re doing this yourself, you may not be able to tell if the fish has any parasites in it. A trained sushi chef has the skill and experience to be able to tell whether a piece of fish is safe to eat. Generally speaking, fish that touch the bottom and hang out in warmer waters (reef fish) tend to have more parasites, than pelagic fish like tuna (pelagic means that they constantly swim - they never stop) that live in colder waters and have less of a chance of coming into contact with worms or parasites.

You probably haven’t realized that most of the sushi you’ve eaten has been prepared using previously frozen fish. At first, you may think you got ripped off, or that it would be a lesser quality product. But that’s not the case. I actually recommend that sushi beginners use frozen fish. In my opinion, the quality is still good, and most people can’t tell the difference. The advantages of using frozen fish are several. First, you can buy more and keep it in your freezer for when you’re craving sushi. You can also purchase seasonal fish (like Chilean salmon) and keep it around for a while longer so that you always have your favorite fish for sushi. It’s also more economical.

The best way to make sure the fish doesn’t have parasites, besides visual inspection, is to freeze the fish. According to the FDA you must freeze the fish at -35 degrees F for 24-48 hours, or at 0 degrees F for 7 days. This ensures that any parasites that might be present in the fish will be dead. Most people’s freezers at home don’t get this cold, so what you can do is ensure that the place you’re buying your fish from has industrial-strength freezers that will reach that temperature. Most fish purchased IQF (individually quick frozen) have already undergone those temperatures at the processing facility and can be assumed safe to eat raw. I have had much success with IQF fish.

Most times, I prefer to purchase frozen or previously frozen fish to make my sushi. I can buy more, at a better price, store it more easily, and have the confidence that I’m not going to get parasites. As I mentioned before, the quality of frozen fish is better than you might think. It’s actually quite good if it’s been processed quickly. Unless I caught it myself, I stick to frozen 9 out of 10 times.

Make-Up or No Make-Up:

You’re probably used to seeing that cherry red tuna steak or bright orange salmon at your local fish store. It looks really fresh and appetizing. But you probably didn’t realize that the bright red color in the tuna is a result of a process called “cold smoking” where they expose the tuna to carbon monoxide until it turns (and stays) bright red. This is done to “doll up” the fish in hopes that you’ll buy it. The bright orange or pink salmon, if farmed, has been given a mixture of fish food and food coloring pellets to color its flesh a bright color. These practices are not necessarily bad, since untreated fresh tuna would turn a chocolaty-brown color and the salmon might fade to a homely pink (this would not alter the quality). However, you should realize that color has nothing to do with freshness. So it’s very important that you ascertain the freshness of the fish first, and worry about the color second.

How do I tell if it’s fresh?

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again - your nose was put on your face for this purpose. Always smell your fish. If it stinks, don’t eat it. What is the definition of “stink”? Stink is when it has an offensive odor, or starts to smell a little like poop (which, unless you’re a princess, is offensive). Fish should have a light, natural fishy smell. It should smell like the ocean (not the Jersey shore.. the nice part of the ocean). It should not be an offensive odor. If you find yourself making the who-cut-the-cheese-face, or if you’re sitting there in doubt, put it down. There should be no doubt. There should only be a pleasant smile on your face when you smell it. Better safe than sorry. You should also visually inspect if for tiny worms, etc. which are are not very likely to be there.

What type of fish should I buy?

This part is really up to you. If you were in Japan, you would see that most every fish is game. Aside from your regulars - tuna family, salmon, trout, mackerel, cooked eel, cooked octopus, shrimp - you can try different fish like grouper, snapper, amber jack, etc. I sometimes enjoy trying new fish in the form of sushi or sashimi from my local fish monger. Sometimes it’s a hit, sometimes it’s not. But it’s always fun to try. Just be sure that you follow the safety and freshness precautions as above.

Storing your fish.

If you’re buying IQF frozen fish, just store it in your freezer. Remember to take the plastic wrapping off before thawing out in your fridge over night, then smell it once it’s thawed. If you’re storing fresh fish, time is of the essence. I usually buy it the day of, and I would never store it longer than 24 hours if I’m going to eat it raw. Beyond that time frame you might be playing a game of roulette.

I hope this guide will help you in your purchase, storing and preparation of fish for sushi and sashimi. Enjoy!

Healthy School Lunches

2011-08-09T22:05:00.001-04:00

Healthy School Lunches
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

We would all line up in single file outside of a zinc roof shanty on the property of our private school. We would kick dirt at each other, wrestle and laugh as the line moved closer. The sweet smell of corn empanadas bubbling in oil was intoxicating. At the end of the line I would hand the lunch lady $10 bolivares and choose between beef empanadas, cheese empanadas or arepas (fried corn cakes - a Venezuelan staple) with fried plantains, and black beans. On Fridays we got creole chicken stew on white rice and you could wash it down with an ice-cold “Chicha” (think of a rice pudding milkshake). We all sat along a white parapet underneath bamboo and banana trees, swinging our feet playfully while we enjoyed our lunch in the warm sun. Those who did not buy their lunch enjoyed gourmet boxed lunches prepared by their moms or housekeepers. Hot thermos stuffed with seafood paella, potato gnocci, lasagna, shredded beef in tomato caper sauce and beef tongue in wild mushroom sauce with parsley, garlic and mashed potato were not unusual. Most of my school mates were of European descent - as are many Venezuelans - and most had housekeepers or moms who were very good cooks. Our schoolyard lunch hour could rival any modern day fine food show. We were very happy kids, we were all friends, we all played together and we instituted a very intricate food swapping system to add further spice to our already-eclectic selection of lunch items.

My family moved to Toronto when I was 8 years old. My first week in the 3rd grade was rough to say the least. I didn’t speak English. The other kids did not speak Spanish. I sat by myself in a lunch room and did my best to be invisible. The kids eyed me suspiciously from a distance. There was no sunshine. There were no banana plants. There wasn’t much laughter. The building, with it’s antiseptic smell, seemed cold and impersonal. I found it interesting that they all pulled out the same exact peanut butter and jelly sandwich, out of the same exact brown paper bag and drank the same exact boxed juice. A few had cans of soda. For a moment I wondered if they were robots or android children from some not too distant future. I warily spun the top off my hot food thermos and quietly began to eat my Hungarian style paprika chicken w/ spatzle dumplings. It didn’t take long after the name-calling and insults about my food stinking for me to start bringing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with boxed juice in a paper bag. Not because I liked them, but so that the kids would leave me alone during lunch. I missed my three course lunches, but it was better than being called names and better than having Cheetos thrown at me. Canadian kids were different - actually, they were all the same, and they loathed anything that was different. My saving grace that month was my implementation of “jail house rules” briefly mentioned to me by my cool uncle Luis before I left for Canada - after being punched in the stomach and ridiculed in front of everybody by the school bully I proceded to choke him to within an inch of his life. Things turned around for me after that and I started to make friends.

Today, as a dad, this life experience has become very valuable. And I’m happy to share with you a little guide for your kids’ school lunches. Let’s keep the “jail house rules” to ourselves.

Unless your kid goes to private school - where they would be more likely to bring a more diverse variety of lunch items or eat at a good cafeteria - they are probably part of a public school lunch-bag-syndicate, or paper-bag-militia, equipped with quarters for the vending machine. So in hopes of not getting them extricated by their comrades for having something healthy, smelly or different, I will give you a list of foods that will meet their nutritional needs without forcing them into the 12:15 witness protection program.

Lunch items to avoid: Unless you hate your kid, or feel that Smelly McStinkerson suits him better than his original name, you should first avoid foods with strong aromas. Remember that most kids are used to a few basic lunch time smells like; citrus fruit, banana, fried starch and processed meats. Anything outside of that realm might attract negative attention. Sulphur-smelling foods like broccoli, asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, and eggs are not a good idea. Alike, real cheeses, fragrant broths, tomato sauce and garlicky sauces are “stinky” as far as most chicken-nugget-eaters are concerned. Sushi - again, unless they’re in a private school, I can think of about ten Asian inspired nicknames right now off the top of my head.

There are other foods that you don’t want to send you kids to school with just because they’re simply unhealthy - which just happens to be all of the popular choices you see in schools nowadays. White bread, anything with high fructose corn syrup (it’s in almost anything sweet), sugary fruit juices, diet drinks, sodas, processed cheese and cracker trays loaded with preservatives. Chicken nuggets, etc. Remember how I mentioned how friendly, happy and cooperative Venezuelan kids were? All of our food just happened to be organic and hardly any of it contained sugar, let alone high fructose corn syrup. It was all very healthy, contained a good amount of protein and even had vegetables. It was either cooked at home, or prepared by a lunch cook with all natural ingredients. Now, think about your kid trying to study while on the tail end of a sugar-crash. Or jittery from all the caffeine and chemicals he drank. Or overweight from all the high fructose corn syrup. Or dizzy from dehydration. Or irritable from improper nutrition altogether. What your kids eat at school makes a huge difference in their health, mood and progress.

School lunches at the cafeteria have improved over time, but are still lacking. Many of the cafeteria items still contain lots of preservatives (as in fried foods like nuggets, frozen meats, or fish sticks), processed carbohydrates (as in bread sandwiches and pastas) and high fructose corn syrup (as in anything that tastes sweet). So unless your kid is informed enough to make healthy choices and avoid the pitfalls of healthy cafeteria eating, you’re better off to pack their lunch.

In my personal opinion, a lot of these symptoms your kids exhibit are due to lack of proper nutrition. The dangerous part is when some half-witted, unqualified charlatan “counselor” then looks at your kid, scratches his head, makes tome ticks on a worksheet, gets them labeled with some bogus acronym and your kid now gets put on dangerous, mind-altering drugs, and there goes his future as a bright, healthy person. But this is a whole subject to discuss in a different article.

Lunch items you should pack your kid: There are healthy ways to provide your kid with proper nutrition while still maintaining his social status in school. Just think home-made. Make the chicken strips yourself using all organic ingredients, use whole wheat breads and fill sandwiches with organic sandwich meats, natural cheeses and even last night’s roast chicken, turkey or steak dinner makes a delicious sandwich. Use whole wheat pastas or low carb pastas. If you MUST give them something sweet, make it fresh fruit. They should only have cane sugar (and make it an AFTER school snack) You should avoid high fructose corn syrup all together. All-natural granola bars are a really good replacement for chocolate bars. Organic rice chips and vegetable chips are a good substitute for fried empty-calorie potato chips. Gluten free pizza dough or pizza crusts are now more readily available at your local natural food store (or you can venture to make it yourself). Pizza looks like pizza, and can be eaten cold. But you can put really good, healthy stuff on your kid’s slice of pie and no one will know the difference.

I mention a lot of organic foods simply because they are free of preservatives and are produced naturally with the purpose of providing nutrition for your body - not to last longer on a shelf and have a higher potential of financial return as most conventional foods today are manufactured for (at the expense of actual nutrition). And there are many studies out there that point towards autism and poor nutrition. Although your child may not be autistic, the food they eat may affect them more than you think.

You can keep your kids healthy and happy by feeding them right. And although it may require you to put a bit more effort, or to spend a bit more money than you would like, it will be worth it when they grow up and become successful in life. It’s hard enough for kids today to assure they will have a bright future - drugs, people labeling them with false “disorders”, bigger classrooms and less funded schools - but you can do a lot by making sure they have the nutrition and energy to power through their challenges and obstacles, while staying under the “stinky-food-name-calling” radar and keeping their original last names!

If you need to hire a personal chef to provide your family with proper nutrition, I’m here to help. Please visit my website at www.tampabaychef.com or email me with your comments and questions at tampabaychef@gmail.com.

What do chefs eat?

2011-08-09T16:30:00.003-04:00

What Do Chefs Eat?
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

As a professional chef I am often expected to produce opulent dishes for clientele with discerning tastes. A lot of my time is spent searching for the best ingredients, creating new dishes and striving to improve the already-superb into something slightly better, more interesting and with a possibly different approach. I practice fine art, chemistry and tangible marketing. I deal in fine creatures from the sea, pasture fed land beasts and fine avians. And like many others in my profession our skill becomes instinct. It’s what is expected from the paying public. But what does a chef do behind the scenes? What does he like to eat? And would he want the public to know? Would it change his reputation?

As a personal chef I have the opportunity to liaise directly with my customers. I spend most of my time in their homes, in their kitchens. We have great conversations and talk about various subjects. I feel very fortunate to be able to have such an open communication line with the people that I work for. One of the most common questions that people always want to know is, “What does the chef like to eat?”. I pause when this question is asked, and for a moment try to guess what that person thinks the answer will be. Do they picture me drizzling truffle oil over a wild mushroom and Iberico ham omelet for breakfast? Do they picture me making frisee lettuce salad with a tarragon and white wine vinaigrette to complement my lunch souffle? Maybe. But I’m always honest.

I don’t personally know many other chefs in the area. I enjoy the individuality of doing things myself. And in this particular case I might benefit from the lack of startled faces. However, it has been said that inside every chef beats the heart of every other chef, and I know that at the end of the day we all enjoy the simple things. But I enjoy it all. From a juicy, steaming street vendor hot dog to a perfectly braised veal shank with zesty gremolata. I believe that if it’s edible, it must have some value and I can appreciate any food for what it is. I love tasting the honest simplicity and ocean aroma in a piece of sushi. I appreciate just the right amount of brandy and fresh cream in a crab bisque. I live for beef fat and protein when it’s charred by open flames and accented with salt, I salivate over the thought of a fresh caught rock lobster cooked over a rudimentary fire, I savour every last drop of demi-glace blanketing a perfectly crispy beef wellington. I enjoy a fillet of sea bass carefully positioned over a wasabi infused veloute sauce topped with currants, exotic greens and yuca root. I love bacon and eggs, oysters, chicken wings dipped in ranch dressing, ramen noodles, fresh gnocci with garlic and Parmesan, (real) Chinese food and even McDonalds cheeseburgers. Sometimes I’m fancy - most of the time I enjoy sharing a simple but decadent meal with my girls, within earshot of a television, in bare feet.

The recipe below is honest, shameless, humble and insanely delicious. You may just have to follow it up with truffle oil and quail eggs next weekend to balance out the universe.

Breakfast Spaghetti Recipe:

Yields: 1 large, satisfying portion.

Ingredients:
- 2 organic eggs
- 1 tbsp of organic salted butter
- 2 cups of cooked organic spaghetti
- 4 slices of uncured apple wood smoked bacon
- 1 pinch of salt
- Grated Parmesan cheese to taste

Instructions:

1. Cut the bacon into large segments and fry in a non stick skillet until desired doneness is reached - I like my bacon soft cooked.

2. Add the cooked spaghetti, the butter, and toss around with the bacon until it’s nice and hot. Add a pinch of salt.

3. Add two eggs and stir them quickly into the pasta. Cook for about 45 seconds stirring them quickly. I don’t let the eggs get fully cooked - as they will continue to cook while you’re eating them -I like this dish soggy.

4. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese and may your breakfasts never be the same again!

Breakfast Spaghetti Recipe

2011-08-06T13:47:00.002-04:00

Breakfast Spaghetti Recipe
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

They say Christopher Columbus discovered America by accident. Well, this recipe is not as significant, but it was also an accidental discovery, and it has become my favorite breakfast dish. Try it for yourself and see!

Yields: 1 large, satisfying portion.

Ingredients:
- 2 organic eggs
- 1 tbsp of organic salted butter
- 2 cups of cooked organic spaghetti
- 4 slices of uncured applewood smoked bacon
- 1 pinch of salt
- Grated Parmesan cheese to taste

The best thing about this recipe is not only the taste, but how quickly you can make it. That’s actually why I threw it together - I was short on time, rummaged through my fridge, and came up with the short list of ingredients.

Instructions:

1. Cut the bacon into large segments and fry in a non stick skillet until desired doneness is reached - I like my bacon soft cooked.

2. Add the cooked spaghetti, the butter, and toss around with the bacon until it’s nice and hot. Add a pinch of salt.

3. Add two eggs and stir them quickly into the pasta. Cook for about 45 seconds stirring them quickly. I don’t let the eggs get fully cooked, I like this dish soggy. So I only cook the eggs for a few seconds. Keep in mind that as the egg sits in the hot pasta on your plate it will continue to cook. So do not fully cook the eggs while they’re in the pan.

4. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese and may your breakfasts never be the same again!

How to make organic ice cream in less than 2 minutes recipe

2011-07-31T12:04:00.000-04:00

How to make organic ice cream in less than 2 minutes recipe
By: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com/

It's summer. It's hot. And your kids want ice cream. But instead of rustling your children into the car, traffic, back seat brawls and line ups, you'll be using up those frozen berries that have been taking up room in your freezer. Not only is this recipe cool and healthy, but it can be put together in less than 5 minutes!

