By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays Public Library Herb Day kicked off Saturday with a presentation on healthy cooking with herbs.
Americans cook with a lot of salt, which can be unhealthy, said John Fitzthum, executive chef and food service director for HaysMed.
Fitzthum’s presentation was the first of a slate of speakers for Herb Day, which was sponsored by the Hays Public Library’s Herb Study group. The event also included vendors at the Downtown Pavilion.
Fitzthum gave several examples where home chefs could make their own dishes using herbs with little or no salt.
Fitzthum began with a mirepoix, which is carrots, onions and celery sautéed with herbs. Fitzthum added rosemary, thyme and garlic to his mirepoix. A mirepoix is often used as a base for a stew or soup or roast, but Fitzthum also recommended trying it as a side dish or over a steak.
Fitzthum used no oil or butter, he let the vegetables cook down using their natural moisture in a non-stick pan. Even extra virgin olive oil has 90 calories per tablespoon.
Instead of throwing away his leftover onion bits, the bottom of the celery stalk or the extra bits of carrot and additional herbs, he threw them in a pot with water to reduce into a vegetable broth. He suggested to reduce the liquid by half.
“We often don’t think about it, but we go to the store and we buy a can of beef stock or we buy a can of vegetable stock, but if you look at the label and what is the first thing on the label? Salt. It might not be the first thing, but there is a lot,” he said.
After you cook the broth, the veggies can still go in the compost.
“Everything is processed,” he said. “What I am doing here is processing, but you have to think about how the process is taken. Has it been designed to sit on the shelf for 580 days? When you buy a manufactured can of soup, it is designed to sit on the shelf for 580 days. We all eat it. You eat it. I eat it, but at some point we have to bring this back in. What you are doing being interested in herbs and growing herbs is phenomenal. The more (herbs) we use and the more (herbs) we talk about, the less (salt) we use.”
You can use dried herbs in recipes if they call for fresh, but you will need to cut the herbs in half. Two tablespoons fresh becomes one tablespoon of a dried herb, for example.
He said a key to cooking well is full experiencing the dish as you cook.
“We always say cooking is about taste, but cooking I start to hear it sizzle. I can smell it. I can see it and of course I’m going to taste it. We often underestimate when we are doing a recipe and this is the biggest thing I see … It says 10 minutes add this, add that and we follow it by the book and it is terrible because we are not hearing, we are not seeing, we are not tasting.”
As the mirepoix and vegetable stock cooked down, Fitzthum made a basil pesto. Fitzthum left out the salt when he made his pesto.
Pesto is multi-functional. It can be over pasta or in rice, quinoa or couscous. You can also substitute half of your mayonnaise with pesto.
Fresh basil can also be used with mozzarella, fresh tomato slices and balsamic vinegar to make a quick caprese salad,
“If you are cooking for a thousand people a day, we use a lot of fresh basil, but we don’t get into the different kids of basil. There is lemon basil and orange basil. You get into different flavors and that is how you change your recipe.
“I don’t want to beat anybody I up, I eat the fast food to. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, but I think we get too involved in everything- has-to-taste-the-same-every-time mentality.”
Bringing in fresh ingredients, makes the food so much better, he said. The hospital has planted a herb garden, and Fitzthum is trying to compost.