Casa del Abuelo Art Hotel, Baños de Agua Santa, Ecuador
The art of cooking is the art of living well, the art of sensibility and recognition to all that nature has provided for us; cooking is translating that same recognition by transforming food into smiles and memories filled with flavor. The hectic pace of modern living and it’s ever so demanding routine has driven us to eating habits that give us enough energy to keep up; still, we must not forget that food should also feed the soul. Food that is prepared with fresh organic products that maintain nature’s fragile balance, food that is prepared with care and love, that is our culinary philosophy.When it comes to food, we seek to be authentic, we seek to find cohesion between our beliefs and our life’s’ work. We encourage ecological awareness and all that’s prepared at Casa Del Abuelo Art Hotel is the result of deep analytic thinking about food and life.Thanks to our organic garden we are able to frequently change our menus and our kitchen is constantly evolving…sensitively moved by all positive influence. Our aim is that our guests have an intense firsthand culinary experience, which is why we cook “live” for them, creating a space of harmonious balance between our knowledge, the sounds coming from the grill, the aromas of our preparations and the energy of our clients…all synchronized to offer satisfaction in every sense. Having my own bussines means I have a place to express myself as a cook, you are all invited to this culinary adventure!
A few weeks ago we did a culinary arts demonstration event with ADF ( Alain Ducasse Formation ) Chef Nicolas Navarro came to share the spirit of Ducasse's art and his concern about creating a sustainable cooking. It is always a pleasure to work with such good professionals. Learning from good chefs is very important for me and I feel lucky for having the chance to have worked beside great chefs. It is my turn now to grow as a person and as a chef. I feel ready for new challenges. I would never like to stop learning. Cooking is part of my soul. I want to do great things and will work hard to make my dreams come true. I like to share my experiences, this is a window for my passion, for this unique art that not many people understand deeply.
Masters of Food & Wine Tour of the World Buenos Aires 2010
The Masters of Food And Wine is a culinary event organized by the Hyatt Corporation, it takes place in Buenos Aires, Washington and Paris since 2008.
I had the honor to represent Ecuador in this food and wine world class event in Buenos Aires. It was a great experience to be part of such well organized encounter. There where chefs from all over the world representing their countries. Our recipes where in good company, we had the best wineries in Argentina sharing their best wines, making of this event something hard to forget. We where treated in such an elegant and professional way by the Hyatt staff that I was very surprised of how the high standars are kept in this beautiful hotel-palace. In this image, the General Manager of the Hyatt Hotel in Buenos Aires, Mr Antonio Alvarez, gives a speach after a typical argentinian barbeque followed by the best polo in the world in one of the city's best estancia. Thank you all for such hospitality!
This was part of a catering event in Los Angeles, California a few days ago. One of the 14 different appetizers served, grilled scalops with a cauliflower, coconut and green curry pure. A mango chip added color and crunchiness. It is very interesting to work in different countries, places like Los Angeles offers very up-scaled markets where I was able to find the best organic products. Steamed cod, endives mermelade with an orange vinagrette and black sesame seeds, Alaskan salmon “Salpicón”, cucumber, watermelon and avocado salad with a sake marinade, and a chocolate cake with a kumquat coulis where also part of this celebration where food and graphic arts melted together.
Madrid Fusion is a very important culinary summit that takes place once a year in Madrid, where very important chefs from all over the world meet together and show us how this art is able to evolve.
The main message was to create a sutainable way of cooking by being a responsable human being, aware of the actual situation in terms of enviromental issues, ready to be part of the change.
It was a very nice culinary trip. I had the chance to see very good chefs in action.This is Ferran Adria, he has a very unique way to cook and I think that only him is able to perfom this new way of treating the products. Altough many chefs all over the world focus too much in this " Molecular cooking " and forget that the bases are the most important in a professional chef carreer. Ferran Adria knows the rules and hi is capable of breacking them with results that have left everyone surprised, this is his art and we should all find our own.
This beautiful "Chapon Farci" was one of the many recipes we prepared at Alain Ducasse Formation in Paris, one of the best schools for professionals in the world. Last january I had the chance to do the " poissons et crustaces " seminar. It was very nice to learn more about Alain Ducasse cuisine. The team is very professional, the quality, very high. Cuisine Standard represents Alain Ducasse Formation in Ecuador, it is a pleasure to work with them and we will do interesting projects together. I would like to thank the team for their hospitality and for trusting my company as well.