Servings: 6-8

Ingredients:

- 10oz package of frozen organic blueberries

- 1/3 cup of cane sugar

- 1/2 tsp of salt

- 1 cup of organic whipping cream (35% cream) or organic fat-free yogurt

- A fresh mint leaf and chopped pistacchio nuts as garnish (optional)

Equipment:

- You will need a food processor. It can also be done in a blender, but it is much easier and less messy to do it in a food processor.

Instructions:

1. Put all the ingredients in the food processor. Blend the ingredients until they are smooth (less than a minute). Transfer them into a container. You can serve right away. For best consistency put the ice cream in the freezer for 30 minutes before serving.

Foods that make your home smell good

2011-07-28T22:34:00.002-04:00

Foods that make your home smell good
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Did you ever walk into somebody’s house and it smelled so good you didn’t want to leave? I remember Mrs. Avle. We lived a few houses down from her when I was 10 years old, and it seemed that she was always making tomato meat sauce. You could smell it down the street and it was absolutely delicious. I even made friends with her son in hopes of getting a chance to taste the source of this mesmerizing aroma. Some children make friends with kids who have pools or ping pong tables, for me it was the meat sauce. And for this sauce I would have made friends with Hitler’s kid.

One day he invited me in after school, I walked through the front door and was knocked back by the smell of perfectly herbed tomatoes, a perfect amount of garlic and savoury beef. I don’t remember his name, and probably ignored most of what he said for the next hour. I looked at my watch, 5pm. Yes, he would be having dinner soon. Mrs. Avle called him up from the kitchen. This was it. ‘OK, look hungry and needy.” I said to myself. I followed what’s-his-name to the kitchen and smiled politely in anticipation for my invitation to eat. Mrs. Avle looked at me with her no-nonesense face. She did not smile. I waited for what seemed hours for my invitation. At this point I was about four feet away from the magical pot. She might as well have been cooking meth in that kitchen, for the smell had made my heart race and my pupils dilate.

Alas she spoke, “We going to have dinah nowe. Y’a go on home.” I wish we had texting back in 1990 cause I would have typed the letters WTF into my cell phone. I never did get to taste Mrs. Avle’s sauce, but I’ve never forgotten that smell.

No one likes their house to smell like last night’s dinner, but there are some foods that can add a pleasant and inviting aroma that will make your guests come back time and time again - even if they don’t remember your name.

Pineapple and citrus fruits. In the hot months we eat a lot of fruit. I always keep citrus and pineapple peels and when guests come over I like to stick them in a pot, fill it with water and simmer them. The essential oils that come off the peels give my house a pleasant Caribbean smell that reminds me of roadside fruit markets in the tropics. You can also leave some citrus peels in your car (without the pulp) in a cup and let the sun bake them into a nice aroma. However, sometimes I’ve left them in there too long and it became too strong. So you gotta get the amount of time just right.

Virgin coconut oil. I like to fry most foods with some Kelapo virgin coconut oil instead of butter or olive oil. It gives off a really nice, subtle coconut smell. I also like that the smell is light and doesn’t stick around for too long either - it knows when It’s time to go home. Whether you use it for grilled cheese, stir-fries or scrambled eggs, it’s always nice to have a coconut aroma lingering while enjoying your meal.

Cinnamon. Whenever I smell up the house with strong foods like oily fish, my wife puts on a small pot of water and sprinkles in a bunch of powdered cinnamon with a little vanilla extract. I think it makes our house smell like the Yankee Candle store, but I guess it’s better than salmon.

Do you have any foods that add a pleasant aroma to your house? Do you know someone who makes their house smell so good you never want to leave? Tell me about it! You can email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com. I’m always happy to hear from my readers.

Cooking Myths Debunked

2011-07-27T19:34:00.000-04:00

Cooking Myths Debunked
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Much like the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, and fact that you can’t get pregnant if you jump up and down, the culinary world shares many myths of its own. And it is my pleasure to debunk just a few of them for you.

[Cue the National Geographic music] There are those who think, and those who look. The thinkers have brought forth many interesting facts; like the Earth being flat, the existence of witches, and communism. The lookers went out and actually looked. They observed a round planet, they met women who liked to experiment with hallucinogens, and witnessed the political catastrophe that was communism in actual practice. Myths tend to originate from the thinkers who draw up conclusions based on what they “think” should happen, or what someone else has told them. A good scientist simply goes out and looks for himself. OK, now that I’ve given you the museum orientation speech, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Putting oil in the pasta water will stop the pasta from sticking together. False. This is probably the most common culinary myth around. Oil floats on top of water (even when it’s boiling). The only thing the oil does is to prevent the water from foaming and boiling over. Stirring the pasta while it’s cooking is what keeps it from sticking together. And after you drain the pasta you can stir in a little oil to keep it from sticking.

Sea salt is healthier than regular table salt. False. Both table salt and “sea salt” come from the sea, whether the sea is around today or was around 10 million years ago and someone dug up the salt deposit, that’s where it comes from. “Sea Salt” is just marketing talk for “Pay more for me!” Furthermore, salt is just sodium chloride and it dissolves in water just the same whether it’s fine salt, kosher salt, “sea salt” or Himalayan pink salt. The only difference from one salt to the next is all the extra stuff that is clinging to it, whether it be different algae, minerals, spices, or smoke particles. Salt is salt.

Strong black coffee will sober you up. False. Strong black coffee will only keep a drunk awake longer. And unless you really enjoy rude comments, close-talking, misguided aggression, and public urination, keep stimulants away from drunks. The only thing that will sober a person up is sleep and B-vitamins. The actual feeling of being “drunk” is just a depletion of your body’s B1-vitamin stores which your body has to use to get rid of the alcohol. As a side note - I was once in a bar with a group of Filipinos and one of them was getting way too drunk and out of hand. So they slipped some MSG powder (mono sodium glutamate) in his beer and a couple of minutes later the guy fell asleep in his seat. “This is how we deal with drunks in the Philippines” my friend said to me with a wink.

Diet soda is healthier than regular soda. Although this one shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, it’s false. Various experiments, including ones conducted at the university of Barcelona in Spain, have proven conclusively that the artificial sweetener found in most sodas, aspartame, easily breaks down into several substances including formaldehyde (the stuff used to embalm corpses at the morgue). So if living forever is your thing, you may be going about it the wrong way by drinking diet soda. Besides, it’s the 21st century and the world is going green, so you want to be biodegradable when you die.

Know of any other food-related myths? If so, please email them to me. tampabaychef@gmail.com.

Possibly the healthiest organic vegetable soup in the world

2011-07-21T19:31:00.001-04:00

Possibly the healthiest organic vegetable soup in the world
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

After spending the last little while debasing my body with fast foods, wheat products, dyes, preservatives, heavy metals, genetically modified vegetables and stimulants I feel like Axl Rose after a few months of partying, rocking out, and touring - but instead of long hair, mystery lingerie and millions of dollars, all I have to show for it is a few extra pounds, lethargy and the guilt of having added 50Lbs of non-degradable garbage into the environment.

I managed to nudge myself awake and dragged myself over to the organic grocery store where I put together the ingredients to possibly the healthiest soup that ever existed. It’s so healthy in fact, that I’m going to have to write a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Neither this article, recipe, nor Cristian Feher himself can be relied upon as preventive, cure or treatment for any disease or medical condition. Jesus, Allah and Gautama Buddha know what I’m talking about, however, this article is solely my personal opinion and is not based on any medical fact. It is recommended that you consult with a licensed medical practitioner. If there were no disease, doctors would be out of a job. So go see your doctor before attempting anything healthy. And don’t forget to tip.

You are what you eat. I used to believe that, until I saw Ronald McDonald at a Chinese Buffet. In any case, it’s safe to assume that bad food causes or facilitates disease. At the very least, it makes you tired, fat and irritable. So the purpose of this recipe is to make you happy, healthy, and fit by providing you with all the right foods in one pot. Easy. No excuses. Your body is an engine, and if you feed it good fuel, it will drive faster, look better, and have regular oil leaks - which is good in this case.

Not only are all the ingredients in this soup free of preservatives, pesticides, stimulants, dyes, and all that bad stuff, but I’ve also gone out of my way to get two gallons of super-filtered and ozonated water at my local water filtration depot (35 cents per gallon). Using tap water to make healthy soup would make no sense - your tap water most likely contains heavy metals and fluoride (that can slow down your thyroid), chlorine, and trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs, birth control pills, and a slew of other mystery ingredients. Think of how much effort your body has to put into getting rid of all this stuff after you eat. You’re using the little bit of energy you got in the first place, to get the stuff out of your body.

This soup has been engineered here at Chef Cristian’s Rocket Propulsion Laboratories to be a clean, crud-free, nutritious fuel so that your body can run at optimum. It has low glycemic carbohydrates (your pancreas will thank you), clean, organic, hormone and antibiotic-free meats for protein, and you will add raw green leafy vegetables just before eating to provide all the essential enzymes and minerals your body needs. In essence, it would be the ideal fuel for a healthy body.
I’m not saying I could eat this every day. But If all you ate was this soup for a few weeks, you would probably find two things would happen: 1)Your weight would start to normalize, you’d have more energy, you’d look better, feel better, and be happier, and 2) You’d get really bored of eating soup, cause this recipe makes a tonne.

Ingredients for the soup:
- 2 gallons of ozonated, super-filtered water
- 1 green organic cabbage cut into wedges
- 1 organic acorn squash cut into quarters
- 2 to 3 organic sweet potatoes whole
- 10 organic carrots cut into sections
- 1 whole bushel of organic celery cut into sections
- 1 large organic red onion diced
- 4 cloves of organic garlic minced
- 6 sprigs of fresh thyme
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 jar of Better Than Bullion brand Organic Chicken Bullion
- Fresh ground pepper and mineral salt to taste

Things to put into the soup just before eating:
- Raw green organic leafy vegetables (any)
- Pieces of cooked organic meats or fish (any)

Instructions:

1. Put all ingredients into a big stock pot with super-filtered water, bring to a boil, turn the heat down to a simmer, and simmer for 1 hour. Turn heat off, and let it cool naturally before dividing it into containers and storing it.

2. When ready to eat; heat it, add meat or seafood to it, serve it into a bowl and add chopped green veggies to it like spinach, kale, greens, etc. Enjoy!

Black sesame stir-fried beef tenderloin and broccoli recipe

2011-07-13T15:14:00.002-04:00

Black sesame beef and broccoli. Photo ©Cristian Feher 2011

Black Sesame Beef Tenderloin w/ Broccoli
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

This is a quick and easy meal that your family will enjoy! Whenever I make stir-fry-type dishes with beef, I like to use beef tenderloin as it yields a really soft and juicy texture. If using cheaper cuts of meat, you can slice them thin and marinade them over night in egg whites and a little corn starch.

One of the questions I get asked most often from people who like to make stir-fry dishes is “How do I make the sauce?” The question here is, really, “Flour or corn starch?” Traditionally, asian sauces are thickened with starches, like corn and tapioca. But I sometimes use flour just for convenience sakes.

A slurry is a mixture of starch and water. You pour the slurry into a boiling liquid and whisk it in quickly to thicken it into a sauce. Flour is mixed with vegetable oil (to the consistency of toothpaste) and whisked a little bit at a time into a boiling liquid to thicken it into a sauce. The flour will give it a heavier consistency than the starches, so it’s up to you which way you go with this.

Yields: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:
- 1Lb of Beef Tenderloin
- 1 to 2 cups of beef stock (depending on how much sauce you want)
- 2 cups of broccoli florets
- 2 green onions
- 1tbsp of fresh ginger
- 1 tbsp of black sesame seeds
- 1 tsp of toasted sesame oil
- Japanese soy sauce to taste
- Peanut oil
- Corn starch
- Water

Instructions:

1. The first step is to prepare all of your ingredients. This means; slicing the beef tenderloin into smaller pieces, preparing the beef stock, chopping the green onion, mincing the ginger, and making a slurry with roughly one part corn starch and one part water (you may need more w
ater).

2. Heat up your wok or skillet, add a little peanut oil, the beef, ginger and scallions. Sautee on medium high for 10 minutes. Add the broccoli. Cook for another 5 minutes.

3. Add the beef stock and bring to a simmer. Once it simmers, whisk in a little of the corn starch slurry at a time until desired thickness is reached. Cook for another 3 minutes.

4. Take it off the heat, and season with sesame seeds, soy sauce and sesame oil. I like to serve with this a side of steamed Jasmin rice. Enjoy!

Indian Butter Chicken Recipe and The Origins of Indian Cuisine

2011-07-10T22:55:00.003-04:00

Indian “Butter” Chicken Recipe and The Origins of Indian Cuisine
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Indian Butter Chicken - Photo ©Cristian Feher 2011

I find that Indian cuisine is the type of food that people either love or hate. Its strong combination of aromatic spices can be intimidating to those accustomed to eating milder tasting food. But it’s intoxicating to those who love to crank the volume on taste.

Indian cuisine was born in a land where the harsh climate pushed Man to come up with ingenious ways to survive. Amongst the age old methods of survival was food preservation. As I’ve written in other articles, the advent of refrigeration is very recent. For ages back people have sought ways to preserve their food in climates where spoilage was accelerated by the ambient heat, and where food was not abundant. Although protein sources were scarce compared to the lush forests of Europe and North America, Indian culture was in a prime location - right in the middle of an ancient trade route between Asia, the middle East and Africa. And one of the most readily available goods traveled and traded along the route were spices. It was quickly proven that a high concentration of spices retarded, and even prevented in some cases, bacterial growth in food. And thus was born a cuisine of strong tastes and bold spices, not for luxury or pleasure, but for function - to keep foods from spoiling. However, as it is in every culture, the food artists (whether chefs, servants, or home makers) developed something functional into something wonderful and enjoyable, Indian cuisine as we know it today.

Butter chicken is one of the most popular Indian dishes known today by most of the world, aside from curry. The allure of this dish, in addition to its aromatic taste and rich texture, is that no two versions of butter chicken are ever the same. From restaurant to restaurant, and chef to chef, butter chicken always tastes slightly different. This is my rendition of butter chicken. By using Kelapo virgin coconut oil instead of butter I have achieved a lighter consistency and have added the slight aroma of coconut.

This recipe yields 4 servings.

Ingredients:

- 3 boneless chicken breasts

- 2 cups of diced onion

- 2 tbsp of Kelapo virgin coconut oil

- 5 garlic cloves (2 tbsp of minced garlic)

- 1 tbsp of fresh minced ginger

- 2 tsp of garam masala

- ¼ tsp of ground cardamom

- ¼ tsp of cayenne pepper

- 3 bay leaves

- ½ tsp of cinnamon

- 3 tbsp of cashew butter (or peanut butter)

- 3 cups of pureed tomato (about 5 fresh tomatoes)

- 2 tsp of brown sugar

- plenty of sea salt to taste

Instructions:

1. The first step is to prepare all of your ingredients. This means that you dice the chicken, dice the onion, mince the garlic, mince the ginger, puree the fresh, ripe tomatoes in the blender or food processor.

2. Put the Kelapo coconut oil into a deep skillet and add the onion, garlic, ginger, bay leaves, and spices (not the salt). Fry the onion until it becomes translucent (about 15 mins.)

3. Once the onion is translucent, add the chicken and fry for another 10-12 minutes. After 12 minutes, add the cashew butter and stir it really well so that it dissolves into the mixture.

4. Add the tomato, sugar, and plenty of salt to taste. Remember that it takes a lot of salt to bring out the flavor in tomatoes. When adding salt, always add a little, taste, add a little, taste, and so on. Bring the mixture to a simmer and simmer for another 20 minutes. It should thicken more as you cook down the tomatoes and evaporate the water. Serve with basmati rice, chopped cilantro and naan bread. Enjoy!

Summer grilling tips "101" with Chef Cristian Feher

2011-06-30T13:35:00.006-04:00

Summer Grilling Tips
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

The temperature is rising, the sun is shining, and the grass is growing like, well... grass. It’s summer. For most people this means firing up the grill, sticking meat on it, and walking away. And for some, it means burnt pucks, rusty grills and a boring repertoire of tiresome menu ideas. In this article I will give you some tips that should improve your grilling skills, help you maintain your grill, and give you some new ideas to expand your summer menu.

