Star chef serves tasty, innovative vegetarian feast
Print Edition
IT was a winter evening in Shanghai and Sidney Schutte was working his magic at Wujie The Bund instead of the two-Michelin-star Librije’s Zusje, the restaurant in the luxurious Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam where he is executive chef.
Schutte collaborated with the renowned Shanghai vegetarian restaurant and its head chef to present a special menu fusing Western and Eastern techniques and pushing the limits of vegetarian cuisine.
His talent shined through in meatless dishes inspired by seasonal produce. “My vegetarian style respects the ingredients. I try to push the flavors forward with all the different cooking techniques that I use in my kitchen; like infusing, smoking, fermenting, marinating, grilling… These kinds of cooking methods will boost the flavors to the same level as you would have when cooking with protein, so non vegetarian guests who eat the vegetarian dishes will not miss the protein. Besides this, I think it is very important that vegetarian dishes have exciting flavor combinations,” Schutte explained.
“To create vegetarian food, there are just as many creative and tasteful combinations as with non vegetarian food. You only have to think further and more out of the box and also try more flavor combinations and techniques. But if there is that ‘wow’ effect after I taste one of my new vegetarian creations then it’s so awesome and satisfying!”
He served several dishes at the special event that were truly inventive and groundbreaking.
The pumpkin yoghurt with smoked zucchini, curry, licorice and caramelized pumpkin seeds was beautifully presented and tasteful. The main course, heirloom carrots, was created with several preparations of carrots. “I want to show that you can have so many different flavors, all with carrots. It’s in combination with cumin, yoghurt, pear and pickled tulip bulbs. The tulip bulbs are so special and typical Dutch. They are pickled for a minimum of three months and the longer they are preserved, the tastier they get.”
“I strongly believe that in the future people will eat more and more vegetarian. This has several reasons: the first one is the health aspect, because these days people eat too much protein, which isn’t healthy. Also there is too much breeding of chicken, pork and beef in general. It is not possible to supply the whole world with organic food, and the demand for protein is getting bigger and bigger. So they need to find a way to enhance the growth of animals at the lowest possible cost. This really worries me and I’m thankful that I always can work with the freshest local organic products knowing the farmers and where the ingredients come from.”
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