As I take a deep breath, I look back into my memories. It has been overwelming so far and I can’t stop being amazed by so many things. Living with a passion for something makes it nice, doing what you love to do makes it even better. The food we eat becomes our spirit. Memories with taste. Food can make life really smooth.
This was todays lunch, Grouper stuffed with sauted chard and confit lime, around, bellota ham, armagnac deglasage.
I want this year to be the year for food, for everybody, for the poor and for those who are hungry, for the children. I want this year to be full of sharing and hope, full of smiles and creation, full of meanings and curiosity, full of love, full of life.
A few green baby leaves, tarragon vinagrette, parmesan flakes. Half spoon of peanut butter to avoid the egg shell from moving. Inside, classic brouillade, tomato bread spiral, white truffle oil. Why say more...
I went down to one of the Ecuadorian jungle gates, the city of Puyo. As usual, I visited one of the local markets. I wanted to discover new products and this was definetly the place to do it. A big variety of fresh water fish, strange fruits and vegetables, and also a few larvaes, not to mention turtles, armadillos, snakes, and the local drinks, like chicha, amazed me enough to make me want to cook something. What you see is a different way of being "gourmet", term that I consider to be a bit overused these days. I made a vegetable broth by using "papa china" a wild potato from the Amazon. I used it to cook a few "carachama" turtle eggs, they have a really soft skin. Some local herbs added flavor and color as well as the grilled palm tree larva "brochete". Good food also means new food, creatures like insects are a very good source of protein. Alternative food can be prepared in a fancy way if you are open minded enough to try.
The art of cooking is something so intense that it can be percieved by all of our senses, deeply. We have the capacity to actually eat what hopefully could be named as art. We are able to have memories about colors, shapes, textures, sounds, and even better, flavors. A good meal can take us far back into our memories, a good restaurant is like an eatable art factory.
I was going through some pictures of an eight course menu made for a company a few weeks ago, this was the last main course served, pigeon ravioli with a slow cooked pear in a reduction of port wine and cardamom, amaranth flowers and a oregano "jus " gave the last touch of freshness before dessert. The plate for me is like a canvas for the painter. As you can see, sometimes cooks have sideways ideas.
I believe that human beings are incredibly smart and have the unique talent to create. I also think that humankind has managed to destroy so much, but as I have learned, it's too late to be a pessimist. We must move on trying not to harm anything or anybody, we need a clean enviroment so life can go on.
Maintaining our traditions is a way to keep our culture alive. There is so much to see in the world we live in, yet life is just too short.
These days we celebrate the "finados" holiday, to remember those who have passed away. In Ecuador and in other neighbouring countries we have kept the tradition of making "guaguas de pan" or dough dolls to go with the "colada morada", a purple, hearty drink made with a variety of fruits; some are turned into juice and others into mermelade. To thicken and add color to this beverage we use a rare black corn flour. Spices like sweet pepper, cinnamon and a kind of flower called "ishpingo", plus aromatic herbs such as lemon grass, lemon verbena, amaranto and orange leaf are used to enhance the flavors. It is a very special time to share with the family and be able to see grandma and the youngest members working together on these recipes, keeping our traditions alive.
Some people say to be too busy when it comes to cooking, I believe is healthy to consider that good things deserve time in life; eating well is one of them.
With simple things you can do something fun. This was a family sunday lunch made of sauted organic prawns that I had half opened before in order to leave them flat. I also addded a few clams that I cooked "meuniere" style, also using the juice that came out, as a light sea broth to help enhance with the flavor when cooking the prawns.
The wild rice was slow cooked with chicken stock, leaving a nice "al dente" texture by not cooking it too much. As a source of flavor and color, I used a thick red onion ring that was roasted with olive oil and a little white wine, on top a few caramelized corn grains added flavor and volume as well as the sauted ruccola on the left. A couple of sauces added the final touch, one was a tarragon vinagrette and a spicy sauce made of a variety of vegetables cut in brunoise. This dish would take about half an hour to prepare. If you have the patience to cook, you have the patience to be happy.
Soups are easy to digest, they are good in hot or cold weather and you have an enormous variety of options to try from all over the world.
This one is a fava bean creamy soup with sauted calamary in the center, chive oil. Chopped pistachio adds the final touch to it. To prepare it, wash the fava beens, boil them in hot salty water for a a minute or two then put them in cold water to make them greener, once cold peal them and cook them with chicken stock. When they are soft, blend them and season them with salt and pepper, you can add whipped cream or just regular cream, not too much, you don't want to make it heavy or greasy. Once you have the soup ready to go, use a very hot frying pan to pan fry the chopped calamary, give a light garlic touch and use coriander and lemon to finish. Serve the soup in a bowl, place a round piece of toasted bread with olive oil in the center and finally add the calamary, the chive oil and the chopped pistachio. Enjoy.