Does your grill get rusty? Does food tend to stick and hold on for dear life? A grill, much like your car, could use some maintenance every now and then. And you may not be aware of it. Rust and sticking might just be an issue of maintenance. The first thing you should do before you even turn on your grill is to take some spray vegetable oil and spray all of the inside surfaces; the grill, the inside of the lid, the sides and the bottom under the burners. Once you turn on your grill, the oil will burn onto the surfaces protecting them from rust. This is called “curing” your grill. Another good thing that burnt oil does, is it makes your grill surface non-stick over time. The more oil you can burn onto your grilling surface, the less food will stick to it. This practice will eventually turn your grill into a seasoned “classic” instead of a rusty “junker”. So, throw that heavy steel brush away and clean your grill gently with a Brillo pad just to get the big chunks of burnt food off. If you use a steel brush, you’re really just removing that burnt oil and ruining the non-stick property of the grill - not to mention that you’re creating the perfect surface for rust to form. If there is some grease on your grill and it grosses you out, just preheat the grill with your lid closed to 400 or 500 degrees for a few minutes and it will sterilize the surface, making is completely safe to cook on. And remember that your grill must be really hot before you put food on it, otherwise you can bet that it will always stick - burnt oil or not.

Do you start with a perfectly good steak, and end up with a mysterious lump of charred coal? Unless you’re a meat alchemist (an alchemist was a medieval “scientist” that tried to turn metals into gold by using magic, potions and so forth) you could probably benefit from what I’m about to share with you. Stop looking as your grill as a grill, and start looking at it as an outdoor oven. The whole idea of the grill is not to apply fire directly to your meat, but to surround it in heat. When I grill, I only turn on half of the heating elements, leaving the other half of my grill off. I put the meat on the “cold” side of the grill and close the lid. The temperature goes up to 400 or 500 anyways, and since there is no fire directly under my meats, they cook evenly and they don’t burn. And since it’s so hot in there, they still get perfect grill marks. You can also do this with a charcoal grill by moving the hot coals over to one half of the grill, or you can lower the coal so that the fire is not in actual contact with the meat. The idea is to use your grill as an oven, and not an incinerator. Would you cook your meat with a blow torch? I didn’t think so. If your grill doesn’t have a lid, or doesn’t give you a choice of lighting up only half the grill, then you should consider buying a new grill that has these functions. There is no sense keeping a piece of equipment around if it doesn’t do the job.

Use your grill as an oven. As stated above, a grill with a lid is really just an outdoor oven. And if you have the capability of turning off half of your grill, you can use the other half as an oven. I actually bake in my oven during the summer months when it makes no sense to heat up my kitchen (Here in Florida, that’s about 10 months out of the year). I put my baking and roasting foods such as salmon, whole fish, roasting potatoes, marinated turkey breasts, meat loaf, whole chickens, etc, on a non stick baking sheet, as I would for a regular oven, and put them in the “cold” side of the grill. Lid closed, temperature regulated by thermometer on the lid. It becomes a really efficient outdoor oven. And since I never really roast anything under 400 degrees anyways (most Chefs don’t) the grill works perfectly for me. I even bake puff pastry appetizers in the grill and am able to add a nice, smoky flavor to foods by adding some wood chips in there, or using my charcoal grill as an oven. It really beats my indoor oven hands-down for most recipes. If your grill has a stove top, try grilling your meatballs while preparing a fresh tomato sauce on the stove. I guarantee you won’t go back in your kitchen for a while!

I always enjoy reading emails from my readers. Have you prepared something interesting on your grill? Do you have tips of your own to share? Please email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com. You can also visit our website at www.tampabaychef.com. Grill on!

Cheap Meat Cookery "101"

2011-06-28T18:41:00.002-04:00

Cheap Meat Cookery "101"
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Cheap grocery store meat. Before you even asked, "What is this?" You had it in your cart, slammed it on the belt, and paraded it across your living room and into the kitchen like a proud hunter - a bargain hunter. But now you're like, "What is this and how the heck do I cook it?"

There are two reasons why meat would be cheap. One, it's about to expire (or has expired already). Or two, it's usually a less popular and tough cut of meat requiring more skill and longer cooking time to prepare. In this article I will give you the "101" on cheap meat cookery so that you can be a proud bargain hunter and a proud cook as well.

Should I buy it? At that price, you’d be stupid not to, right? Wrong. First you must ascertain whether it’s cheap because it’s bad or cheap because it’s less popular. Your nose was put on your face for this purpose. So tear the plastic wrapping and smell the meat. If it smells really sour, bad, or it smells like excrement, put it back. Chicken and pork should be pretty much odorless, and beef should smell like blood - you can expect a slightly metallic smell. Although it's acceptable for beef to have a slight metallic smell, it should not make you do the I-just-smelled-something-really-bad-face. If it “stinks”, it’s bad. Your nose never lies. Now that it’s passed the smell test, we can continue.

Beef, it’s what’s for dinner. The softer and fattier the cut, the more expensive. Reversely, the leaner and tougher the cut, the cheaper it is. You will probably find cuts of beef like bottom round, chuck steak, sirloin tip, brisket and shanks on sale. And while they may not be things you stick on the grill, you can prepare really delicious dishes with a little more time and effort. You can take chuck steak, put it into a pressure cooker or slow cooker and make a flavourful, tender stew. Beef shanks are culinary gold if you prepare them Osso Bucco style - just find the recipe online or email me. And you can tenderize tougher cuts like bottom round, sirloin tip, and brisket with some meat tenderizer (like papain or papaya enzyme) added to your favorite marinade over night. Corn starch and egg whites are used by Chinese chefs to tenderize meats.

Chicken. For dark meat lovers like myself, I’m glad that I can always find cheap chicken leg quarters, drumsticks, and boneless chicken thighs. Dark meat has a slightly higher fat content than breast meat which makes it softer and juicier. For really good grilled chicken legs, you can soak your chicken legs in salted water with lemon juice for 1 hour, then pat dry and dust them with adobo seasoning or all-purpose Spanish seasoning. Turn half of your BBQ grill on high and leave the other half off. Put the chicken pieces over the side that is off, close the lid and wait 45 minutes to an hour for perfectly roasted, crispy chicken. Cook the boneless chicken thighs in BBQ sauce and flake the meat when it’s done. Put this on a potato bread hamburger roll with cheese and coleslaw and you have an award winning, Southern style, chicken sandwich. Remember, chicken breasts are for suckers.

Pork (the other white meat) is probably the lowest priced and most readily available meat around. This is due to the pig's natural ability to convert food into meat more efficiently and faster than any other livestock animal. You can always find whole pork shoulders, Boston butt roasts and hams on sale. If done right, a nice pork shoulder or butt roast is sublime. You can stab the pork with a knife, twist, and then fill the hole with garlic, herbs and spices. Do this throughout the whole piece. Try different combinations of spices. Rub the outside of the pork with plenty of all purpose seasoning, oil and herbs and marinate in the fridge over night. Roast it at 325-350 over a few hours and you should end up with a delicious pork roast that will make you wonder why you ever spent all that money roasting expensive beef. The trick to perfecting your pork is to experiment with lots of herbs and spices.

Game meats, like wild duck, elk, buffalo, boar, venison, and other game are not usually under the category of "cheap meats". But it's worth a mention that you may find it on sale at your local market depending on where you live. Here in Florida I'm actually able to find buffalo meat on sale quite often. And if you live in the Northwest, you should have no problems finding game like elk, venison, and caribou. Wherever you find them, game meats, in general, tend to be tougher than conventional livestock like pigs, chickens and cows, for the simple reason that livestock animals are tenderized through their feed, breeding and lack of physical activity. Wild animals, because of their naturally active lifestyles, tend to build tougher muscle and have less fat. However, this should not deter you from buying it and cooking it. With the right techniques, a tough buffalo steak, or a wild duck breast can melt in your mouth! Slow cooking methods such as braising, simmering and low heat charcoal grilling are excellent ways to prepare game meats. I plan to write a more dedicated article for game meats in my blog.

Now take this article and tear through your neighborhood market with a big grin, for you are the great white bargain hunter, and cheap meat is your game.

Save the Whales, Kill the Veggies - A substitution guide for vegetarians

2011-06-27T12:56:00.001-04:00

Save the Whales, Kill the Veggies - A substitution guide for vegetarians
By: Chef Cristian Feher

You had a sudden epiphany and realized that your true calling in life is to save the animals and be one with the Earth. You’re sort of a born again vegan-Jesus, walking the countryside to spread the good word of peace, love and kindness to animals. Or maybe you’re in college, everyone else is doing it, and it would match your new leather sandals and woolly socks. Whatever your reason, you’ve decided to go vegetarian and here are some substitutions that you can make to vanquish animal products from your diet.

Butter. For many new vegetarians, this one might be a hard one to do without. But do not fear, for there are perfectly suitable replacements for butter in the market nowadays. Kelapo virgin coconut oil is a great substitution for butter. You can fry with it, spread it on toast, use it to bake cookies and pastries and incorporate it into any recipe that would call for butter. It even imparts a really nice coco-nutty aroma to whatever you’re cooking.

Mayonnaise. If you plan on eating sandwiches or wraps, you’re really going to miss mayonnaise since it’s made with eggs. But the good people at Follow Your Heart have come up with and excellent substitute which is dairy and egg free and also tastes great! You can use it on your sandwiches, wraps and salads as a base for many dressings such as veggie-ranch and veggie-Caesar. This product is called vegenaise and is made by several different companies.

Bacon. Sorry, there is no good substitute. But when you’re ready to come back to the dark side, I have some really good recipes for you.

Burgers, Meats and Sausage. There are many tofu and soy-based meat substitutes out there and a many of them are actually quite good. Morningstar Farms makes a great portobello mushroom veggie burger that will stand up for itself after being pushed into a high school locker by a gang of Angus beef burgers. They also have a great ground “meat” substitute that makes excellent tacos and chili.

These substitutions should get you started on your path to veggie enlightenment. May the wind carry you forward and the sun shine brightly on your face. And remember, vegetables can’t be trusted. Eat them before they eat you!

How to make french crepes recipe video

2011-06-19T15:28:00.001-04:00

Basic Crepe Recipe
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Crepes are very versatile and stylish. You can cook them ahead, or you can prepare them fresh in front of your guests. You can even freeze them. You can serve them with sweet or savory fillings. They can be a breakfast, brunch, or even a dinner item. Whichever way you like them, this is the easiest way to make them. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

This recipe yields aprox 15 crepes.

Ingredients:
- 4 whole eggs
- 1.5 cups of milk
- 1 cup of water
- 2 cups of flour
- 1/4 cup of melted butter
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla concentrate

Instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until the mixture has no lumps and is very smooth. This shouldn't take much longer than a minute.

2. Pour the batter into a pitcher or empty plastic bottle and store in the fridge for at least 1 hour. This step is important because you want the air bubbles to rise to the top of the mixture. If there are too many bubbles in the batter, your crepes will split and break while you're trying to flip them in the pan.

3. Heat a non-stick skillet on medium high heat. When it's hot enough to evaporate drops of water quickly, pour in a little bit of batter (about 2 to 4 oz depending on the size of crepe you want) and swirl around once to spread the batter. Cook for for about 30 seconds and flip. Cook for another 10 seconds and remove the crepe onto a plate.

NOTE: You can store crepes by stacking them, putting them in a freezer bag or sealable container and storing them in the fridge. They will hold up in the fridge for a few days and in the freezer for a couple of weeks.

Pillsbury crescent roll recipes - The top 5 crescent roll recipes in America

2011-06-13T01:31:00.002-04:00

Pillsbury crescent roll recipes - the top 5 crescent roll recipes in America
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

American convenience is the new French cuisine. Well, not really, but it's still pretty darn tasty. Here are America's top five crescent roll recipes (according to me, America). Get your oven ready 'cause you're not gonna want to miss this.

Greek Spinach Crescent Rolls:
Ever hear of "Spanakopita"? It's the Greek word for spinach pies, and it's OK if you can't pronounce it because I'm going to show you how to make spanakopita with Pillsbury crescent rolls. Sautee a diced onion and two cloves of minced garlic in a pan with a little olive oil until the onions are translucent (about 12 minutes). Then add a bag of fresh baby spinach leaves and wilt them. This will only take about five minute. Set aside and let it cool. Once the spinach mixture is cool enough to handle, wring out the water with your hands and put them into a new bowl. Fill each crescent triangle half full with some spinach mixture and a sprinkle of crumbled feta cheese, then fold the other half of the triangle over and pinch the sides shut. Bake in oven until the rolls are puffy and golden brown.

Smoked Turkey, Boursin Cheese and Cranberry Crescent Rolls:
This one is a family holiday favorite way to enjoy your crescent rolls. Simply fill half of your crescent triangle with smoked turkey, a spoonful of Boursin cheese and a dollop (yes, a dollop) of cranberry sauce. Bake until the pastry is golden brown and enjoy these sweet and savory morels.

Terriyaki Tempura Shrimp Crescent Rolls:
Feeling a little fusion? I know I am. These are a great conversation piece at dinner parties. Simply purchase some ready made tempura shrimp in the frozen seafood section of your local grocery store. Roll a piece of tempura shrimp into a crescent roll, bake and drizzle with terriyaki glaze (found in the Asian food isle) and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Drizzle with Srirachia hot chili sauce or spicy chili mayo (4 parts mayo to 1 part chili paste) for a Japo-American taste sensation.

Breakfast Crescent Rolls:
Layer the following from bottom to top and bake to golden perfection: A crescent roll triangle laid flat, thick cut smoked ham, scrambled eggs, chopped scallions (or chives), a slice of Muenster cheese and another crescent roll triangle. Not a morning person? You will be after you try these.

Argentinian Empanada Crescent Rolls:
If you've ever had the pleasure of having an Argentinian beef empanada, then you know why these are at the top of the list. And if you've never had one, put on your Gaucho hat and get ready to explore the best of South American cooking. Cook the following in a non-stick skillet: 1/2 cup of shortening, 2 onions chopped, 1 Lb lean ground beef, 2 tbsp of Paprika, 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tbsp of white vinegar, 1/4 cup raisins, 1/2 cup of pitted green olives chopped, 2 hard boiled eggs chopped, salt and pepper to taste. If you can keep from eating this mixture out of the pan, cool it down to room temp and stuff your crescent triangle half full of the mixture, fold over empty half and pinch sides to trap the filling inside the "empanada". Bake, taste, conquer.

If you need more recipes for crescent rolls please email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com. Please visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/tampa.personal.chef

Leftover ham recipes - 5 easy ways to cook leftover ham

2011-06-13T00:44:00.002-04:00

Leftover ham recipes - 5 easy ways to cook leftover ham
By: Chef Cristian Feher
Tampa Bay Personal Chef Services

You sauntered through the refrigerated meat section and came across a deal that was too good to pass up, which is usually the way most people acquire a 10lb ham. Or maybe you have leftover holiday ham from a family get together. The point is that you would never waste such tasty, succulent meat. But you still have 8Lbs left and can't even fit anything else into your cluttered fridge. That's why I'm going to give you five ways to rescue that ham and give it new life.

Ham and Split Pea Soup:
One of my favorite soups. It's as good as it is easy to prepare. Soup pot. 1 pound of diced ham. 1 diced onion. 1 pound dried split peas. Cover with chicken stock or water just enough to cover the ingredients. Cook until the split peas disapear and you end up with a nice green liquid, you may need to add water if too much has evaporated (if you only see dry split peas and ham). Season with salt and pepper. Take the soup off the heat and let stand until it cools down a bit, it will thicken during the cool down.

Deviled Ham:
I must confess that Underwood canned deviled ham is one of my secret passions. But this recipe is almost as good. You will need a food processor. Add enough diced ham to fill up about 3/4 of your food processor (about 1 lb on my food processor). Add 1/2 cup of mayo, 1/4 cup Dijon mustard, 1/2 chopped onion, 2 Tbsp of hot sauce or more if you like it spicy (you can also add a pinch of cayenne pepper), 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce, 2 teaspoons of smoked paprika, salt and pepper to taste. Combine all ingredients in the food processor and blend until smooth. This mixture will make amazing sandwiches, but I prefer to cook spaghetti pasta, drain it, and mix it with a cup or two of deviled ham and heat it together in a skillet with a little olive oil, fresh Parmesan cheese and fresh chopped basil leaves. Pure heaven.

Glory, glory, ham united sandwich:
I made this sandwich while watching soccer at a friend's house and it still remains his favorite sandwich to date. Get some fresh, crusty Italian of French bread and layer the following from bottom to top: A tonne of sliced ham, mayo mixed with crushed garlic and parsley, thick slices of fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese, sliced ripe tomatoes, roasted peppers, salt, pepper, olive oil, and basil leaves. You can eat it cold, or roast it in the oven open faced until the mozzarella gets warm. One bite and you'll be making inappropriate humming sounds.

