Oct 12, 2020
Zero Food Waste is very trendy in the western world, it is not surprising that westerners have many creative ideas to manage food waste in order to prevent losing money. Today Chef Daniel, a western food expert from Makro Horeca Academy, will share us some tips and ideas to manage food waste in western style that you can apply to help #savemoney from leaking out. Let’s follow and see!
3 preliminary food waste management principles.
“Instead of letting the ingredients #waste for nothing, we can use the leftovers effective and beneficial in many ways, just need to be creative. However, before we reach that advanced process, let’s take a look at how to deal with basic leftovers.”
How should we deal with the unused ingredients?
1.Fruits: the leftovers or sliced fruits can be transformed in to smoothies, salads, jam or fruit sauces.
- Vegetables: use the remaining part of the vegetables as a soup, slice and mix it in to salads or make as a pesto sauce that is can be used to add flavor to any kind of dish.
- Meat and bone scraps: they all can be boiled into rich and tasty soup or stock.
Cool ideas for managing fruits and vegetables in your restaurant.
Watermelon rind: Make pickles, jam or slice them thin and mix in to salads.
Tomatoes: If they are too ripe or soft, they may not look very nice but still contain nutritional value and taste good. They can be used to make sauces, soups or salsa.
Tomato skin: dry until it crips, blend them with salt to create a rich, umami-flavored tomato table salt.
Celery leaves and stalks: dry them in the oven until crips, blend them with salt to make celery salt.
Broccoli: Broccoli flowers can be boiled, cooked or steamed. While the raw stalks can be sliced and add it in to salads. The leaves can be blanched and stir-fried, it also can be purred in to pesto sauce.
Corncobs: Dry those in the sun and use as a fuel instead of charcoal for your grill.
Potato skins: seasoned with olive oil and herbs, baked or fried then served as a snack.
Durian seeds: soak them in the water to remove all durian pulp. Boiled like a potato and peel the skin then enjoy eating them and make others creative dishes.
Creating new menu items from old bread and croissants.
“Do not throw away stale bread, Apart from grinding them in it into breadcrumbs it also can be a creative ingredient in various menus.”
-Croutons: Cut leftovers bread into small pieces, add herbs or garlic butter to make croutons for salad or soup.
-Soups: Roast some sliced onion like for an onion soup. Add old bread to it and boil with any soup stock you like. Blend it and you have a signature roasted onion bread soup.
-Dessert: Take Use the leftover bread or croissant to make a bread and pudding and serve it with recycled fruit sauce.
Ingredients from popular menu items can be made into other menu items.
“In doing restaurant business, We often find out that certain ingredients #can’t be sold as customers are not familiar with it. Or we don’t think that it can be used as an ingredient of some dishes. It is important for your restaurant to have a few popular dishes on the menu that are flexible with various ingredients.
Example of popular menus with great flexibility
1.Pizza : Of course, pizza is #everyone’s favorite and it is also a menu that can be creative in many ways, whether in a traditional menu or create your own signature fusion menu which we can adjust with many remaining ingredients.
2.Tacos : This is another popular dish that you can use creativity with the leftover ingredients, whether using protein from meats or vegetables.
- Soups: This is a classic Western dish which is flexible and can use up a wide variety of ingredients. Instead of calling it “Daily special soup”, which many customers may know it was made of leftovers. We might name it more appealing, like “Winter vegetable soup” or "hearty garden vegetable soup” , something like this, sounds more interesting.
- Crostini, Bruschetta, Pintxos, Canapes : In many western restaurants, we serve a small appetizer on toast, which can be endlessly creative. We can even add some homemade pickles or chutneys to these dishes.
- Baked pasta dishes: This versatile multi flexible menu item has no limits to your creativity. Any protein combined with any vegetable enriched with any sauce and finally combined with any kind of pasta is baked with any kind of cheese in the oven.
- Pickles: Pickled vegetables or fruits are an excellent ingredient to make cocktails, also can put it in a sandwich or as a snack.
- Chutney: A very ripe vegetable or fruit is very suitable to make a chutney, it is also the best method of processing the leftovers so that it can be stored for a long time.
Most importantly, you need imagination and creative thinking.
“Do not limit yourself as a habit. Try to check what ingredients are always left in your kitchen and try to think creatively. I believe you will be able to create new dishes that both are #delicious and satisfy customer as well as can help reduce #Food waste. Which is helping you to #save both lost money and #increase income as well”