This fruit salad was made of a variety of fruits, such as; mango, apple, green grape, hawaiian papaya, kiwi, mandarine, watermellon, passion fruit and also some local exotic fruits like uvilla, tomate de arbol, naranjilla and guanabana, a delicious white flesh fruit with an extraordinary perfume and flavor. Every fruit was prepared in three different ways, fresh, confit and dehydrated, giving a special sensation when eated. It was also mixed with a ginger sirop, orange juice and Cointreau. On top I used a lemon zest crumble to give a crunchy start to this fruit salad. Try it out!
I was traveling in the jungle region of Ecuador, in Zamora Chinchipe near the border to Peru in the south of the country. I learned about new culinary traditions, like a green banana soup with lemon and cheese called Repe, very tasty by the way, or the "cesinas", dryed pork meat that is grilled afterwards obtaining a very delicious flavor. And there is a lot more to eat in this region; monkeys, big snakes, strange fish, exotic plants, ants, and other creatures are part of the daily menu. I was surprised to see this beverages and stoped to find out more. They make diferent types of alcohol, some of them made with a variety of animal sexual organs which are ment to give man a "better performance", others like the ones in the picture above have snakes inside and are suposed to be good for the kidneys, I tried a couple and found them interesting, altought I was also aware that these are 90 % alcohol beverages and just a few can cause drunkness very fast.
I have been away from El Sarten, although my culinary life has not stoped at all, in fact I have been working very hard in order to build a new company, Cuisine Standard. This is about giving existing bussines a wide menu of culinary solutions, and helping rising bussines on their way to succes. One of our services consist in organizing events like this one made in Ecuador. We organized a conference related to new technologies used for cooking. The Master Chef Georges Pralus came to show us his creations, including the cryo vacking cooking system and the " Vapo Saveur", a new technique where we use a microwave to cook in the healthiest, fastest and most economic way posible, by using only 60 grams of water to cook vegetables for almost 2 hours instead of using 10 liters , steaming them inside this special bell shaped object. It was hard for me to believe in using a microwave to cook. Normally I dont like them, but this genius of the culinary world has shouwn me this revolutionary technique that could be a great option for countries where water is hard to find. I was shy to share a stage with Georges Pralus, we had almost 400 people in this conference that was a very nice start for Cuisine Standard. I am also happy to be back in El Sarten.
We live in a world full of diversity, where we can explore so much. We need to be curious and have the will to try. In the kitchen I find a whole universe of things, different shapes and colors, flavors, textures, perfumes. All we need to do is open our senses and let them guide us to creation. When you are passionate about food, you become attentive to everything, the minimum detail is something to be considered, deeply. If you like vegetables, you can become one, it just feels like you are part of nature. Go and discover your own galaxy of food.
Early in the morning, I started getting the clay oven ready. The nigh before I had prepared my vegetables mise en place. I wanted to do an individual side dish to go with the marinated roasted lamb. I made a variety of 17 different vegetables and one fruit, each one of them cooked separately by respecting their organoleptic identities. One of them, the yucca had an asafran touch, and the fruit was a honey and butter roasted pineapple, the other vegetables where mostly prepared by respecting their original flavors.
I also made a vegetable broth with the left overs, then reduced it, and gave it a bacon perfume, I also added a few small pieces of fresh goat cheese for it to melt. This broth was added right before they went into the clay oven, where the lamb was almost ready. I also added a baby lamb rib to each of the vegetables side dish. This menu dedicated to lamb was a good option for that rainy day. The clay oven gives everything a very good taste.
Foie Gras is a specially fattened liver of a duck or goose, that has been part of a process called gavage ( corn force-feeding ). It is a very well known delicacy in French cuisine, it has a rich and delicate flavor unlike that of a regular duck or goose liver.
This technique dates as far as 2500 BC, the ancient Egyptians used birds for food, and fattened them through force- feeding. These days this process is controversial in many countries and some of them have adopted a natural voluntary feeding process with good results. It is a very versatile product, used as terrines, pâtés, parfaits, foams and mousses it can also be part of a sauce, or used to stuff raviolis, or even marinated with Cognac or Armagnac, then seasoned and cooked mi-cuit. The easiest way to eat it is to spread it on a piece of toasted bread, then season it with salt crystals and black pepper, and finally add a touch of sweet, as a jelly or marmalade. It goes well with a late harvest chilled wine. In my house we made a papaya - ginger marmalade to go with this Laguiole foie gras sent to us by Michel Bras!