Penne Alfredo w/ Ham and Peas:
A great pasta dish if you don't mind the calories, fat and carbs. But it's all about the taste, right? The Alfredo, or more accurately - cream sauce, is made by frying up a diced onion with three bay leaves, salt and some pepper until the onion becomes translucent. I like to add fresh tarragon to my cream sauce. Add 2 to 3 cups of heavy cream and bring it to a simmer. Once it simmers you will thicken it with a roux - a roux is a flour mixed with vegetable oil so that it becomes the consistency of tooth paste. Take a whisk and whisk in a little roux at a time into the cream sauce. Once it has thickened enough, cook out the sauce at low heat for 10 more minutes. Adjust the salt and pepper, set aside. Cook you pasta, chop your ham and get your peas ready. In a non-stick skillet heat up the ham and peas until hot, then add the cooked pasta of choice and cream sauce. Toss, heat, mix, serve, enjoy, then go for a 5k run to burn it off.

Breakfast Pizza:
If you looked at this title and said, "Ewww.." you probably hate laughter, happiness and money. Stop reading this and go for a walk in traffic. The rest of you are in for a treat. Get some store-bought pizza dough, roll it and flatten it into the shape of a pizza. Sprinkle it with plenty of chopped ham, cover with a lot of soggy scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon and shredded cheese of choice. Bake until the crust is cooked and enjoy by dipping in ranch dressing or BBQ sauce. Good morning, indeed.

If you need more recipes for leftover ham please email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com. Please visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/tampa.personal.chef

Leftover chicken recipes | 5 easy ways to cook leftover chicken

2011-06-13T00:20:00.002-04:00

Leftover chicken recipes - 5 easy ways to cook leftover chicken
By: Chef Cristian Feher
Tampa Bay Personal Chef Services

If you're like many people, you just can't help but pass the rotisserie chicken section at your local supermarket without sticking one of those juicy, crispy, perfectly machine-roasted birds in your cart. But after a couple of days it just sits in your fridge with parts missing, looking kind of like an avian amputee. Do you throw it out? No need to waste your money. Here are five easy and delicious recipes for leftover chicken.

Chicken Vegetable Soup:
This recipe works well for those of you who collect odds and ends in your kitchen pantry. Soup is an excellent way to use leftover foods and stuff you want to get rid of. Start by chopping up celery, onions, carrots, and any other green vegetable you may have laying around (asparagus, zucchini, watercress, etc). Do not use broccoli or cauliflower, as these will impart a sulfur taste to your soup that most people will find unpleasant. I always keep a jar of organic chicken bullion on my fridge, but you can also use powdered chicken bullion or packaged chicken stock, and worst case scenario, just use water and salt. Fry your veggies with a little olive oil until the onion becomes translucent. Add a couple of minced garlic cloves, and the chicken. You can put in the whole chicken, cut it in parts, or you can take the meat off by hand and just add the meat. Fill with water until it just covers the chicken and veggies. If you're adding rice, pasta or barley, make sure you add more water to compensate. Mix some chicken bullion in the water until it tastes like a nice flavorful chicken stock. Bring to a boil, turn the heat down and simmer for 1 hour uncovered. If the pasta, rice or barley absorbed too much water, add more water and adjust the chicken stock if the taste is too bland. Season to taste with salt and pepper if necessary and enjoy!

Chicken Salad:
This is probably the fastest thing you can do with leftover chicken. Quickly take the meat off the bones with your (clean) hands and put the meat into a bowl. Add some chopped celery and chopped scallions, fresh ground pepper, salt, a little Dijon mustard and mayo. Stir and you're done! This can be eaten in a sandwich of on the side of a salad, or even by itself (for you low carb dieters). Another variation of this salad takes the addition of a teaspoon of curry powder for an aromatic taste. You can also add diced apples and grapes for a sweeter contrast.

Chicken Club Wrap w/ Tzatziki Yogurt Sauce:
If you like Greek food and bacon, this recipe will blow you away! You can use pre-cooked bacon, but I prefer the real deal and find that organic apple wood smoked bacon (uncured) tastes the best. But you can use your favorite bacon. The best way to cook bacon to perfection is on a non-stick cookie sheet (baking sheet) in the oven at 400 until the bacon browns. Take it out, let it cool, sop up the grease with paper towel and you have perfect sandwich bacon. Now for the tzatziki sauce. It's best to use a food processor for this, but you can do it by hand. Mince 2 garlic cloves, and 1/2 of a peeled cucumber in a food processor. Add this mixture to a cup of plain Greek yogurt (or regular yogurt) and season with a little olive oil, spritz of lemon juice, fresh cracked black pepper and plenty of salt. Mix well. On the wrap you will put a good amount of shredded chicken meat, tomato slices, lettuce, bacon and tzatziki sauce. Roll it up and get ready, 'cause it's gonna be good!

Chicken Quesadilllas:
Again, this is a very easy recipe. You will need chicken meat, tomato salsa, and shredded cheese (like cheddar, monterrey, queso blanco, gouda or even mozza would work). Lay a flour or corn tortilla flat, fill half of it with the chicken, salsa and cheese and fold the empty half over onto the food. This way you can flip it easier on the pan (versus having one tortilla flat on top of another). Cook on a non-stick skillet at med-low heat making sure not to burn the bottom of the tortilla. Wait until the cheese starts to melt and then careful (and quickly) flip the quesadilla over so the other side can crisp up too. Once the inside is hot and melted, I like to serve it with fresh guacamole and sour cream. But it will be good enough on it's own if you're looking for a quick meal and don't have a lot of time.

Chicken Coconut Curry:
This will require a can of coconut milk, chicken bullion powder or paste (not stock), chickpeas and a potato in addition to the chicken meat. These are the items you should prep: shredded chicken meat, 1 peeled and diced potato, 1 diced onion, 3 garlic cloves minced, 1 tbsp of minced ginger (optional), 1 can of chickpeas drained. Cook the onion with a little vegetable oil. When they become translucent, add the chicken, garlic, ginger, potato, chickpeas, 1 tbsp of yellow curry powder and give it a good stir. Once the curry powder is mixed in there, cook the mixture for a 5 minutes on med-high heat. Add the coconut milk and a bit of chicken bullion to taste. Bring to a simmer and cook at med-low until the potato is cooked. Stir often. I like to serve this on steamed white or basmati rice. But it can be eaten on its own if you're in a hurry.

If you need more recipes for leftover chicken please email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com. Please visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/tampa.personal.chef

The Skinny on Fats - Information Everyone Should Know About Fats, Weight Loss and Nutrition

2011-06-01T00:19:00.001-04:00

The Skinny on Fats - Information Everyone Should Know About Fats, Weight Loss and Nutrition

By: Chef Cristian Feher

It seems that most Americans only know one thing about fat - that they’re getting fat. I think that if most people knew a little more about it, maybe they could do something about it too. After all, information is power. And I’m about to fatten you up on information. This is my crash course on fat, what it is, how it affects you and what you can do about it.

I see some of you yawning. Don’t worry. I’m going to use plain English here. And I’ll cut to the chase wherever I can.

What is it? Fat is basically oil. It comes from plants and it comes from animals. Some oil is liquid at room temperature and some oil is solid at room temperature. For example, olive oil in your kitchen is liquid and butter is solid. The main purpose for oil in the animal kingdom and in humans is fuel. Oil is a fuel. Your body runs on it just like a car runs on it. There is not much difference between gasoline at the gas station and a jug of olive oil. They are both considered to be hydrocarbons (liquid carbon - liquid fuel).

Fat as fuel. The human body can burn three different kinds of fuels. But it likes some more than others. It’s fuel of choice is sugar (carbohydrates; bread, pasta, potato, corn, candy, etc). If your body runs out of sugar to burn for fuel, it will then start to burn your fat as fuel. And if your body runs out of sugar and fat, you’re in bad shape buddy! It will start to break down your muscles (protein) and use that for fuel as a last ditch attempt to stay alive.

Is one better than the other? That is a very broad question. But since I asked it, I might as well answer it. Nobody to date has done a complete study as to the ideal and perfect diet for a human being. Probably because humans from different parts of the planet have become used to living off different types of foods. The late Adelle Davis has come close, and I would recommend her books over anyone elses. However, it is quite clear by just looking around at most people that we fall into two main categories. Some people don’t handle sugar (carbohydrates) very well, and other people don’t handle fat very well. They get fat, overweight and unhealthy.

It’s my opinion that sugar burns you out. Much like race car fuel would burn your engine out in your car. But since this article is about fat, I will leave out a lot about sugars. All I will say is that unless you’re an athlete, or a person that can handle carbohydrates, you should not eat too much of it. However, you do need some of it. But that’s for another article.

Fat is a much better fuel for most people, since it burns slower, and is not as harmful to your body as sugar is. Your body needs fat, and you would probably find yourself in better shape and better health if you burnt more fat than sugar.

How come all these people talk smack about fat? There are two very important things that you should know about fat. The first is that when we’re talking about calories (a calorie is how much energy a food gives you) one cup of fat will have a lot more calories than one cup of sugar. So if fat is making you fat, you’re probably just eating too much of it and not realizing it. If you were lost in a desert and were a few day’s walk from home, you would get a lot further on a piece of fat than you would on a candy bar. To give you an example: One cup of olive oil is 1910 calories, and one cup of pure sugar is only 774. The oil will provide you with more than double the energy and it will not burn you out. So you should realize this and eat fat, just less of it.

The other important factor in fat, is whether it’s solid or liquid at room temperature. Actually, the better test would be if it’s solid or liquid at body temperature - does it melt on your tongue? If you’re eating solid fat, it’s harder for your body to digest. And some of that solid fat may even end up clinging to your arteries or stored away as fat since your body can’t easily break it down. Probably one of the worst things you can do is eat solid fat with sugar at the same time. Your body will use the sugar and ignore the fat, storing it away “for later”. Sugar also neutralizes your stomach acid, so your stomach is not able to break your food down as it should. Fat does not affect your stomach acid.

Are some fats better than others? As mentioned before, you shouldn’t eat fats that stay solid when you put them on your tongue. These will most likely turn into body fat and won’t be used as fuel. And if you’re mixing that fat with sugar or carbohydrates you can be sure that it will turn into fat. So the better fats would be liquid fats, which would mostly come from vegetables such as olive oil, peanut oil, safflower oil, etc. Animal fat tends to be solid, although extremely tasty! And hydrogenated fats (like margarine and vegetable shortening) are made in a lab, and are garbage. Your body gets clogged up with them. I don’t eat them at all.

The bottom line. Refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup are not foods which are natural to Man. Whether you get fat or skinny from them, they make people unhealthy and you shouldn't’t eat them. You either have a body type that is built for carbohydrates (seeds, grains, potatoes, corn, rice), or you have a body type that is built for fat. I will write an article on the differences in the near future. So the ideal scene to maintain a healthy body and healthy weight is to only eat the amount of fuel that you can burn. If you’re a fat eater, eat liquid fats, but eat only as much as you will need. If you’re a carbohydrate eater, eat less carbohydrates and don’t combine them with fat. But you should pay attention and see which fuel your body prefers. It is my observation that most Americans would do best on a diet that has healthy fat, lean protein and no sugar.

I hope that this information has given you the know-how needed to feed your body the right way. If you have any questions you can always email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com.

Multipurpose Foods

2011-05-31T14:17:00.004-04:00

Multipurpose Foods

By: Chef Cristian Feher

The Swiss army knife was invented in 1897, and since has become known worldwide as a symbol of multiple use and application. The manufacturers have touted that, “you can do anything with a Swiss army knife!” You can cut. You can eat. You can saw. You can magnify. You can tweeze, and you can unscrew. The only thing you can't do, is eat it. That's where multipurpose food comes in to play. This article offers a quick list of foods, although not Swiss in origin, that you can use for various tasks. And you can eat them too.

Apple Cider Vinegar – This strong vinegar makes excellent salad vinaigrette and is a necessary ingredient found in many grilling and bbq sauces. But once you put it in a spray bottle it becomes a weed killer, ant deterrent, glass cleaner and chrome polish. You can also add it to your pet's drinking water to discourage fleas. And if you think that isn't enough, you can also neutralize jelly fish and bee stings with it. Yes, you can be a hero, and ACV can help.

Virgin Coconut Oil – Is used today by millions of people around the world. It's an excellent substitute for butter and lends itself well for all-around healthy cooking. Since it's solid at room temperature you can also bake with it in recipes where you would normally use hydrogenated vegetable oils and animal lard. However, coconut oil is not just for healthy cooking, it is also used as skin moisturizer and can prevent protein loss in hair. If you have some time on your hands (and a chemical engineering degree) you can also make biodiesel with it and run your hippie van across the country. It has even come in handy to loosen up the different parts of my daughter's wooden babooshka doll. I always keep a jar of Kelapo virgin coconut oil in my pantry.

Coca-Cola – There has never been a more iconic drink. From modern American cities to the most remote reaches of the African jungle, Coca-Cola is known as that dark, refreshing, effervescing drink invented by American pharmacist John Pemberton in the late 19^th century. Aside from being a refreshing, sugary drink, it also has many other uses. Hollywood mops movie set floors with Coca-Cola before a fight scene to make sure the actors don't slip. You can clean burnt pans by boiling some Coca-Cola in them. You can soak gum in it to get it out of your kid's hair. And the United Satates Navy uses it to clean marine film from the hull of their submarines.

This should give you some useful ideas of products to have around your kitchen. Because you never know when your skin will need moisturizing, or when your submarine will need cleaning. Do you have your own multipurpose foods? If so, please email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com.

The end of the world food guide

2011-05-24T00:23:00.002-04:00

The Post-Apocalyptic Eating Guide
By: Chef Cristian Feher

You wake up to a serene silence. A breeze sneaks in and rustles your hair. The air is cool. Your eyes are still closed. There is something missing. Did you forget something? Are you late? You're still too foggy. The ceiling comes slowly into focus. You look to your left. The alarm clock is blank. We must have lost power last night. You reconnect with your pillow, sinking into it, slowly losing consciousness. The sensation of falling. You're jolted up from the blackness with a searching thought. It can't be that late, the sun has not yet fully risen. You feel the warmth of the sheets and stretch your legs. Something is different today. There are no birds chirping. Your cat is not asking for food. There is no traffic. No dogs barking. You look to the ceiling once more and take a deep breath. You say to yourself, “Today is going to be a good day.”

The bathroom lights don't work. Power must still be out. That sucks. Your breath stinks. Gotta brush your teeth. The water is still running. The tube of toothpaste has been empty for days, but you still manage to squeeze out enough to brush with. You rinse and put it back on the shelf. You will squeeze it again tomorrow. The sun pokes a ray into the living room. You yawn on the way to the window. A good head scratch. You notice how much hair you have. It feels good. The street is empty both ways. Where are all the neighbors? Well, it's Sunday. It's Sunday. What did you forget? The mail. You didn't get the mail on Saturday or Friday. You hope no one sees your hair. You dig your slippers out from under the coffee table. Your toe dexterity is excellent.

A cool breeze. You skitter across the lawn. The dew from the grass is wetting your toes. Will they see your ridiculous bed head? Better hurry. Open the mail box. Bills, bills, junk, bills. Where is everyone? You begin to walk back to the front door but you stop. Standing still. No birds. No dogs barking. No neighbors. No electricity. No sounds of traffic. You're alone.

It's May 22nd, 2011 and your mom was right. You are special. And you're the last goddamn human on Earth. Now, what to eat? (cue Metallica [For Whom The Bell Tolls] and roll the title credits). This is my post-apocalyptic eating guide.

An amateur might waste time crying and clutching onto photos of loved ones. But not you, you're special. The clock is ticking and there hasn't been electricity for close to 12 hours now. You are very much aware of the “ice window”. The ice window is the precious few hours left until things in grocery store freezers start to melt. Another guy might start collecting cans. But you know those will be around for the next 100 years. Ice cream. You may never again enjoy ice cream. Must get to the ice cream.

You run to your car. It starts. It starts! You pull half way out of your driveway and stop. No time for BS. Ice cream is melting. But Steve down the street has a Dodge Viper. You have a Honda Civic. A moment of hesitation. The choice is clear. You run down the street in your slippers and bed head. You kick open Steve's door. No one is home. Just as you expected. Swipe the keys. You are now rolling past your house in Steve's Viper. Bad ass.

You double park across two handicapped spots and run to the grocery store. You wonder why you just locked the door and beeped the alarm. Focus. Ice cream. The doors are closed. You may never get ice cream again. You look around. The streets are empty. There is only one car in the parking lot. Steve's Viper.

Steve's Viper smashes through the front doors of the grocery store. You hear the peculiar sound of a sports car crumpling up against a cash register. One of those new, yet insignificant experiences that you can't help but mark off in your mental list of things that make you go “hm..” You run into the darkness of the grocery store. Isle 7. Flashlight. Batteries. What was that? Did you hear something? Heart racing. Ok, get yourself together. The ice cream is melting. You make it to the freezers. So many flavors. So many choices.

