Waste. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. And therein lies the rub.
Perhaps it was during the pandemic making all those home-cooked meals that you became painfully aware of how much of it you produce. Maybe you put scallions in a jar of water and watched them miraculously regrow. Or, you finally got serious about saving your vegetable scraps and chicken bones to make stock.
But when it comes to utilizing ingredients to their fullest, chefs are the ultimate experts. These days, with their bottom lines more razor-thin than ever, they are MacGyvering plenty of solutions to do more with less. Here, we asked some Chicago chefs how they make most of their ingredients — at their restaurants and at home.
In their restaurants
“The first thing I want the staff to buy into is as close to zero waste as possible,” said chef Rodolfo Cuadros of Amaru, Bloom Plant Based Kitchen and Lil Amaru. “I try to get everyone to realize this planet is not a sure thing forever.”
For Cuadros that starts with buying as much local, in-season produce as possible, which in addition to tasting better, improves shelf-life by spending less time in transit.
Farm Bar’s chef David Wakefield credits time spent working at a remote luxury lodge in Alaska for his knowledge of sustainable cooking and respect for ingredients. Fermenting, salting, drying and smoking are all techniques he mastered there and uses today at the Lakeview restaurant.
For Wakefield, the sustainability of ingredients, many of which come from Farm Bar’s owner’s Wisconsin farm, starts before the items arrive at the Lakeview restaurant.
“We try and order only what we need,” he said. “Spoilage is a huge thing.”
At Virtue, chef Damarr Brown credits his “nothing goes in the garbage” attitude to the older chefs he’s been fortunate to work with, including the Hyde Park restaurant’s owner, Erick Williams.
“We are always trying to think of creative ways to use things that other people might perceive as scraps and how we can repurpose those into something that’s good,” said Brown.
When the restaurant had leftover duck breast from a party, it was cured and turned into prosciutto. When it came out too salty, Brown put it into a dehydrator upping its saltiness. The end result? A finishing duck salt that is micro-planned onto foie gras toast.
“We took a training moment, turned it into an a-ha moment and now it’s something we are looking at making on purpose,” he said.
At Cariño, chef Norman Fenton created a second concept, a late-night taco omakase, to utilize some of the by-products from the Latin-inspired fine dining restaurant’s tasting menu and to create a lower-priced option for diners.
“When we are cutting perfectly brunoised vegetables, we get a lot of leftover pieces that we want to find homes for and not staff meal or the trash can,” said Fenton.
Carrot scraps, for example, are used to make a carrot guajillo salsa.
Experimenting and being willing to make mistakes are part of the day-to-day operations at Galit for chef Zach Engel.
Past experiments have included dehydrating the skins of chamomile-poached tomatoes to create a tomato powder, which adds an unexpected juicy freshness to a dish. Green garlic and ramp tops are dehydrated too to add brightness to dishes and dressings. Concord grapes from a local farmer were juiced and made into a jelly.
“When I limit myself in certain ways and have restrictions, I find creative means to come up with a solution,” he said.
At Daisies, cross-utilizing leftover scraps, whether it’s peels, roots or stems, between the kitchen, pastry department and bar is built into the ethos of the restaurant, which received a Michelin Green star for its environmentally friendly practices.
“Coming from mostly independent restaurants, it’s about how to monetize everything you can, first and foremost, but it’s also the responsible thing to do,” said chef Joe Frillman. “It also teaches the people around you.”
Reinforcing the flavor of an ingredient also comes into play when thinking of ways to upcycle at Daisies. Carrot peels, for example, are turned into a powder.
Daisies’ signature pastas are an easy vehicle to utilize ingredients, said Frillman. Leftover beef tongue from a protein course became the filling for ravioli. With the upcoming asparagus season on the horizon, much of which will come from Frillman’s brother Tim’s Michigan farm, the ends will be pureed into a sauce and baked into a pastry custard.
At Eden, a lot of its produce comes from its large greenhouse nearby. There, chef Devon Quinn grows 46 types of vegetables, herbs and edible flowers. Inevitably, there are leftovers.
“Freezing, fermenting, salting and dehydrating are our main ways of preserving here,” he said. “These are simple processes that people have been doing for thousands of years.”
A recent surplus of garlic chives was turned into kimchi. Blueberries bought in bulk from a favorite local farmer were lacto-fermented and turned into a blueberry jus for a steak dish that also included house-pickled daikon.
