100 Days, 100 Chefs, 100 Recipes: Day 1 Guy Santoro

Versión en Español

“In Mexico people are quite human, here the environment is different; people need to be treated well”
Guy Santoro.

I decided to begin with a strong dish to go creating ambient, and the chef before us today is one of the 7 Chefs Maître Cuisinier de France present in Mexico, is also President of the Vatel Club de México and Vice-President of the Mexican Delegation of the L’Académie Culinaire de France. Getting to this point, it took time, training, dedication, effort and patience. Gone are the days of the start of his career, when he began working for one star hotels in his native France, the time was an excellent foundation for learning to cook.

Guy Santoro comments that "as a child I dreamed with embracing this profession, who gradually learned to master it like Ratatouille", a film in which he participated in the dubbing of one of the characters.

Arrival in Mexico in 2000 for opening the restaurant Au Pied de Cochon at Hotel Presidente Intercontinental Mexico City where he manages for five years an average of forty people a day and six hundred covers a day and in 2001, under his command , was nominated as Best 4-diamond restaurant in Mexico. In 2005 rose to the position of Executive Chef in the same chain, where he works now and has control over the kitchens of restaurantes Frutas y Flores, La Chimenea, Balmoral, Club Intercontinental, Room Service restaurants and banquets events. Also, it is the restaurant supervisor of L’Alsace a París at famous Presidente Masaryk Street and La Taverne.

For Chef Santoro a dish is not complete, only until it complies with the full satisfaction of five basic aspects: the senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell and predominantly, taste.

Our character which today opens this event: Guy Santoro tells me that he is not and has no diabetic relatives, but yes, friends with diabetes and feels saddened to see them live with ill health. In the restaurants that he has worked there aren’t any dishes in the menu specifically for diabetics (hypoglycemic) menu, but instead dishes low in calories (hipocaloric). However, among the books he has written is: the kitchen of Michel Montignac (1990) which deals with Dietetics, avoiding sugar, animal fat, seafood, vegetables with starch white bread, white rice, alcohols, etc which gives greater knowledge of how to combine ingredients in medium and low glycogenic index that are beneficial in avoiding sharp increases of blood glucose.

Chef Santoro has many favorite dishes, some simple and others more elaborate. Among his favorites is pasta, but also delights witch a Legume Strudel (“Mil Hojas De Legumbres” in Spanish), that he now shares. Both can be prepared with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter®, its healthy qualities and its very balanced vitamin content for food preparation.

Vegetable Strudel in Cilantro Sauce
Serving for 10 Persons

Ingredients

• For The Confit Tomatoes

1 Kg Tomato
1 Clove of Garlic
2 Leaves of Thyme
15 Cl Olive Oil
10 grams Sugar
6 grams of fine salt
2 grams of white pepper

• For Cilantro sauce

200 grams Coriander
15 Cl Olive Oil
6 grams of fine salt
2 grams of white pepper

• For Strudel

300 grams of Carrot
250 grams of Pumpkin
250 grams of Mushrooms
400 grams of spinach
700 grams of Big Alfa Potato
10 Chambray Onions
10 Branches of parsley
10 Branches of Thyme
20 grams of salt
5 grams of White Pepper
10 Cl Olive Oil
50 grams Colored Tortilla
2 grams of Cumin

Preparing Cilantro Sauce

• Wash and disinfect the cilantro, boil water in a sauce pan, blanch the cilantro rapidly cool it in ice water.
• Blend the cilantro with the olive oil; add salt and pepper, strain fine.

Preparing Confit Tomatoes

• Boil water in a sauce pan, place the tomatoes for 15 seconds in poaching then cool in cold water.
• Peel and slice the tomatoes in half, remove seeds then strain
• Place the tomatoes on a baking tray, add the olive oil, the thyme leafs, the garlic clove filleted, season with salt and pepper.
• Bake for 45 minutes at 130 ° C, 15 minutes before done cooking add the sugar on top. When done remove from oven and let cool.

Preparation of puff pastry

• Wash and disinfect all legumes.
• Cook the spinach in a hot pan with olive oil and allow cooling after cooking.
• Peel and cut carrots with a Japanese mandolin sliced style tagliatelle. Cook the carrot slices in salted water, cool them in ice water.
• Slice the squash (only the green skin), boil the slices in salted water, and cool them in the same way.
• Peel and cut the alpha potatoes into slices half a centimeter thick and disk as 8 cm. in diameter, cooked in salted water.
• Filet the mushrooms and sauté with a little olive oil, season with salt and pepper.
• Peel the chambray onions and cook in salted water, cool them.
• Fry the parsley leaves. Cut the color tortillas into thin julienne, frying and seasoning.
• Sauté all vegetables besides potatoes individually with olive oil, add the chopped thyme, season with salt and pepper. Add the cumin powder to the carrots

Mounting

• Place 10 rings of 8 cm. diameter in a baking dish with a paper star.
• Successively place the potato slices, the carrots, the squash, the mushrooms and spinach.
• Finish with the confit tomato, chambray onion garnish cut in half, parsley leaves and colored chips.
• Finally add the cilantro sauce around.

BON APPETIT ¡!!!!!!

Getting to publish the first interview and have the other 99 ready not been easy, but has also had its rewards and one of them is having enough time with the recipes, which has given me the opportunity to prepare them.
This recipe is for 10 people, so one Sunday I invited my brothers and wives to dinner. The preparation of the full menu of family reunion will be posted on November 14 in "Cooking With All Senses" not to get ahead with the remaining 79 recipes.