After two hours you are sick of eating ice cream and can go an eternity without it. Over the next week you live in the grocery store. You enjoy frozen waffles, rib eye steaks, ribs, baked potatoes, lobster, salmon, tiger shrimp skewers and dijon crusted lamb chops with the charcoal grill you've set up conveniently in isle 8. By the eigth day you start wondering if you've made too much smoke in the store. You also wonder why you haven't gone home, and why you've slept on a beach recliner on top of the dog food shelf. Are you afraid of something? No. You're alone. There is no one else.

All the fresh food has started to spoil. You estimate that there is roughly 10,000 cans of food in the store. If you ate three cans per day.. Yes, you're fine. This store alone can feed you for nine years.

You are ready to go back home, but you stop at the front doors. A thud. You heard a thud. Out on the street you heard a thud. Did you? You can't be sure. It's dark out. Too dark. Better wait until morning. But you don't go to sleep. You sit up behind the customer service desk and watch the front doors (and Steve's Viper) until the sun comes up.

You put Steve's Viper in reverse. The radiator rips off and stays on the floor next to the cash register. Your dad was a mechanic. You know it's going to overheat. Who cares. You floor it home. Steve's' Viper is abandoned in the neighbor's yard. Home. It doesn't feel like home. It's a house. You can have any house now. But what's the point? What's the point of life? What happened? Why are you the only one still alive? Ok, shake it off. What to eat?

It's sometime in June now. But you've stopped keeping track. The animals have started coming back. There are birds again. Still no people. You saw squirrels, and there are fish in the ocean. You've been living in Hulk Hogan's house. Driving Hulk Hogan's cars. You're even using Hulk Hogan's bathroom. The water stopped running yesterday. The house has a big gate. The bed is very comfortable. You've planted garlic, peppers, tomatoes, parsley, basil, cilantro, onions and a whole bunch of other stuff in Hulk Hogan's flower beds. You have all your guns with you. There have been sounds at night. Now that the animals have come back, you can't help but wonder what else might come back. But never mind that, you're making ceviche today.

Post Apocalyptic Grouper and Blue Crab Ceviche:

Servings: 4 (so you can eat it four times)

Ingredients:
1 Lb of Florida grouper you caught from Hulk's boat in the gulf.
2 large blue crabs you caught at the beach
1 Green Pepper
1 small Onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 handful of parsley
salt and pepper from Hulk Hogan's pantry
olive oil from Hulk's pantry
the juice of four lemons plucked from the citrus trees on Hulk Hogan's back yard.

Instructions:

1.Throw the crabs in a fire for a few minutes. Cool them off, crack them open and take out the meat. It should be nice and smoky! Put into a bowl.
2.Dice the grouper, onion, and pepper. Mince the garlic parsley. Put all in the bowl.
3.Spray liberally with lemon juice and season with salt and pepper. Wait a few hours for the acidity in the lemon juice to cook the fish. Enjoy by itself or with a bag of Ritz crackers found in Hulk Hogan's living room.

What will happen next? Where will you go? What are those sounds at night? And what will you eat next? Stay tuned for the continuation of my post apocalyptic eating guide and find out. To join my newsletter please email tampabaychef@gmail.com.

All about sushi

2011-04-16T00:50:00.008-04:00

A candid conversation all about sushi
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Sushi is like a good coffee table book.Whether you like sushi or not, it's a topic that gets attention and everyone likes to talk about it. Some people wonder about it, some people love to eat it, and some people like to tell me how much they hate it. But they all like to talk about it. It's been said that people like to talk about what they know best, and what they know best is themselves. I think sushi is an addendum to that rule. I would like to remark upon and share with you some of the interesting sushi conversations and questions that come up during my sushi classes and sushi parties here in Tampa. Think of this article as a casual conversation between you and I, across a coffee table, about a book titled "sushi".

What's your secret ingredient? Aside from doing my best to find the freshest fish, I'm not sure if I want to divulge this secret, but in the spirit of this article I guess I should. Most sushi restaurants when making a "crunchy roll" use little bits of tempura left over from frying tempura shrimp and vegetables. They skim the oil and keep these little bits in a container to put in the rolls. These oily crunchy bits of starch release tasty fat onto your palate as you crunch down on them providing you with that unique quality of oily crispiness. Since I don't often make tempura, I don't have a repository of crunchy tempura bits. So I use something better, fattier and crunchier - pork rinds! Yes, I crumble them in the food processor and add them to my crunchy maki rolls. They add a supreme fatty quality and a crunch that can't be beat. I have recently discovered they ride quite nicely along the top side of a hot dog.

Did you know? Most people have never had real wasabi. That green glop of spicy, nasal-searing paste you get at most sushi restaurants is actually made of horseradish, mustard, and green food coloring. Real wasabi is actually rare and expensive and most sushi restaurants just use the fake stuff. Wasabi's bite does not come from a corrosive chemical that burns your taste buds like most capsicum based hot spices, instead it vaporizes and irritates your nasal cavity and mucus membranes giving you that feeling I can only describe as nasal-clearing-feel-it-in-your-eye-balls-head-rush. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but a hit of wasabi will cure a congested head. Next time you're feeling congested, forget chicken soup, have some miso soup with a tonne of wasabi.

Sushi evolved from a really crude way of preserving fish. Back in China over 1000 years ago, fish was wrapped in fermented rice to preserve it. Anyone who has ever left rice in a rice cooker for a few days has seen the rice develop its own funky vinegar from the bacterial breakdown of the starch. The rice was discarded and the fish was eaten. I hope they washed it first!

The first time I ate sushi was during a wintry night in Toronto twelve years ago. A friend and I decided we would go into a nearly empty sushi restaurant late at night and see what all the buzz was about. Prior to this I had never eaten raw fish, but have always had the philosophy that if someone calls it food, it can't be that bad. I pointed to a half dozen foreign items on the menu and waited by the neon lights as the sushi chef, in clear line of sight, began to prepare our order behind the sushi bar on the far side of the restaurant. I wrapped my hand around a cup of hot tea and watched the snow fall through the glass pane. The cloudy miso soup and green salad with pear ginger dressing was an easy first course. Then came the moment - a plate of raw salmon sashimi slices sat confidently in the middle of the table, leaned gingerly on a pillow of shredded radish, looking back at us from the wooden tablet as if we were impolite by hesitating. We took a sigh, I picked up a piece, dunked it in soy sauce and put it in my mouth. I remember that first foreign taste of raw, oily flesh, then the slow, uncertain chew. I'll be honest. It did not go down easy. And the other three pieces were each harder than the previous one. I did not like it, but I was convinced that there must be some merit to this new, exotic way of eating. So I held it down and explored the rest of the dishes; the spicy tuna maki rolls were buffered nicely with a familiar plate of seared terriyaki beef. It was the first time I had experienced a food so foreign, and although others may have been turned off by the experience, I was drawn to it again, and again. I can say that I acquired a taste for sushi on the fourth attempt. And soon after that it became a passion. So I always tell people that they should give something a chance, and in the case of sushi, more than a few chances may be necessary for it to warm its way into your palate.

What's your signature roll? At the moment my signature roll, which I would dub the "Chef Cristian Gator Roll", consists of terriyaki braised alligator tail, crunchy pork rind bits, avocado and hot chili mayo topped with capelin roe and chives. It's not only delicious, but it offers my guests something they might never have tried before, and when you're working with sushi you have to go a step above if you're trying to make it even more exotic.

What's the hardest part about making sushi? Sushi is a very creative and artistic type of food. I love how you can play with it and come up with all sorts of combinations. But there is actually a very technical aspect of it, and it's not the rolling. The hardest part about sushi is making sure that you follow the proper procedures for making the rice. This includes sourcing the right rice (it has to be sushi rice), washing the rice five to six times to get the excess starch from it, knowing the exact ratio of rice to water (1:1.1), and knowing how to cool it and flavor it in the end. Once you've mastered the technicality of making the rice, you are free to play and create. Earlier this year I discovered during a sushi class that I had been teaching students the hard way to make maki rolls. I discovered during that class a "half-assed" technique to making the rolls which yielded beautiful maki sushi. Ever since then I have been using this "half-assed" technique with great success. I only call it "half-assed" because it was easy, effortless and required a very small learning curve as compared to the traditional way or rolling.

Some people tend to think that they are bad sushi makers because they don't get it on the first try. I always tell them the story about my best class of students - I did a sushi party a while back for a Jewish synagogue (a Jewish church group), and the people that picked up sushi rolling the fastest with optimum results were actually all the little kids! They ranged between 6 and 10 years old and they were sushi rolling rock stars! They were making restaurant quality rolls within the first twenty minutes of the class. I realize that this story doesn't make the adults feel any better, but I like to tell it anyways. Kids are amazing little people.

Is there a polite way to eat sushi? In Japan, most definitely. In America, seeing as it's socially acceptable to walk around the street with a roasted turkey leg and BBQ sauce running down your arm, it's not expected of you. But I will still give you a crash course on the essentials of sushi manners in case you want to be a little more civilized. Here's what you do: Say hello and bow when you get there. If you want to sit at the sushi bar you're allowed to talk to the sushi chef and ask questions, but be polite. You can order sushi from the sushi chef, drinks and other non-sushi items are ordered from your server, not the chef. If you are seated at a table, do not talk to the sushi chef, talk to the server only. Never ask if the fish is fresh, that's an insult. Assume it is and hope for the best. It's not polite to make the "gross face" or put something back on your plate if you think it's gross. So power it down if you have to. Don't rub your chop sticks together like you're trying to start a fire, that's impolite. Don't mix your soy sauce and wasabi together. What? I know, I do that all the time. If you pick up food from another person's plate use the other side of your chopsticks (the side that doesn't go in your mouth). You're allowed to pick up your soup bowl and slurp your soup and noodles prisoner-of-war style. Yeah, that's acceptable, go figure. Never serve yourself alcohol, you have to serve it for others at your table, and they have to serve you. If at a business meeting, you serve your senior and he serves his senior and so on. When you toast and raise your glasses, don't say "Chin-Chin" as in Japanese this means "penis" and it'll be awkward... This should get you through a night of fine dining Japanese style.

All this talk about sushi is making me hungry. Thanks for reading and I look forward to rolling with you. My classes are available to groups, couples and individuals. For more information please visit www.tampabaychef.com. You can also visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/tampa.personal.chef

The Ideal Kitchen: How to equip your kitchen

2011-03-06T00:26:00.002-05:00

The Ideal Kitchen: How to equip your kitchen
By: Chef Cristian Feher

One of the questions I get asked most often is, “What is my kitchen missing?”. As a personal chef I’ve cooked in over 400 different kitchens, both in the US and Canada. And I didn’t realize until recently that I’ve been sitting on a very interesting pile of data. So I have compiled this article, using what I have observed from all the kitchens, to come up with a guide that will show you how to equip your kitchen for optimal use. In writing this article I have focused on equipment, time and functionality. You can use this as your benchmark to measure how your own kitchen stacks up.

Equipment:

Knives - The chef’s knife is the piece of equipment that would get the most use in a kitchen, as a chef does 80% of his cutting with a chef’s knife. It’s best to buy your knives individually, as I’ve never seen a set of knives that I would be completely happy with. So choosing each knife individually would furnish you with a set that would be as functional as it would be comfortable. Much could be written about how to choose a knife. The length of a chef’s knife is proportional to the height of the chef. A shorter chef might use a 6 inch chef’s knife and a really tall chef might use a 12 inch knife. Most people feel comfortable with an 8 to 10 inch chef knife. A chef’s knife is never serrated. The minimalist knife set should include an 8 inch chef’s knife, a serrated bread knife, a small parring knife, a carving knife and a 6 inch serrated utility (or vegetable) knife. A steel (more accurately called a rectifier, as it does not sharpen a knife, it just keeps the edge straight after you’ve sharpened them) should be handy, and you should buy a small electric knife sharpener to keep them sharp. How often do you sharpen them? As often as is required to keep them sharp. You don’t let your knives get dull. Your knives are best kept on the counter wall stuck to a magnetic strip, but look best kept in a nice wooden knife block.

Cutting Boards - The person that invented glass cutting boards should be lined up and shot - better yet, they should be sentenced to cutting 1000 onions on a glass cutting board with a dull knife. They are noisy, they are slippery, and they dull your knives faster than anything else I know of. The same can be said about stone cutting boards. Please do yourself (and your personal chef) a favor and dispose of them quickly. Having gotten that off my chest - You should have a large wooden cutting board to do most of your chopping on, and a few different sized plastic boards to cut meats on. You want to keep juicy meats off wooden boards as they can soak up some blood and bacteria and be harder to sanitize than plastic boards. Wood and plastic are knife-friendly. Your knife doesn’t slip while you’re cutting and the blade does not dull. Keep a rubber mat, or a wet paper towel under your cutting board so that it won’t move around on the counter. You should have at least three boards - A big wooden one for most of your chopping, a medium plastic one for meats and fish, and a small plastic one so that more than one person can cook in your kitchen at the same time.

Preparation Bowls - I can always tell a person who doesn’t cook by the lack of prep bowls in their kitchen. These are probably one of the most needed items. You should have a large assortment of them ranging from 3 inch to 20 inch bowls. Metal and plastic are far easier to use than ceramic and glass, as they are lighter and will not break if you drop them. Rubber bottoms help the bowls keep in place on your counter when stirring, kneading, or mixing the contents in the bowls. The minimalist cook should go to the nearest dollar store and spend $20 on assorted plastic prep bowls.

Kitchen Towels - Yes, they’re important. You can use them to dry your hands, wipe the counter top, wipe your knives, clean the kitchen, quickly soak up a spill and you can even fold them and use them as oven mitts to handle a hot pot or baking sheet. You should have a drawer full of them. Get an absorbent cloth like cotton. Polyester and fleece tend to repel liquids rather than soak them up and the fleece towels tend to leave a trail of fibers behind. The same guy who invented glass cutting boards must have come up with these too. Avoid piling up oily rags together as they have a tendency to suddenly burst into flames - I’m serious. I’m not sure what the science behind it is, but I've seen it happen first hand.

Strainers - You should have a large and small strainer on hand. And if you can avoid mesh strainers you will save yourself some headaches when it comes to cleaning them. A simple perforated plastic or metal strainer is just fine. It’s actually more hygienic. The small one should have a long handle and the big one should stand on a base so that the food is elevated from the bottom of the sink.

Spoons Etc - The following is a list of tools that should be kept in a drawer(s), or in a counter top bucket of some sort: Wooden spoons, a rigid spatula, a soft spatula, a silicone mixing spoon, a soup ladle, 2 serving spoons, a whisk, a potato masher, short and long tongues, and bamboo skewers (I always seem to find uses for them). The plastics should be rigid (not flimsy) and the silicone spoons should be heat resistant. Metal spoons are also good unless you’re using cooking pots with non-stick coatings that can get scratched easily.

Pots and Pans - Much could be written about pots and pans, but you should have two large soup pots, a stock pot, a wok-type pan, sauce pans, non stick pans. I don’t see the point in having tiny pots. Go for big pots, you might have company over one day. The heavier the pots, the better. Look for pots with metal plates stamped on the bottom. These plates will distribute the heat more evenly and keep your food from burning to the bottom of the pot. Stainless steel is generally better than aluminum. But thick aluminum is not bad, as long as it has a metal plate stamped on the bottom. Handles should be metal or heat resistant so you can put them in the oven. The lids should also be oven proof. I once incinerated mushroom sauce in a glass pot which made the entire meal for the dinner party taste like cigarette ashes. Don’t buy glass pots unless you want to get into the cremation business. There is no sense keeping flaking or peeling pots around either. Please throw them out and get new ones. You know who you are.

Baking Surfaces - You need at least a couple of baking sheets with walls around the edges. The flat ones work for cookies, but prevent you from cooking anything that might be juicy. Rectangular ones are much more useful than round ones. Non stick doesn’t matter because you should always put a layer of tin foil on your baking sheet for easy clean up. Remember that the non-shiny side of the tin foil is the non-sticky side!

The equipment mentioned above should provide you with the basics you need to prepare really good meals. And you can build up from there.

Appliances:

Stoves and Ranges - The ugliest gas stove is still far superior than any other type of cooking stove you can buy. There is simply no other stove that can provide the heat control and quality that a gas stove can. Induction stoves are at the bottom of my list, as they are simply gimmicky - they offer very little functionality as you can only use them with certain metal pots. So we are left with electric stoves in the middle range. We have the electric coil stoves that most people have and we have the glowing element stoves too. I find the glowing element stoves to be horrible at being able to control temperature and they are hard to clean once you burn a good layer of food onto the glowing plates. If you don’t have gas, you’re better off with an electric coil stove.

