If I wasn’t so polite, I’d lick the empty salad bowl at SPIN! Neapolitan Pizza, after eating the Sonoma Salad. The delicious addicting ingredient is blood orange puree in the blood orange vinaigrette. It’s not a flavor you taste every day, unless you eat there every day.
That novel ingredient is part of the best-kept secret among restaurants—produce purees. But I predict they will burst out of the closet as restaurants scramble to come up with more healthful preparations, thanks to pending restaurant nutrition labeling regulations. As an update, the FDA has already released its proposals that will require nutrition labeling (including calorie counts) on menus and menu boards in restaurant chains with 20 or more units. The rules are in the review phase with a final rule expected by the end of this year. Meanwhile, any natural ingredient is gold to menu developers right now, and that brings us back to our produce purees. In the current issue of the National Culinary Review magazine, I have an article, “Produce Purees: Spoonfuls of Value,” that covers this very topic. (View the article at the right under “My Articles.”) Here are some interesting tidbits about fruit and vegetable purees:
You know that wonderful raspberry lemonade at The Cheesecake Factory? It wouldn’t be what it is without raspberry puree. Some restaurants would make it with syrup, but The Cheesecake Factory thinks “fresh,” and that makes a huge difference.
Restaurants don’t have to make their own puree. There are excellent ones available year-round from suppliers. One of the best is The Perfect Purée of Napa Valley, LLC, Napa, Calif. Of the multitude of purees they have available, raspberry and mango purees are the most popular.
- Condiments like mustard and ketchup can be switched up with purees, like electric-pink prickly pear mustard or Caribbean pink guava ketchup. These are creations of chef/author/instructor Dave Martin who developed them for a new food truck, New York’s The Frying Dutchmen, using purees.
- Produce purees work well in meat sauces, like Martin’s roasted peaches and plums puree with cinnamon, lime juice and honey or agave served with mango/apple chicken.
Instead of tomato sauce, Eagle Creek Pizza in Indianapolis uses roasted red pepper puree as the sauce base for a vegetarian pizza that features goat cheese, vegetables, olives and basil.
The trendiest of all—drinks are playing host to produce purees. It’s a night and day difference in the quality and flavor of the drink. This is where casual to upscale restaurants can really set themselves apart. It’s something they need to do as quick-serve and fast-casual restaurants continue to impress with their menu innovation. After all, no matter how many new items McDonald’s adds to the menu, it’s going to find the cheapest way to do it, and so you may never see produce purees there.
That’s what I think. Tell me what you think.
Jody
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