When trimming meat, the leftover fat is clarified and used to cook something else. Leftover braised meat juices are turned into a sauce.
Bought items also have a second life at Eden, said Quinn. Pickle brine becomes part of Eden’s fried chicken brine and oil from jarred artichokes is used to confit vegetables.
“I am always challenging our staff to be thinking with foresight before they begin a project,” said Quinn. “Sometimes these things fail, but we have compost bins for that.”
When butchering whole fish at Tanta, chef Gee Cuyugan uses the trimmings, which are combined with lime juice, ginger, garlic, habanero chiles and onion and then strained, to add flavor and viscosity to his leche de tigre sauce for cebiche. Fish bones are saved for stock and sauces.
Finding the balance between keeping the cost of labor down and being intentional about upcycling ingredients is always top of mind for Oakville Grill & Cellar chef Max Robbins. One application that satisfies is a signature barbecue sauce for a salmon dish made using leftover kale stems, infusing a potlikker-style flavor to the sauce.
At Bridgeport’s Kimski, chef Won Kim finds that teaching his kitchen staff to make the most of ingredients has benefits beyond financial and environmental.
“It gets my cooks’ brains working to come up with something different,” said Kim.
A recent rice pudding dessert created by line cook Richard Smith is a good example. Leftover sushi rice was combined with star anise, cinnamon and cream and topped with toasted almonds, coconut and a drizzle of maple syrup.
“The rice got a second wind in a whole different matter and gave a sense of pride to the cook to have an item on the menu,” said Kim.
Behind the bar
It’s not just in their kitchens where chefs find opportunities to implement upcycled practices.
“We use wine that’s been open for a couple of days for cooking,” said chef Paul Virant of Gaijin, Vistro Prime and soon-to-open Petite Vie. In the past, wine was also used to make vinegar.
Often lemons and limes have their zest and peels used, the latter of which often get candied for a dessert garnish. Sangria is another way to take advantage of leftover fruit, he said.
Herbs and vegetables from last summer are used to make bitters at Mordecai, creating a robust tincture library for the Wrigleyville bar, said chef Djibril Webb. Carrot tops are used to make bitters and are incorporated into pesto and salads.
At Daisies, raspberry puree leftover from a raspberry pretzel pie was turned into a housemade soda. Leftover herbs are macerated with simple syrup to create a base for an herbaceous lemon-lime soda. Fermented mushroom stems are infused into tequila for the restaurant’s signature mushroom margarita. Daisies makes its own kombucha too from different peels and scraps.
At-home tips
At home, Cuadros extends the life of herbs, such as cilantro or parsley, by putting them in a jar with water and covering them with a plastic bag before placing in the refrigerator. Thyme gets wrapped in a moist towel.
Meal planning is huge for Publican Quality Meat’s Rob Levitt when it comes to the cooking he and his wife, Allie, do at home.
“It sounds like a daunting task, but it’s just a matter of keeping an inventory of what’s in your fridge and freezer so you can assess if you need to buy more food or can make something out of what you have,” he said. He recommends see-through bins to make the inventory-taking easier.
A quart or two of homemade stock in zip-close bags laid flat, which takes up less space, is always in their freezer. That stock can quickly become a hearty soup by adding in leftover grains and vegetables.
When cooking bacon, Levitt, a chef and butcher, pours the rendered fat into a container. “A friend told me that on his grandmother’s deathbed, she said the secret to her chocolate chip cookies was substituting some bacon fat for butter,” he said.
“It’s important to think outside the box,” Fenton said. “At end of day, there are so many techniques you can do with food. Don’t be afraid to experiment.”
Engel recommends home cooks do research via books or the internet. “Nothing I’m doing is that crazy,” he said. “I’m taking existing cooking techniques and applying them to different ingredients.”
For home cooks, Frillman recommends buying whole products as much as possible. Leafy radish tops can be used in a salad, while beet and turnip tops can be pickled.
As for that leftover rice from your recent delivery order? Kim recommends fried rice — extra points if you incorporate leftover vegetables and proteins. Refrigerating the rice dehydrates it, making it better at absorbing flavors.
For those who think this kind of creativity only happens in professional kitchens, think again.
“I learned so much just cooking for myself at home,” Kim said. “That’s where a lot of my ideas come from.”
Lisa Shames is a freelance writer.