Ovens - Conversely, gas ovens generally are bad at temperature control unless you buy yourself a restaurant quality gas oven. Electric ovens are best for homes. I have also found that about half of the people that own convection ovens don’t quite know what convection ovens are. Convection ovens have a little fan inside that circulates the hot air around the food, cooking it faster. Also, two ovens are better than one. So if you can afford it, I would recommend getting a standalone two-oven unit in your kitchen. Warming drawers are useless, and most people have never used theirs as anything other than extra storage for baking sheets and pots. Also, the stoves that come with those little “pizza ovens” next to the regular sized oven are a waste of money in my opinion - I don’t know about you, but if I make a pizza, it’s not just for one person and it goes into the big oven. So I’m not quite sure who had the idea for the little “pizza ovens”.

Counter Top Appliances - No kitchen should be without a food processor, blender, toaster, toaster oven, and rice cooker. A hand blender also comes in handy and stores easily in a drawer or cupboard. Your food processor and blender should have big, heavy, powerful motors. I actually go out of my way to buy vintage appliances from the 80’s because they were built with nice, powerful motors back then (1800 watts). Generally speaking, the heavier the appliance the more powerful the motor is.

The Kitchen Sink - Your kitchen sink may go overlooked, but it’s one of the most important parts of a functional kitchen. The ideal sink is large, has two basins, and is mounted on top or your counter top, not under. I have seen several expensive homes with sinks that eventually fall through down through the counter top because a lazy contractor glued the sink up into the counter, instead of properly setting it on top of the counter. The water spout should be detachable from the faucet, and you should have a powerful garbage disposal mounted under your drain to power away food. I especially like kitchens that have huge sinks made of a hard resin material that have high edges and keep most of the splash in the sink and not all over the kitchen - reminds me of those huge sinks you get in restaurant kitchens. So the lesson of the day for sinks is, the bigger the better!

Microwaves - There is very little to say about microwaves. Everyone knows that they are not that good for you, but we all use them. So you should have one.

Layout:

The layout is probably the most difficult decision that a person can make when planning their kitchen or when renovating. Luckily I have seen enough layouts to tell you that there are basically three types of kitchens; 1)The social kitchen, 2)The functional kitchen and 3) The kitchen nightmare!

The social kitchen is for people that always seem to have friends and family over. And they tend to congregate in and around the kitchen. The social kitchen is all about roominess, looks, and counter space. You want enough room for people to be able to put their drinks and food down on the counter, and stand around chatting, eating, cooking and drinking. The social kitchen often sacrifices functionality for looks. I tend to spend 30 minutes to an hour extra in social kitchens when I cook as compared to functional kitchens. The reason being that I have to spend a lot of time walking from one end of the kitchen to the other to go from garbage, to fridge, to sink, etc. Social kitchens are and should be big!

There are people that have very functional kitchens and don’t know it. I often meet people who apologize for having such small kitchens. They get embarrassed. But I always tell them that their kitchen has the advantage of speed. In a functional kitchen you should be able to stand in the middle and have everything you need (stove, oven, sink, fridge, garbage) just one step away. I can cook much faster and more efficiently in a small kitchen that is well stocked. Everything is right there! I know a Chinese restaurant in Toronto that serves 15 tables from a kitchen that’s 5 foot by 3 foot! It’s all about organization. The only drawback about a functional kitchen is that it’s usually missing the space necessary to host a group of people. But don’t sell your small kitchen short, it can be very functional with the right equipment. And remember that counter space in a functional kitchen of the utmost importance.

A nightmare kitchen to me is a place that is overly large and is missing the necessary equipment to do a good job. It has islands with multi levels and awkward angles, no garbage cans in sight, tiny sinks, and too-low fan hoods or strangely placed cupboards and fixtures that I keep banging my head into. Luckily these are few and far between.

The ideal scene would be a kitchen that is both functional and social, and the many that I have had the pleasure to cook in have been a result of good planning and constant evolution on the part of the owner to build an ideal kitchen that suits their lifestyle. I hope this article will help you find some direction in planning your existing kitchen or starting fresh with a new one.

The food of love. A perfect valentine's day meal.

2011-02-08T10:08:00.003-05:00

The Food of Love. A perfect valentine's day meal.
By: Chef Cristian Feher

What does Valentine's day mean to you? For some, it's a day to justify being single and loathe all those mushy couples holding hands at the park. For others, it's a chance to express their love and appreciation for their partner. But most can agree that – much like a heart-themed-Superbowl - it's about the food.

Since time immemorial people have used food to express themselves and to celebrate joyous occasions. (actually, it happened around the time when Marco Polo came back from Asia with recipes and cooking skills which launched the birth of modern day European cuisine and ended a dark age of burnt meat, and thin stews.) But how do you cook up love?

Even before the days of Marco Polo, primitive cultures had identified the aphrodisiac – any food that could increase, love, libido and fertility. The word aphrodisiac comes from “Aphrodite” the Greek goddess of sexuality and love. The simple practice was to gather and consume any food resembling a phallic symbol or the reproductive organs of virile animals (although almost any food at some point in time has been proclaimed an aphrodisiac by somebody.) It was thought that these foods could impart their aura of love and virility to their consumer. And this practice is still used around the world in many cultures today. However interesting and entertaining this “science” might be, some people may agree with me when I say that it's really not so much what you're eating that gives you that power of love, but the person that you're eating it with – an overlooked factor in all of this! The best aphrodisiac is not an oyster, or a shaving of rhino horn (which may be too dangerous to get to make it worth your while) But is, in fact, your significant other.

Although I could see, especially in cultures of arranged marriages, where you might not get the exact model that you wanted (if you know what I mean) that an aphrodisiac might have to be employed – in this case, it was probably the alcohol or drugs that might have gone along with it that made that night magical – or even just possible.

Although Valentine's Day has a tradition going back to 500 AD, let's come up to the modern day North American Valentine's Day and ask this question; what make the perfect Valentine's Day meal?

There are generally two ways to look at this. From a woman's point of view, the perfect valentine's day meal is something that has been prepared with love. It's the thought that counts. Meals that remind of first dates, and special times and places. Prepared with careful consideration and artistic strokes that really bring the spirit of love alive. For men, however, there may be more logistics involved; it can't cause bad breath, gas, or be too heavy. It would be a meal similar to that which you would eat before running a small marathon! So we could compromise and say that the perfect Valentine's Day meal would take all of these factors into consideration.

Here is my rendition of the perfect meal for the day of love. The meal would start with an appetizer salad comprised of mixed field greens with pralines, heart shaped strawberry sections, and melted brie on an olive oil crouton drizzled with honey and balsamic vinegar (the rhino horn shavings are optional at this point). The main course would be king crab, white mushrooms, and sea scallops in a light rose sauce (light cream, tomato, sugar, salt and fresh basil) on buttered cauliflower mash and wilted spinach tossed with some apple wood smoked bacon slivers. Dessert would be a chocolate fondue with various fruits for dipping and Canadian ice wine for sipping. Delicious, elegant, no garlic, no onion, you're still awake at the end of the meal, and you could still go for a run around the block if you so chose to!

I wish you all a very happy and delicious valentine’s day! May it bring you love and not heartburn.

What to do with leftover turkey

2010-11-25T21:39:00.004-05:00

What to do with leftover turkey
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

As I sit here reeling from the debauchery that was Thanksgiving dinner, I am wondering if "tryptophan" (the chemical that is supposedly in turkey which causes that sleepy feeling) even exists. I doubt any scientist can provide a vial of tryptophan, much less even sketch its chemical make up. Ok, I am off topic already. Must focus - must be all that tryptophan...

This is a quick and to the point article on things to do with leftover turkey. The recipes are written as a quick overview. Some traditional, some new. But it should get you through the next week. So grab that turkey carcass and some surgical gloves. Let's get started.

De-meating the bird: You can do this with or without gloves. Make sure your hands are very clean, as this is crucial to making the turkey last for the rest of the week. Dirty hands will deposit bacteria on the turkey meat and have it spoil several days before you can use it all. So I like to use latex or nitrile gloves. Simply get a big freezer bag and pick as much meat as you can off the carcass. Put the meat in the bag and refrigerate. At the very least, your bag-o-turkey will be an excellent tv-watching snack. If you have stuffing in the bird, try to get as much as you can out of it, and set aside. The stuffing in the carcass is always the tastiest.

Turkey Sandwiches: There is nothing revolutionary about these, they are just really good. I actually look forward to the turkey sandwiches more than the actual dinner itself. Get some crusty french bread, heat it in the oven so it's warm, cut the bread in half lengthwise, and layer ingredients in between the bread slices in this order from bottom to top: mayonnaise, basil pesto, stuffing, turkey gravy, turkey, smoked provolone, slice of tomato.

Turkey and Stuffing Risotto: When in doubt, make risotto. I always keep arborio rice around. It's a really good way to get rid of leftovers. Sautee some sliced pancetta or bacon, add some diced onions, diced asparagus (or leftover veggies from dinner) and turkey meat. Use chicken stock (and leftover turkey drippings) and simmer all the ingredients together with arborio rice for 25 minutes until a creamy, flavorful risotto is achieved. The trick is to add stock slowly and stir often throughout the 25 minutes until the arborio rice is soft and creamy.

Turkey Burrito: This is the quick version of this recipe. Perfect for a midnight snack. Shred some turkey meat in a bowl with a fork, add a bit of tomato salsa, chopped olives and a few capers. Wrap in a flour tortilla along with mashed potato and stuffing inside the tortilla. Once the burrito is rolled, top with turkey gravy and shredded cheese. Bake in toaster oven or microwave. Serve with a tablespoon or two or cold sour cream on top.

Turkey Pasta Carbonara: This recipe is awesome - i just had to mention that. Sautee the following in a deep skillet: Sliced bacon, julienned onions, mushrooms, minced garlic, turkey meat, and chopped parsley. At the same time, put some water to boil in a separate pot and cook some pasta in it. Drain pasta and set aside when done. Back in the skillet, once the onions become translucent and the bacon is cooked, add 2 to 3 cups of chicken or beef stock (and turkey drippings if any), bring the liquid to a simmer. Add pasta and simmer with the liquid for 5 minutes. Separate 3 egg yolks from the egg whites. Take the skillet off the stove and add the egg yolks to the pasta. Stir them in very quickly and until the liquid thickens into a velvety sauce. If it's too watery, add another egg yolk. Serve right away with fresh shredded Parmesan cheese.

I hope that you had a really nice Thanksgiving this year, and since you asked; I'm thankful for for turkey and I'm thankful for you.

How to make perfect holiday turkey

2010-10-31T23:12:00.003-04:00

Chef Cristian's Guerrilla Turkey Guide
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

It's the night before Thanksgiving and procrastination has finally given way to panic. The invitations have been sent out, decorative cobs of corn have been hung, the extra computer chair from your office is now part of your dining room set, and the liquor cabinet has been overstocked. But like some things, this is something alcohol can't disguise - in 24 hours your family will be the jury and your mother-in-law will be the judge. There better be a succulent, juicy, perfectly roasted bird on that table, or you're facing a 12 month sentence of ridicule and "What you should've done was...". Below is a brief, to-the-point, guide of your options.

Deep-Fried Turkey:
Difficulty: Medium
Safety Factor: Probably best to do this in the emergency room parking lot so they can get you in right away.

There is nothing mysterious or difficult about this method of cooking your turkey. You go down to your local hardware store, buy a turkey fryer, fill it with a few gallons of peanut oil, bring it up to temperature and deep fry that sucker! The method is crude, but the result (if done right) will yield a perfectly scrumptious, moist bird with crispy skin. Recommended for those with a backyard and plenty of space to run if things go wrong. Not recommended for condo dwellers, drunks, or people who have kids running around.

Turkey Cooked in a Bag:
Difficulty: Easy
Safety Factor: If you can handle microwave popcorn, you should be qualified to do this.

Most people are unaware that this method of cooking is available to them. Thanks to the good people at 3M, you can now cook your turkey in a space age plastic bag. Yes, you heard me right, a plastic bag. The future is now! You can purchase a roasting bag at your local grocery store. Stick the turkey in the bag with some flavoring agents such as wine, garlic, salt and a whole lemon, seal it and stick the turkey in the oven (follow instructions on the roasting bag packaging). The bag is temperature resistant and will not melt or burn. The turkey cooks in its own juices and the skin crisps up nicely. The result is a very juicy, tender, flavorful turkey with crispy skin that your guests will gobble down with pleasure. It even forgives overcooking by sealing in the turkey's natural juices. Recommended for most people, and especially for novice turkey cookers! The only drawback to this method is that you probably won't get that picture-perfect, Martha Stewart catalogue turkey. But it will look good enough to eat.

Traditional Roast Turkey
Difficulty: Hard
Safety Factor: If you have a critical mother-in-law, and tender feelings, this probably isn't for you.

This is the old school way of roasting a turkey. You marinade it just right the night before, dress it just right the day of, surgically implant butter cubes under the skin (turkeyplasty) and roast it in your oven just right, with a carefully followed schedule of basting and praying. If you can pull this one off, my hat goes off to you. This is recommended for the seasoned cook or professional chef who make it their yearly ritual to perfect the art of turkey roasting. When done right, this yields a perfectly crispy roasted turkey with meat that is not moist - but not dry. It's just right.

Strictly Breasts:
Difficulty: Easy
Safety Factor: If you don't mind people talking about how lazy you are behind your back, then you're good to go with this one!

If you lack the time and initiative to roast a whole bird, or are just plain lazy, this method of cooking turkey will be right for you. And if you need a justification, just keep mentioning how "healthy" turkey breasts are. However, this will backfire when you're caught drowning the remains of your turkey in thick, rich, gravy. For this method, you take some boneless turkey breasts and put them in a Ziploc freezer bag accompanied by some beer, lemon juice, salt and spices. Marinade overnight. Roast in oven on a cookie sheet @375 for 30-45 minutes. This will yield moist and tender turkey breasts which you can slice and arrange on a platter. But hopefully you only invited your yoga buddies and no one will ask for dark meat.

A note on stuffing:
No matter how you choose to cook your turkey this holiday season, you will undoubtedly accompany it with stuffing. It is always best to make the stuffing separately and serve it on the side, or at the very least, stuff your turkey after it's fully cooked. Stuffing your turkey before cooking can be hazardous if (food poisoning from bacteria), and it takes the turkey longer to cook. You can also overcook the turkey and end up with a bird that rejected half the stuffing like a bad heart transplant not a pretty sight). I stuff the turkey's cavity with lemons, onion and garlic. These flavoring agents radiate their aroma throughout the turkey while it's cooking, and give the meat a little more flavor. It's a much better use of the turkey's cavity than stuffing.

Emergency Procedures:
You can't always fix a turkey, especially if you've over-cooked it and it's drier than bag of sand. But here is a brief mention of some common problems that can be fixed. If the turkey is done, but the skin still lacks that brown crisp, use a heat gun to brown the turkey skin after it comes out of the oven (you can buy it at the hardware store - it's used to strip paint off things). If your turkey is under cooked, cut it into pieces, stick the pieces on a baking sheet, pour some of the turkey liquid over the meat and roast it in the oven at 420 for a few minutes until it's done. Since you cut it into smaller pieces and slices, it will cook faster, and the liquid you put on it will keep it from drying out too much. If you are getting burnt spots on the skin before the turkey is done, you should cover the turkey with a sheet of non stick aluminum foil to retard the burning. To avoid the fourth most common problem, ALWAYS MAKE EXTRA!

It is my sincere hope that this guide will give you some sort of a game plan for turkey this holiday season. And remember that a good turkey will last an hour, but the story of the chef will last the rest of the year! Please send me your turkey tips and stories tampabaychef@gmail.com.

A little food for thought

2010-09-20T12:19:00.004-04:00

A Little Food for Thought
By: Cristian Feher

It's the year 2010 and there are almost as many different types of foods as there are people. But the really interesting part is looking back at where some of these foods have come from, and where some of them are going. I give a few examples that have caught my attention below.

