Knowledge Base › Eric Wynkoop - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

I made a great roasted kale salad with cranberries and almonds, dressed with a lemon mustard vinaigrette. All great except despite taking out the large stems of kale, and massaging it all, parts were still too stringy to serve to anyone. Any suggestions?

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Eric Wynkoop - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Recorded

This event was on November 1, 2022

Join Chef Eric Wynkoop in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Eric is ready to answer them all.

View Event Details

Question

Marsha Seidelman

I made a great roasted kale salad with cranberries and almonds, dressed with a lemon mustard vinaigrette. All great except despite taking out the large stems of kale, and massaging it all, parts were still too stringy to serve to anyone. Any suggestions?

Answer

Well, so you can try to use younger kale definitely, you know as these leafy vegetables mature the the fiber and the screen this gets more robust. And so that's going to be you know, one way to do that. You can also, you know tear it or cut it down you want to cut it against the grain of the the fibers and you know, so if you have the the leaf that grows out this way and then the fibers basically growing out in this direction, then you want to cut it across the grain so that you're shortening the the length of these fibers. Okay, which makes it a little bit easier to chew on the other hand. If you were to cut it this way along the fibers, even though you might still have the same thin strips or pieces of vegetable. You're going to have these long Fibers intact and you're going to be chewing on stuff and eventually pulling it out of your mouth and placing on the rim of your plate, right and so and take into consideration how the maturity of the leaf and then also how you might tear it or cut it. All right.

Eric Wynkoop

Director of Culinary Instruction

Eric Wynkoop previously served as a founding faculty member at The International Culinary School, instructor in anthropology at Portland State University, and Senior Instructor at the Le Cordon Bleu program at Western Culinary Institute, in Portland, Oregon. He holds Master’s Degrees in postsecondary education and cultural anthropology, as well as credentials in Ayurveda wellness and cooking. Eric has spent more than twenty years in the food and beverage industry. His experiences include banquet management, catering, personal chef, winery cellar hand, educator, textbook contributor, consultant, and ethnographer. He also brings food and cultural insight from nearly a decade of residence in Japan, studies in Mexico, and research in India as a Fulbright Scholar. After graduating from the University of Oregon with a dual degree in Japanese and Asian Studies, he went on to receive his formal culinary training at Western Culinary Institute, in Portland, Oregon. Eric’s role with Rouxbe is central to enhancing the student experience through quality course content and new course development at Rouxbe. Eric is also the lead instructor in Rouxbe courses, a role which he has enjoyed since 2016.