This dish was made in a very short period of time, although, the result was quite good. Red tuna fish is a good option when it comes to preparing a quick meal, it only takes a minute to be ready, you can grill it or pan fry it. Remember that in general fish should not be overcooked, specially this kind of fish that offers a tender and delicate texture when raw. I prepared a variety of vegetables such as bell peppers, celery, green onion, carrots, and a type of radish, I chopped them “ julienne” and then sauteed them with garlic perfumed olive oil. I also found some coconut milk so I added a wasabi touch to it and made and emulsion to go as a sauce.
After a long trip back from Chile, I wanted to prepare something easy and new, I found some beef tongue and some sweet potato from the Andes called “ Camote “ , I made some tannic red wine jelly and a fig vinaigrette to go with my slow cooked tongue, and I added herbs and a garlic touch to this sweet potato “ cigar “ which I finally rolled on a pumpkin seed gomasio.
I am now in this beautiful part of the world, the south of Chile, in the Lago de todos los Santos. These overwhelming landscapes inspire me to share a few words with all of you. It is amazing to be here and to be able to try all the products that this land has to offer, soon I will update El Sarten with images and all about this culinary adventure. This lake is the door to Patagonia, surrounded by volcanoes like this one, the Osorno.
I decided to make a vegetarian week, I have been eating lots of greens, raw vegetables, and a big variety of fruits and honestly I feel great. Vegetables can actually change your mood. They can be used as a simple salad or as a gourmet dish, this is a yucca pure with azafran flames, stuffed vegetables, roasted eggplant and onions and a few toasted pumpkin seeds. Choose them well, wash them well and let your body tell you what to do with them. The consumption of organic food is good for you health and can also contribute to make a better world. If you can, grow your own.
It is always good to try something new when cooking. This time I used a type of wok that comes from the south of Chile, and it was originally used to work the fields by moving the earth with metal plates pulled by bulls. These days we can find and industrial version of it. I used it to make asian-style food, something like Thai food. I used a mix of seafood such as calamari, shrimp, a few types of shellfish and three different types of fish, I also added some chicken breast and some pork tenderloin. To start, I sautéed finely chopped onions, green and red peppers and some ginger. The Thai touch consisted of giving all the ingredients a good balance between coconut and green curry. I was also careful to respect the right time to add each ingredient to my preparation.
This weekend we made a special trip to the south coast of Ecuador, the final destination was an ecological resort near the town of Puerto Lopez. Every year from June to the end of September the hump back whales come to this region of the world to give birth and reproduce, they have their annual holidays here. After, some will go to the south pole and others to the north pole. It was amazing to get to watch this beautiful and peaceful creatures in their habitat. While camping the idea was to make our own food, in the freshest way possible of course. We found a fisherman returning from the afternoon fishing. We bought two king crabs, some fish and a few vegetables and transformed them in a very nice moment shared between family and friends, to be honest it was delicious. It is great to cook with products that are just coming out of the sea combined with beautiful nature around us.
This uruguayan lamb was spit-roasted last saturday in my house. After eight hours of slow cooking the result was very good. It was seasoned with some “chimichurri” a typical sauce that is made with garlic, parsley, oregano, salt, pepper vinegar and olive oil, a few drops of beer once on a while also helped with the taste. It was also a nice occasion to share with family and friends, all together around the ambers, seduced by the tempting smell. A fresh quinoa salad with mint, a big green salad, home made bread, some slow cooked “chaucha” potatoes and a red pepper antipasti where also part of this meal before we served a light biscuit with a lime vierge sauce to give a fresh end to our celebration.
One of my favorite ways of preparing food has always been rustic, spontaneous and natural. The clay oven is a great option when it comes to making good things to eat. You can prepare a whole baby pork with roasted vegetables, or a leg of lamb marinated in oregano, olive oil and garlic, just as well as a home made chocolate cake. Last Sunday we prepared chilean empanadas, which consist in a local traditional dough stuffed with finely chopped stewed beef, caramelized onions, a black olive and a few dried raisins, everything needs to be well seasoned. Some fresh herbs would give the final touch before they are sealed and sent to the clay oven.