Many people take modern refrigeration for granted and do not realize that it's not until recently that this technological advance has been shaping the way foods are stored, prepared and consumed. Many of the foods that have been around in the world were developed in cultures where no refrigeration was available. Take curry, for example. The flavorful spice mixture we know today as curry was used by several cultures for hundreds of years as a method of keeping meats from spoiling. Picture a hot day in India where the temperatures rise way above 95 degrees on a regular day. A fish was cleaned, cut up and cooked in a clay pot with a heavy dose of curry, spicy peppers (capsicum), herbs, vegetables and water. If covered with a cloth, this dish might have lasted up to three days in ambient temperature without becoming spoiled (bacteria would have found it difficult to grow inside the spicy curry mixture). In colder climates, Vikings might have kept a freshly killed elk buried in ice and snow while consuming over a period of time. Severed slices of flesh would have been roasted over a fire and enjoyed with dried berries and leaves. A series of sharpened wooden sticks jutting out from around the elk would have kept bears and wolves from stealing it during the night. Today, there are many backyard Vikings that still enjoy this ritual on Sundays! In the South Pacific fish were wrapped in leaves, clay and sometimes raw sea salt crystals. These packages would be buried underground with hot coals and rocks, and dug up to eat up to two days later. Many tourists enjoy this method of cooking while on vacation in the South Pacific today, and it's a popular attraction on the food networks. The Aztecs would steam rudimentary corn dough wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves for preservation, and you can still enjoy them at your local Mexican restaurant today. You can also fast forward to the perfection of this particular method of cooking and visit Venezuela during the Christmas season for an amazing "hallaca" (a savory saffron and raisin meat stew encased in corn dough with annatto, wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed to perfection). However, the most common method of ensuring fresh food, which is still seen today in many cultures, is the ritual of going to the market for food on a daily basis. Whether in France, Trinidad and Tobago, or Argentina, this is a ritual that I try to take part in whenever I travel. Food prepared freshly in a culture with a high turnover of meat, fish and vegetables has always yielded the best results in my opinion.

You wouldn't think of it at first glance, but war and conquering has done a lot to change the food scapes of many cultures. This is evident in Japan and especially the Philippines where hot dogs and Spam (an American canned meat product) have become national staples. Filipinos consume more spam per capita than Americans do! And if you ever get a chance, try some Filipino hot dog stew. It will make you wonder why you've wasted so many years plopping it on a bun. The Spaniards can be traced by the chickens (and diseases) they left behind as they conquered, and if you've ever had the pleasure of sampling French-Vietnamese cuisine, you know what I mean. Every cloud has a silver lining, and this is probably the silver lining of war - the seed of culinary creativity that it leaves behind.

I can only imagine what the future holds for combinations of new foods. I'm sure that preservative-laden meat patties, processed cheese and apple pie are leaving their mark in the Middle East as we speak. And you may visit Afghanistan or Iraq fifty years from now and wonder how they ever got along without them.

Is Propylene Glycol making you fat?

2010-09-10T23:49:00.002-04:00

Is Propylene Glycol making you fat?
By: Cristian Feher

Most of you are probably wondering, "What the heck is propylene glycol?". Propylene glycol may sound fancy and scientific, but it's really just a clear, odorless liquid made from petroleum. It's used as a stabilizer (to keep things held together, and keep them from evaporating), and to keep foods moist. It's used in many of the foods that we eat, and the FDA deems it safe for human consumption. Sounds harmless enough, right? But I stumbled upon a little something that you may not know about propylene glycol.

I promise this is the only other scientific word I will use - Ketosis. Ketosis is simply nerd-talk for when your body burns fat. So if you're overweight, and you start to lose fat, it's called ketosis. I'm sure most of us can agree that ketosis is a good thing - especially in America, where we have the most overweight population on the planet!

So what do ketosis and propylene glycol have to do with being fat? Good question! There is an industry where fat is money. It's the cattle industry. Simply put, the cattle ranchers don't want cows to get skinny. When an overweight American goes into ketosis, we congratulate them and tell them how good they're looking! But when a cow starts to lose fat, the veterinarian is called immediately. According to the Merck Veterinary Manual "Ketosis is a common disease of adult cattle." And according to this manual, one of the treatments for this condition is Propylene Glycol. The cow is injected twice per day with propylene glycol until it gets fat again. This stops the cow from losing fat and keeps them nice and plump. The cow can then be sold, butchered, and a beautiful, fatty, rib eye steak can be enjoyed.

I am definitely not against a big fatty steak with proper marbling (the fatty beads throughout the steak). But I do wonder if propylene glycol is having the same effect on humans, and making it harder for a person to go into ketosis and lose fat. North Americans probably eat more propylene glycol than any other people on the planet, and we happen to be very fat. Coincidence? I am not saying that propylene glycol makes people fat - I can't, the FDA wouldn't let me say that. But it certainly poses an interesting question. By the way, here's another little tidbit; the Merck Veterinary Manual also states, "Overdosing propylene glycol leads to CNS depression [central nervous system failure]." But again, they're talking about cows here, and it's very unlikely that a human being would eat that much propylene glycol in one sitting. However, I wasn't able to find out how much propylene glycol it would take to kill a cow or give it brain damage. I also was not able to find if propylene glycol taken over time can have a damaging effect.

Here are some common foods that contain propylene glycol: certain mustards, food coloring, artificial flavors, certain chips, certain soy sauce, fried onions, certain strawberry and chocolate syrups, certain icing, canned coconut milk, certain salad dressings, certain ice creams, maple flavored bacon, certain juices, certain sodas, certain cake mixes, certain chicken bullion, fast food burgers and dipping sauces, certain yogurts and the list keeps going. After only 10 minutes of research I was able to find over 1200 food items that contain propylene glycol. And not all of them listed it as an ingredient. For example, a food's ingredient list may include "artificial butter flavor". The butter flavor is made with propylene glycol, but since it came into the factory pre-made and was added as an ingredient in the process of another food, that manufacturer is not obligated to list sub-ingredients.

So we come again to the big question; is propylene glycol making you fat? I can't answer that. All I can do is present you with very interesting information and let you think for yourself.

Foods that keep you cool

2010-07-21T23:44:00.003-04:00

Foods that Keep you Cool By: Chef Cristian Feher
With Florida's 100 degree weather, faulty air conditioning, and the growing threat of global warming, it doesn't look like it's getting cooler any time soon. So I thought this would be an appropriate article. Before I give you a list of the foods that will keep your body cool this summer, I have prepared a short and nerdy presentation of how your body's cooling system works. Think of your body as a car engine, but instead of burning gas, it burns food. When it runs it gets hot and when it's hot outside it gets even hotter. And just like your car's engine, it's liquid cooled - it uses fluid to trap the heat and throw it out. But please... not in the pool.

Your body builds up a lot of heat when it has to digest heavy fuel. I'm sure you remember the last time you had a greasy burger and fries on a hot day. You probably felt sluggish, short of breath and very uncomfortable - you overheated your engine. The simplest thing you could have done would have been to eat a leaner, cooler, easier to digest fuel - like a salad or fruit. Salads and fruit are a great hot weather food in that they take very little effort for your body to digest. Less effort makes less heat. And because a salad is cool to begin with, it doesn't raise your body's temperature as much as a hot meal will.

The first way that your body gets rid of heat is through sweating. The blood absorbs the extra heat in your system and channels it out through the sweat ducts. As the sweat evaporates off your skin, the heat goes with it. So you actually want to eat foods that will make you sweat. Notice that cultures which live in hot climates usually cook with a lot of spicy foods. They know that sweating keeps you cool and if you've ever eaten a spicy goat curry on the beaches of Trinidad and Tobago, or Jerk Chicken in Jamaica, you know what I mean. "Get me a towel!". Aside from their great taste, hot peppers are your best sweat inducing foods and you should acquire a taste for them if you want to keep cool in hot weather. Hot peppers contain a substance called capsicum which cause your body sweat. These include all types of hot peppers, and anything with cayenne. If you can't handle spicy foods, don't worry. I have other suggestions below.

The second method your body uses to get rid of heat is through urination. That's why we are able to write our names in the snow so legibly. A diuretic is a substance which makes your body get rid of fluids through urination. If you don't like to sweat, I suggest eating diuretic foods, which mostly come in the forms of liquids. Apple cider vinegar, caffeine and cranberry juice are all diuretics, and they will help keep you cool. Coconut water is also a diuretic, which would be tragically ironic if you were ever stranded on a deserted island and needed coconut water to survive! The only issue with diuretics is that you risk becoming dehydrated. So make sure to keep drinking.

The speed and thickness of your blood is also a factor. Thinner blood will circulate more easily through the body with less effort. This will have a cooling effect. Foods that are natural blood thinners are cayenne pepper, ginger, cinnamon and vinegars.

By following these guidelines you should be able to keep cooler this summer, and if you're lucky, maybe even lose a little weight!

Here is a recipe for the ultimate cool down meal:

Cucumber, Hearts of Palm, Tomato, and Avocado Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette and a tall glass of Cranberry Coconut Juice

Salad Ingredients:
- 1 Avocado
- 1 Heart of Palm
- 1 hand full of Cherry Tomatoes
- 1 Field Cucumber
- (optional) 5 cold cooked Tiger Shrimp
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- Cayenne Hot Sauce
- Sea Salt and Pepper

Put avocado slices, sliced heart of palm, cherry tomato and cucumber slices into a bowl. Put 1/3 cup of olive oil, and a small splash of apple cider vinegar (to taste) over the salad. Season with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.

For the drink, mix 1 part coconut water and 2 parts cranberry juice. Add to a glass with crushed ice.

...I Ate What?

2010-07-14T00:49:00.004-04:00

... I ate what?
By: Chef Cristian Feher

After watching The Land Before Time for the hundreth time, my seven year old asked me today, "Do you cook Dinosaur meat for your customers?" And while I normally would have smiled and pinched her cheeks, this question made me think for a minute. And surprisingly, the answer was "Yes!". Many of our foods have very interesting origins, and some are derived from sources you would never expect. This thought entertained me for the rest of the day and I began to do a little research - sort of tracking down a long lost family tree - on the quirky foods that we eat. Some of you may find this disturbing, but I hope that most of you will find this as interesting as I did.

Dinosaurs - A long time ago, the Earth was filled with dinosaurs. They roamed what are now our oceans, swam what are now our deserts and flew in our skies. Then a large explosion wiped them out. Fast forward a few years later (a few million to be exact). The planet's continents shifted and buried much of the dinosaur leftovers in underground pockets where they fermented for a long time and turned into a thick, flammable, black viscous carbon liquid. Then a Texan shot a hole into the ground, and "Yeehaw!" petroleum was discovered. It was taken to a factory where it was turned into a thousand different things. And many of these you actually eat. Take propylene glycol. It's a clear, colorless liquid with a semi-sweet taste. We use it as an agent to keep foods moist (like in dog food, some frozen fries, and fast food burger buns) it's also used as the main liquid which holds artificial food flavors and dyes. So any food made with artificial flavor or smell, has propylene glycol in it. It's also used as antifreeze for your car, in pharmaceuticals, and interestingly enough, it's used to stop cattle from losing weight (I will write another article on this specific topic) From petroleum we also get vitamin capsules, food preservatives, and glycerin (used in shampoo, drugs, toothpaste, and the production of citric acid in juices). And that's the short answer of how we eat dinosaurs on a daily basis.

Bacteria Poop - Most people would be appalled at the though of eating bacteria poop. You probably think of horrible things happening, like food poisoning and digestive problems. But the truth is that you eat quite a bit of bacteria poop and it's actually harmless. Take xantham gum for example. This substance is the bi-product (poop) of bacteria that like to eat corn. In goes the corn, out comes a thick, slimy substance which is then dried, turned into powder and then added to salad dressings, sauces, sodas, ice cream and many more foods. It's used to thicken foods, or keep a mixture of food uniform. I actually use this to thicken sauces for customers that demand a low carb, or gluten-free menu. It works much like corn starch, but without the calories.

Bee Saliva - You probably guessed this one. Yes it's honey. And here is why you might find it less appealing. The worker bee flies out, sucks the nectar out of flowers and flies back to the hive. He then regurgitates a mixture of flower nectar, digestive juices and saliva out into the honey combs. But it's not over yet, because the worker bee will swallow and regurgitate the honey a few more times just to make sure it's partially digested - or, in bee-terms "it's just right!".

Pig Skin and Cow Hooves - You probably guessed that I'm talking about hot dogs. But you you didn't think I'd make it that easy, did you? I'm actually talking about gelatin. Gelatin is made from the collagen that is boiled out of the animal's bones, skin and connective tissues. It's then refined, the meaty flavor is taken out, and it's turned into a crystalline powder. We then take some dinosaur-based flavoring and food colors, and make it into our favorite jiggly treat - Jello!

Ground Up Bugs - Although the average person eats a few pounds of insects every year, through produce, processed cereals and even while you sleep, I am referring to something in particular - Carmine based food coloring. Carmine or Natural Red #4 is actually made from crushed cochineal beetles. This is found in juices, ice cream, and candy. If it's red, pink or purple, chances are that it has crushed up bugs in it!

Hopefully I haven't spoiled your appetite. I find that it's always better to know, and just remember what grandma used to tell you, "What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger." Or in the case of my grandfather, "It's all protein in the end!" Thanks grandpa.

Opposing Flavors: A Chef's Tool for Taste

2010-07-06T00:54:00.003-04:00

Opposing Flavors: A chef's tool for taste.
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

There is a big difference between a good meal and fantastic meal. Yes, one most likely has a better visual presentation, but most people would agree that the most important factor is taste. A question I get very often from my customers is, “how do you get it to taste like that?”. Fortunately I am not one of those chefs that keeps a tool box full of secrets. And as can be seen from my first grade report card, I like to share with others.

I could use words like “balance”, “symmetry” and “contrast”. But I like the word “dichotomy” best. The word dichotomy is defined as: a separation into two divisions that contradict each other. Or more simply put; two things that are opposites to each other.
Without getting too philosophical here, life is made up of opposites. The sun and the moon. Black and white. Good and evil. Hot and cold. Man and woman. Our universe is made up of opposites and It wouldn't exist without them. Well, neither would good food!

One of the tools that I use in preparing meals that pay the bills, is the concept of a dichotomy – both from a visual standpoint, and a taste standpoint. If you've ever taken an art class, you know that the picture you're painting looks best when it balances. There has to be empty space to compliment the full space. You have to dampen bright colors with dark colors, and so it is with the arrangement of food on a plate. When you're preparing a dish, you're essentially painting a 3 dimensional picture. But the factor that keeps customers coming back is always the taste, and good taste is all about a properly balancing and opposing your flavors.

Picture a meal that is just salty. No other taste, just salt. How about a food that is just nothing but sweet? Not very enjoyable in my opinion. There is no dichotomy there. What a good chef will do is balance two flavors just right. When I make desserts I always balance the sugar with a bit of salt. You can't really tell the salt is there, but you just know that it's very satisfying to your taste buds! You'd be pleasantly surprised by how many recipes would be improved by opposing two flavors instead of focusing on one. Next time you make tomato sauce, for example, add half as much sugar as you add salt and you might notice a great improvement. Whether you combine salty with sweet, or sweet with sour, or spicy with sweetness, it really is an improvement over using just one flavor. So take your six main flavors: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, spicy and umami (spicy is technically a sensation and not a flavor, but we'll just add it in there) and begin to experiment with pairings to take your cooking to a deeper level. The fast food restaurants have done it for years to keep you coming back. How much sugar do you think it takes to balance an umami (the flavor of MSG which is similar to salty) meat patty?

The concept does not stop with flavors. The dichotomy also lends itself to temperature and to texture. A perfect example of these two would be a crispy, hot slice of apple pie topped with a cold, soft and smooth scoop of french vanilla iced cream. The crispy texture of the apple pie is opposed by the soft, velvety texture of the iced cream, and the temperatures of hot and cold are also opposed. By the way, most iced cream you buy at the store contains a certain amount of salt to counter the sugar.

I hope that this will help you to understand what makes your favorite foods so enjoyable, and I would be happy to know that this has made your cooking just a little bit better! I'm always like to receive emails from you. You can always email me at tampabaychef@gmail.com.

Food and Wine Pairing for the 21st Century

2010-06-22T23:40:00.006-04:00

Food and Wine Pairing for the 21st Century

By:Chef Cristian Feher

http://www.tampabaychef.com/

As a chef I have been indoctrinated into the old tradition of pairing wine with food. But as of late I have come to the realization that in order for anything to advance, it must change. And so it has been with food. We have taken the old, and with constant change, have managed to keep people interested in the art by creating new exciting dishes and combinations. So why not leave the dogma of food and wine behind and move towards an evolution of pairing?

I have always been a firm believer that the right wine to pair with a certain food is the one you enjoy! And so I have taken this further to include all drinks - beers, juices, and even sodas! I see food and wine pairing as arranged marriages; traditional, but outdated in today's modern world. There are new ways to fall in love. Now, don't get me wrong - I am not against wine. I just find that there is a level above wine that belongs with fine food. And It is a new adventure that I look forward to developing with my own menus.

Below are five pairings which I invite you to try. And if I have the pleasure of cooking for you, will be showcased at our next dinner party.

Sushi and Club Soda with Lime, sea Salt and Ice. Although you wouldn't necessarily pair sushi with wine, I am very excited about this simple combination. The whole attraction of eating sushi is the raw and natural flavour of this cuisine. Sushi is all about simplicity and basic flavors. And so the simplicity of this drink is a perfect match. Fill a tall glass with plenty of crushed ice, squeeze half a lime on the ice, add a small pinch of salt and fill the rest with club soda. Not only is club soda a palate cleanser which will work as a buffer between the different sushi varieties, but the sour and salty flavours pair very well.

