Question
Robert Kerr
What is your one go to plant based signature dish that could win over anyone to join that trend?
Answer
You know, that's a tough one because everybody has different tastes and I will usually cater to the person that I'm feeding to be able to win them over. Um, and what I typically do is try to make them not even realize that it's a plant-based dish when they're eating it. So I might ask them, you know, like, what are the foods that you don't like before they come over for a dinner? Or, what are some of your favorite foods? Um, you know, I always ask what they don't like, so I'm not serving them something. If they have an aversion to onion or something that like that, or they don't like cinnamon or something like that, I'll make sure not to use those ingredients in the dish. Or like, cilantro is a big one, right? Some people cilantro just tastes like soap to them, right? So it's, uh, would be something that I would avoid completely. Um, but if you're asking them what they don't like, ask 'em at the same time what some of the foods they do like. And if they mention, well, you know, I usually like, you know, will eat a steak or I'll have a hamburger or I'll do, you know, something that's kind of meat centric. Kind of think of what you can do on the plant-based version of something like that. Or otherwise just go something that's just something that's just like, that you like, that you know, is a crowd pleaser, like doing, um, I don't know if you've taken any of our plant-based courses, but, um, you know, doing maybe the chickpea and um, um, like it's, uh, the chickpea, uh, crab cake, which is a really good one. I wanna say it's bamboo shoot that's with it, but I'm not sure it's, it's it's heart's of palm. It's it's hearts of palm and chickpea. Um, and developed that a while ago for the plant-based ProCourse. You know, that one's a very popular one because it's, uh, served on just like a bed of arugula with a little garlic aioli on top that you can make into a tartar sauce. So it's a very familiar kind of flavor profile. Um, if they're like a big steak eater, you could do a big lion's Maine mushroom and, you know, press it down to be able to make it like a steak that's actually nice and sliceable. Um, you know, pasta dishes are always a popular one where people, it's very To be able to work. Um, but as far as you know, signature dishes, it really kind of depends on who you're serving at the moment. Um, and I like to switch that up a little bit to be able to make sure that I'm meeting the needs of their flavor profiles, but also, you know, my own families when I'm serving. Um, you know, working at, uh, different ingredients to be able to make those kind of regular ingredients in my kids' Flavor profiles is always great, but when you have a guest coming over that typically does, uh, eat meat, um, kind of catering to their flavor profiles, definitely the best way to go. Um, so by the time they're done eating, they don't even realize that there wasn't any meat in the dish. So I don't have a single answer for you, just more of a wide encompassing one. I hope that helps a little bit.