Every day I try to add some rock & roll to the ecuadorian traditional food, this is a ceviche , a traditional dish from the coast of Ecuador, and also from other neighbor countries such as Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina, each one of them has its own version, mine was to give it an asparagus and lime touch by turning it into a smooth jelly as a base, some raw, finely chopped asparagus heads on top, followed by a green banana biscuit that holds the fish ceviche, which consists of marinated white fish with red onions, a touch of garlic, cilantro, a bit of ginger, some green chili, tomatoes and a few chopped cappers. Everything needs to be well seasoned with salt, pepper and olive oil. It is very simple to make and to enjoy.
This dish was made last sunday at my house in Quito , Ecuador, where my family and I enjoyed a very nice moment. The menu consisted of roasted prawns with a naranjilla ( local exotic fruit ) vinaigrette and a few glazed garden carrots in a orange-cumin sauce and pured fava beens, very simple to make.
Isolated in the mountains of Hokkaido , in the north of Japan, the village of Toya, hosted the group of leaders from the G8 with an official dinner at Michel Bras restaurant located in the Windsor Hotel Toya.
I asked Michel for an image with all the presidents for El Sarten. His answer was no; " it's not my style" he said, but he did give me this image of the menu served on the night of the 8th of july 2008 , and I should thank him for it. A simple and great man who is not afraid to share his passion and philosophy with us every day, but is shy enough to avoid showing pictures with the presidents of the most powerful economies in the world. For me it was more than enough, here I share it with you.
After a serious mountain-bike ride, we decided to stop for our picnic in the meadows in l’Aubrac. Before we left we made some bulgur wheat and added some fresh vegetables, shallots, radish, courgette, and bacon. Once we had sat down we seasoned our salad with what we found around us: “sistre” a plant of the dill family (the symbol of Michel Bras) and some flowers like “pensees” and “potentilles”. It felt just great to give this special touch to our meal, taking only what we needed and enjoying it in the freshest way possible. It is great to be surprised by simplicity.
The cryo-vracking phenomenon started 25 years ago. It's a cooking method that allows us to preserve all the qualities of a product and to greatly extend its period of durability in safe conditions. It has revolutionised the way the restauration business functions. Using this technique, it is possible to manipulate and control the temperature at which a product is cooked almost to perfection.
Mr. Bruno Gaussault, scientist and president of CREA ( Centre de recherche et d'études pour l'alimentation), affirms that « cooking a product immersed in water is the best way to get the best quality ». It is easy to regulate the temperature of water with great precision, making it the best and the simplest way to heat or cool a product. But how can the damage caused to a product that has come into direct contact with water best be avoided? The answer is to protect the product from the water by vacuum sealing it into special bags. It will then be possible to perfectly preserve the texture, aroma and flavour of the product, as well as monitoring how it cooks with the accuracy of a digital thermometer. It has enabled chefs to save time and improve quality - it's a complete revolution.
We had a one week course on cryo-vacking with Mr. Gaussault, also president of the number one company in the world, cuisine solutions, and we did plenty of experiments using fish, meat and vegetable: it means cooking at the right temperature, respecting the hygiene with amazing results, and above all, it means giving new solutions.
Here's some useful information:
After our tests we discovered the correct core temperatures for the following products:
Fish: 58-60°C
Beef: 58-60°C
Veal: 65-68°C
Pork: 65-66°C
Chicken: 65-71°C
Vegetables: 80-85°C
* You can use a home digital thermometer to have a go yourself, try to avoid harming the product while you do it.
Objective: To get to the top.
Difficulty Level: Very Hard
Time: Many years.
Team: Only the best.
Equipment: A back pack full of courage, the right decisions, patience and some talent.
Every day is a challenge, every night is a day accomplished. Keep thinking about the feeling of reaching the top. Everyone has his own mountain to climb, and summit to reach. Passion is a must. Dreams are there, is our duty in life to make them come true.
In my experience, it is important to feed the soul and not only the stomach. I believe that food and emotions are directly related; hand in hand they go in the eternal search of happiness. The power of food is so amazing that we can actually control our emotions by eating well. You want to try it out? I will give you some simple recipes from now on, here is the first one: 20 minutes before breakfast every morning, mix one spoonful of pollen with a glass of pure carrot and parsley juice, then have a spoonful of a good olive oil. Try this every day for a week. The next week you can change the juice using another vegetable such as broccoli, but don't add any water to it. Get into a routine and do this every day - you will see the results in your hair, eyes, skin, and especially in your mood. It works very well in many other aspects too.
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