Steak and Pineapple Merlot w/ Papaya. As I mentioned above, I am not against pairing food with wine. I am about taking it further. It is very traditional to enjoy a nice rib eye steak with a rich glass or Merlot. But it's even better to add pineapple juice and small-diced papaya. If you like sangria, this will be right up your alley! Just mix 2 parts red wine to 1 part pineapple juice and add ice cubes with a couple of spoonfuls of papaya diced small. This drink has a hidden purpose; you see, papaya and pineapple contain enzymes that break down protein. So eating a large steak dinner with this drink will greatly aid in digestion, and the flavour combination is sure to please!

Spanish Seafood Paella w/ Wheat and Clementine Ale. This recipe brings fond memories of skiing in Quebec a few years ago. We stayed in a beautiful wooden chalet near Mount Tremblant where we came up with this combination. The Paella was thoroughly enjoyed with pale wheat ale to which was added pieces of chilled clementine. This is a great holiday drink as the Moroccan clementine are available during December and most of winter.

Oysters on the Half Shell with Apple Cider and Hot Sauce. I was lucky enough to get two dozen Tatamagouche oysters that were flown in from Nova Scotia last week. I experimented with several different pairings and came up with a simple, yet out of the ordinary one. I found that the oysters tasted best with a little shot of organic apple cider and a drop of crystal hot sauce (which is a cayenne based sauce). The combination provided the traditional acidity and hot spice with the addition of a surprisingly workable sweetness! Organic apple cider was also enjoyed at the end of the meal mixed with a little sparkling champagne which worked well to cleanse the taste of the oysters.

Chicken Coconut Curry with Riesling. I saved this last one to demonstrate how you can pair wine with foods you wouldn't normally think would go with wine. Traditionally, Indian food is not paired with wine. However, this fragrant and savoury dish is a pleasure to have with a chilled glass of fruity Riesling.

I hope that this article has sparked your inquisitive side and I look forward to hearing what interesting combinations you have come up with. I'm constantly working to find new pairings which can augment the pleasure of a meal. You can always write to me at tampabaychef@gmail.com

How do I know if sushi Tuna is fresh?

2010-03-13T00:31:00.006-05:00

Red Tuna or Chocolate Tuna? How do I Know if it's Fresh?
By: Chef Cristian Feher

http://www.tampabaychef.com/

Sushi is one of my favorite foods. I love the colors, tastes and varieties. I eat it raw, cooked, dipped, sliced, with Wasabi, and even seared with black Sesame seeds! Tuna, whether it's minced and mixed with Srirachia sauce or freshly sliced on its own (as in Tuna Sashimi) is the quintessential ingredient most sought after by Sushi lovers. But how fresh is your Tuna? And, would you be able to tell just by looking at it?

Most people judge a book by its cover, and they judge Tuna just the same. When asked how they judge freshness, people will tell you (in the case of Ahi or Yellowfin Tuna) that a rich red or pink color is most desirable. But having fished for Tuna myself, I have noticed that a Tuna steak will turn brown, or “chocolate” within about an hour of cutting it. So I researched further into commercial Tuna and found out something interesting.

The Tuna industry has been keeping a little secret from us. That rich, red tuna steak you see in the market may not be what you think it is – and it may not even be fresh! It seems that the Ahi Tuna industry have turned to Chemistry to sell their products. Those beautiful, red Tuna steaks that you see at the fish store or at your local Sushi restaurant are artificially colored. The fish has been pumped with carbon monoxide to turn it and keep it red! This is similar to the practice used by the Tomato industry to turn green Tomatoes Red by pumping them with Ethylene gas. The carbon monoxide turns the normally chocolate-colored Tuna a more palatable red. You can do this experiment on your own by putting a chocolate piece of Tuna by your car's tailpipe and watching the difference in color. WARNING: Do not attempt to eat the fish if you have exposed it to your car's exhaust fumes. Your car's exhaust fumes have several other pollutants that you really do not want to eat! This is just an experiment to show you that carbon monoxide will change the color of the fish.

The practice of lacing Tuna with carbon monoxide is not legal in North America according to the FDA and its Canadian counter part. However, as most Ahi Tuna comes from the Pacific, Asian processing facilities ship the fish already treated. There are no laws in Asia which prohibit the use of carbon monoxide to treat fish.

Is it safe? I was not able to find any information on the effects of eating treated Tuna. But It's only common sense to assume that natural is better.

As for freshness, I left a piece of treated tuna outside at room temperature for 24 hours and, although it was obviously spoiled, the color remained the same! A nice deep red, turning a little pink after a while. If this piece was behind glass at the fish market, I certainly would have purchased it. It never turned chocolate. So if you can't tell the quality of Tuna by its appearance, how can you tell? Fortunately, your nose is your best weapon. You should judge Tuna by its smell, texture and taste. It should have a pleasant fishy smell, and firm flesh. And most importantly, it should taste good! And the fact that it's chocolate-colored is just a reaction that any lean protein should have when coming into contact with oxygen and then oxidizing.

There really is nothing wrong with a chocolate colored piece of natural Yellowfin Tuna – that is its actual, natural color. The only reason most places won't sell it, is because the consumer has been so used to the carbon monoxide treated tuna that they would not buy the natural stuff. So fish markets are forced to continue importing and selling the treated Tuna. I am not against a nice, red piece of fish, but when something is being sold to me I demand honesty and truth, and this is the reason I wrote this article. I have been enjoying chocolate, organic South Pacific Ahi Tuna for my Japanese dishes as of late, and I will continue to use this product and inform my clients about its origin and character. I simply prefer a more natural food over a processed food. So the next time you are shopping for Tuna, make sure to ignore the color and go for quality instead! It should come down to which piece of tuna smells, tastes and has the best texture.

Making Low Carb Substitutions

2010-02-16T00:07:00.001-05:00

Making Low Carb Substitutions
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

While there are many people around the world who's biggest problem is not having enough to eat, sadly, we have the opposite problem. North Americans run into the issue of being over-fed! Our food supply is bountiful, cheap, and we have too much of it. Even the poorest of our clan can get 1000 calories for less than $3. And it shows. We're fat!

I won't go into a big dissertation on how we gain weight. All I will say is that every time you eat refined carbs your body sends massive amounts of insulin into your blood stream and turns all but some of the sugar into fat. Add to this, late night eating, lack or exercise and some high fructose corn syrup to wash it down with, and you're well on your way to winning first prize at the Virginia Fair! OK, I'm lecturing again..

The good news is that you can do something about it. It just comes down to willingness and some work on your part. But you can do it. And I'll give you some tips below on how you can cut down on those pesky carbs so that hopefully you can get to feeling energetic and looking thin again!

Now, before I go and give you a list of substitutions, there are some magic rules to follow. Well, they're not actually magic at all, more like common sense (if you want to lose weight). 1. Your body needs water to move fat around. So if you want to move fat out, you gotta drink lots of water. Try 1.5 litres per day and work your way up to 2 Liters. 2. You don't need fuel when your car is parked. And you don't need to eat when you're not really using your body. So don't eat at night. Stop eating four hours before going to bed. Yes, you might be really craving a snack but you're going to have to suck it up tubby! 3. (And this one I've learned many times from experience and from my client's experiences) Diet alone fails most often. You're going to have to dust off those gym shorts from the bottom of the closet. Do at least 30 minutes of light exercise every day. Lucky for you, walking does wonders for weight loss. And it's also relaxing and lifts your spirits. Make time to go for a walk every day. Following these simple rules will enable you to get results.

Now for the low carb substitutions:

Gotta have your gravy? Sauces really liven up a boring meal. And although most thickeners are high in carbs, there is one thickener that works wonders and has a 0 net carb count. Xantham gum. Yes, it sounds like something Batman shoots at bad guys, but it's actually a common thickener used in everything from salad dressing to hydraulic coolant in factories. But don't let that scare you. It's made from friendly bacteria who like to eat corn. It's available in most health food stores and online. You can thicken up gravies, make ketchup and even cream sauces! It's similar in consistency to corn starch and you can thicken just about any liquid with it.

TIP: Xantham gum tends to clump up when in contact with liquids, so it's best to use a hand blender (or regular blender) to mix it into liquids smoothly. And better yet, it does not require heat to thicken. It will thicken a cold glass of water just as well.

But what about bread? It seems like we are surrounded by a never ending supply of bread. It's everywhere!Sandwich shops, fast food chains, the grocery store and in our kitchen. All kinds of breads, buns, rolls, crackers, wraps. So how do you go around that? Well, next time you make a burger or sandwich, try using two large portobello mushroom caps instead of a bun. Heat them in the oven or microwave until they begin to soften. You can do the same thing with two thick-cut slices of eggplant. What about wraps? Certain health food stores sell low carb tortilla wraps that yield only about 5 grams of carbs per serving. You can also wrap your cold cuts and cheese in fresh, green lettuce leaves for a fresh, leafy wrap. Try a BLT wrapped in L! And if you just had to grab a burger because "you were in a hurry", then just eat the insides and toss the bun in the trash. No excuses.

What do I drink? Don't drink anything that has sugar or high fructose corn syrup in it. It's as bad a putting a couple of sandwiches in the blender and drinking that. Sugary drinks will make you fat faster than anything else because the sugars go right into your blood stream very quickly. This includes beer, fruit juice, sodas, energy drinks and anything else that has sugar in it. So you should be drinking water, club soda (my favourite) or at the very least, diet soda. But try to drink lots of water.

Is there any happiness left? Yes there is! You don't have to give up carbs completely. In fact, carbs are good for you so long as you use them as fuel. Just don't have too many and don't eat the wrong types. Eat carbs that are high in fiber and will take your body longer to break them down. Sweet potato, steel cut oats and pearled barley should become your new best friends. Instead of pasta you will eat Tofu Shirataki noodles or Dreamfields pasta once in a while (Use Google to find out more about these options). They now sell low carb ice cream which you can have on Sundays before going for a long walk. The best time to eat carbs is at breakfast. That way you can assure that you burn them during the day. You don't need carbs for lunch or for dinner. Unless you are an athlete or a runner or a person that does very heavy physical work during the day. In which case, you are reading an article which does not apply to you.

So now that you know how to do it, here comes the hard part - you actually have to do it. The only hard part about being healthy and fit again is having the self discipline to do it. And to help you with it I will leave you with these words of wisdom. "Don't think about it. Just do it."

How to make perfect sushi rice

2009-11-06T10:11:00.001-05:00

How to Make Perfect Sushi Rice
By: Chef Cristian Feher

Sushi, like most Japanese things, is made using exact skill and precision. But don't let this scare you from making your own sushi. In this recipe I will outline the exact steps to take in order to achieve proper sushi rice. For this recipe I will be using a rice cooker. I suggest that you purchase one of these handy kitchen appliances if you don't already have one. They can be purchased for a minimal price. Mine cost about $12 and can cook 6 cups of rice at a time.

It is important before you begin that you start out with the correct type of rice. You must use short grain Sushi rice or Calrose rice. Other types of rice will not work as well, and some won't work at all.

You can also make your life easier by purchasing "Seasoned" rice wine vinegar. Seasoned rice wine vinegar has the salt and the sugar already mixed into it.

Yield: With this recipe you should be able to get about 3-4 sushi maki rolls out of one cup of rice.

Ingredients:
- 1 Cup of Sushi Rice
- 1 Cup of Water (plus 10% more water)
- 5 squirts of Seasoned Rice Vinegar (or 2 parts rice vinegar, 2 parts sugar and 1 part salt)

Equipment:
- Rice Cooker
- Wooden or Plastic Spatula
- Large bowl (for rinsing the rice)
- Large baking sheet or serving tray (for cooling off the rice)
- (optional) an electric fan for cooling off the rice

Step 1:
Put the rice into the bowl and rinse it under the sink using cold water. You want to rub and stir the rice with your hands so that a lot of starch comes out of it. Rinse it about 4 times until the water runs almost clear. Drain.

Step 2:
Put the rice into the rice cooker, add the water, put the lid on, and set the cooker to cook the rice.

Step 3:
As soon as the rice is ready, scoop it out of the rice cooker with the wooden spatula and spread it gently onto the
tray for cooling. It is important that when you're working with the rice you be very gentle with it and careful not to smush the rice into a ball of gluten. Pour the seasoned rice vinegar and over the rice and gently fold the rice with the spatula so that all the grains of rice have come in contact with the vinegar. At the same time, your other goal is to cool down the rice as fast as possible. I like to turn on a table top fan and let it cool the rice off as I fold the mixture. But you can take a magazine or paper plate and fan with your hand as you fold the rice instead. You do not have to fold the rice during the whole cooling period, but you may want to turn it over every few minutes to let the heat escape.

Step 4:
Once the rice has cooled to room temperature it can be used to make sushi, or you can seal it into a plastic bag and put it in the fridge for later use. It will keep for 2 days max. But ideally, you would want to use it that same day. You want to end up with glossy, shiny rice (due to the vinegar mixture) with grains that are still in one piece (you don't want a white mushy pile of rice).

Bruschetta Caprese recipe

2009-09-01T01:10:00.001-04:00

Bruschetta Caprese
Recipe by: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com

Yield: 10-16 portions

Ingredients:
- French Baguette or any long Bread
- 1 Jar of store-bought Basil Pesto (OR, CLICK HERE FOR PESTO RECIPE)
- Fresh Basil Leaves
- 2-3 Roma Tomatoes
- 4 - 8 Bocconcini Cheese Balls
- Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

1. Prepare the following and set aside:
- Slice Tomatoes
- Slice the Mozzarella
- Slice the bread on an angle
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2. Spread a small amount of basil pesto onto each slice of bread and place on baking sheet.

3. Put a slice of tomato, basil leaf and cheese onto each slice of bread.

4. Roast the bruschettas in the oven for 7-10 minutes until cheese melts. Serve and enjoy!

Caprese salad recipe

2009-09-01T01:04:00.001-04:00

Caprese Salad
Recipe by: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com

Yield: 4 Portions

Ingredients:
- Fresh Basil Leaves
- 4 Tomatoes
- 4 Large balls of Buffalo Mozzarella Cheese, or several smaller balls of Bocconcini Cheese
- 2 Cups of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 2/3 Cup of your favourite Vinegar
- 1 Tbsp of Grain or Dijon Mustard
- Salt and Pepper

Instructions:

1. Prepare the following and set aside:
- Slice Tomatoes
- Slice the Mozzarella or Bocconcini Cheese

2. To prepare a basic vinaigrette, you will put the olive oil and vinegar into a mixing bowl. You will then add the mustard and season to taste with salt and pepper. Mix the vinaigrette vigorously with a metal whisk until mixture has thickened. NOTE: You can add a few drops of cold water while whisking to make it thicker and keep the thickness longer. Set aside.

3. On each plate, arrange the cheese slices, tomato slices and basil leaves as you wish. Use your imagination and make a nice, uniform pattern!

4. Drizzle with the vinaigrette and serve!

Italian Chicken Caprese Recipe

2009-09-01T00:39:00.006-04:00

Chicken Caprese
Recipe by: Chef Cristian Feher
http://www.tampabaychef.com

This is a very easy and satisfying Italian entree. You can try different variations by substituting the chicken with veal, or pork cutlets. My favourite way to serve Caprese Chicken is over a bed of Angel Hair Pasta with Basil Pesto and Plenty of Parmigiano Regiano cheese! But you can cut the carb content by serving it with a hearty green salad, Caesar Salad or Oven Roasted Vegetables.

Yield: 4 Portions

Ingredients:
- 4 Skinless, boneless chicken breasts
- 3 Eggs
- 4 Cups of Italian Bread Crumbs
- 2 Large Balls of Buffalo Mozzarella
- 2 Large Tomatoes
- Fresh Basil Leaves
- Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Prepare and set aside the following:
- Butterfly the chicken breasts
- Crack and beat eggs in a bowl
- Pour Italian bread Crumbs into a bowl or large plate
- Slice Tomato and Mozzarella Cheese
- Pre-Heat oven to 380 (convection oven) or 400 (regular oven)

2. Sprinkle salt and pepper onto each chicken breast. Dredge the each chicken breast through the egg mixture making sure to coat both sides. Then place the chicken breasts into the bread crumb mixture and pat it down on each side so that the crumbs stick to the breasts on both sides. Place breast onto the baking sheet.

3. Place the chicken breasts in the oven and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes. Every oven is slightly different, so keep an eye on your chicken so that it doesn't burn!

4. Take chicken breasts out of the oven and top each breast with a couple of slices of tomato, a couple of fresh basil leaves and a couple of slices of mozzarella cheese. Bake for another 7-10 minutes until cheese is melted.

5. Serve each chicken breast over your favourite pasta or side dish. Enjoy!