We continued our exploration of food waste in the classroom by watching Los Angeles-based chef Kwame Onwuachi talk about how he solves for food waste at his restaurant and in his person life. Last week we learned a recipe for how to give raw produce new life using a simple edible rice wrapper to make a spring roll. This week, the fourth and fifth grade chefs made a cooked meal of vegetable pancakes that easily transforms whatever you have on hand into something delicious and nutritious.
Students grated, ribboned, and sliced lacinato (also known as "dino”) kale, carrot, purple cabbage, leek, and Russet potato, squeezed out as much moisture as they could, then formed a batter by combining the vegetables with flour, eggs, salt, pepper, baking powder, and chopped herbs. They fried the pancakes and enjoyed the finished product with Maldon salt and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
To prepare for our grand finale dessert, a citrus sorbet with food waste candy (also known as candied citrus peel), those who had time worked their way through a giant plate of citrus, juicing Ruby Red grapefruits, Meyer lemons, limes, Valencia oranges, and navel oranges and reserving their peels for the candying process. Due to our electricity access challenges, we didn’t have time to candy in the kitchen classroom, but students did watch one of the masters of the craft, Jacques Pépin, demonstrate on one of his PBS shows. Everyone particularly enjoyed the theatrical part where he ignites a fire by squeezing the essential oils from an orange rind into the stove.
