- 21 hours ago
Comfort Food Gone Clean with Dymetra Pernell and Olivia F. Scott.
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00:00Hey everybody, I'm Olivia Scott, the creator of Freedom at the Mat, and I am thrilled to be here once again at the Essence Wellness House with none other than the one and only first batch artisan foods founder, author, entrepreneur, and the plant-based princess herself, my friend Demetra Pernell. What's good in Atlanta today, sis? How you doing?
00:22Hey, how are you? Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I'm excited about it too. You know as well as I do that plant-based diets are trending here in the United States, finally, but some of us are not ready to let the meat go. Literally last week I talked to a friend of mine in New Orleans and he said he didn't eat meat. And I said, really? And he said, no, I don't eat meat. And the next day he had a piece of fried chicken and I said, what is that? He said, oh, the bird, that's not me. I was like, okay, that's a whole
00:52different thing because the bird is still meat, right? So I know that so many of us are having a really hard time of letting the bird, letting meat go, myself included, but you do it so beautifully and it just looks so effortless. Your company offers some of the most delectable vegan and vegetarian meals that I've ever seen. What do you have in mind for us today?
01:15So for me, so for me, the ultimate comfort food is pasta. I love a great pasta dish and chicken. Speaking of yard bird, we're going to do a chicken fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli. So a really simple dish. It only takes about 10 minutes with the cooking of the pasta about 15 or so. And it's a really simple dish, but it's extremely tasty.
01:36So one of the things that we have in vegan cooking because, you know, chicken has this natural flavor, right? This natural sort of umami. And you don't get that in vegan meat substitutes. And so what I like to do is just add more flavor. Ultimately, what meat does to every single dish and the reason why people do not like excluding meat, people who love to eat it, that's the flavor component of the dish.
02:01It's usually the salty because you usually have a salty component, a bland component, and maybe your vegetable, right? Amiga starch and a veggie. But all the flavor is concentrated where? In the meat.
02:12So how do we do things in a vegan way to make it a little more tasty and a little more fun and exciting? We just add more flavor. So your basic fettuccine dish is basically some butter, some cheese, and some heavy cream, right? And that's it because the cheese has salt, etc. And you can add whatever else you want.
02:28I'm going to show you how I make it as a vegan that brings out a lot more flavor. So one of the things that I have where we start, as Emerald Lagasse used to say, or anybody from New Orleans would say, we start with a stick of butter. Now let me put my gloves on so we can remain sanitary while we're in the kitchen. Now if you're at home, of course, you don't need to wear gloves.
02:50But here in the kitchen, we always keep gloves handy just because it's always better to be safe when handling food. And so we start with one stick of butter, right? And that's going to go into a hot fan. You can probably hear it sizzling. You see this smoke coming up here. And where the flavor component comes in is your roasted garlic, right? And you can either get, let me see if I can put that up so you can see it.
03:12We put some fresh garlic cloves chopped there. But you can also just really roast an entire head of garlic and take that and squeeze it and throw it right in the butter as it's melting.
03:22And so once the butter is melted, and you want to make sure, just so you know, that your heat is not too high because your garlic will burn.
03:29So you always want to cook this on a medium to low heat when you're doing an Alfredo sauce if you're adding fresh garlic. You do not want to burn your garlic. That is the nastiest flavor. Burnt garlic is some of the most bitter tasting stuff you've ever put in your mouth. And it just kind of upsets the entire dish.
03:47One of the things that I do to sort of make this dish more simple is I'll cook my pasta ahead of time. So I may cook my pasta the day before.
03:53And literally once you cook your pasta, all you have to do is simply drain it and you're going to rinse it with cold water. Always, always salt your water pretty heavily. When you are cooking your pasta, your water should taste like the ocean.
04:06So your pasta comes out nice and flavored and it's already seasoned when you go to add it to your dish.
04:12The next thing I do, if I'm going to store it overnight, is I simply put a little bit of olive oil on it and coat all of the noodles so that they don't stick together.
04:19Okay, that is the trick right there. Thank you so much. That's the trick. I didn't know that. Thank you.
04:23Yes, definitely got to coat it with oil so it doesn't stick together. And now once your butter is melted and your garlic has cooked for about two minutes, then you're simply going to add
04:32your heavy cream.
04:36And I use this cream as a professional brand, but they've got heavy whipping cream is what we mean when I, what I mean when I say heavy cream, you can use a heavy whipping cream
04:45and it can be found in just about any, uh, store, but definitely in your higher end stores.
04:50Um, in your hiring grocery stores, you can find a plant based, uh, heavy cream and I'm not promoting any brands at all.
04:57But I'll tell you the brand that I continue to see throughout, um, all the different stores is the silk brand.
05:03They, they, they seem to be the, um, the, the, uh, leader, if you will, they are the, but they have the first mover advantage in that area.
05:14They're actually the first person to come out with it and bring it to the market, um, for consumption.
05:19And after I do that, I'm just literally going to allow that to come.
05:23I'm going to turn my heat up once I add my cream, because there's now no fear of the, of the garlic burning.
05:28And what you'll start to see is really, I wish I could show you, but you'll see where it looks like your cream and your butter are two separate things, like they've broken.
05:37But the magic is that your cheese is going to bring all of this back together and make it a nice, uh, happy family.
05:42And so once that comes to a boil, you're simply going to add some cheese.
05:47I'm using the mozzarella cheese by BioLife.
05:49They are personally my favorite brand to use, although I am not promoting them at all.
05:54Nor am I getting paid to say that.
05:56Uh, so I add that to, uh, to the sauce and really just allow the cheese to begin to melt.
06:03How much, you know, Demetria, how much we're putting in there?
06:06Oh, I'm sorry.
06:07I mean, we're talking about basics here.
06:10Yeah, right, right.
06:11Okay.
06:11So what I did was I put two cups.
06:13It was a stick of butter, which is a half a cup of butter.
06:15And then I put two cups of heavy cream.
06:17After that, I'm adding an entire bag, right?
06:20So you're going to use an entire eight ounces of this, um, of this shredded cheese.
06:24And then you're going to follow that up with some Parmesan.
06:28And I would say with the Parmesan keys, they also have a vegan farm that you can buy full
06:32and you can grate.
06:33And I would say that you could probably add about a tablespoon.
06:36And this is a cool little tool.
06:37It's called a rasp.
06:38You can find it either even at Home Depot.
06:40But now you have more, um, more places that carry, places that carry cooking utensils will
06:45also, you'll usually also be able to find this little small grater.
06:47And if you don't have a small one, you're welcome to use the regular cheese grater that
06:51you already have at home in your cabinet.
06:54Uh, this I like just because it gives you a finer, uh, grate and it makes the cheese
06:58melt a lot faster for the cheese, right?
07:02So once this is completely melted, you'll already have your chicken cooked and I, uh, or
07:08your, the seitan and I make my own.
07:11So this is our vegan chicken, right?
07:12You see, uh, there, this is our vegan chicken.
07:15It's fun though.
07:16You going to tell us what are you making it with?
07:17Yeah, so it's super simple actually.
07:20You, uh, seitan is something where you just take, um, gluten, right?
07:24Vital wheat gluten and you mix it with a little bit of salt, a little bit of chickpea
07:29juice.
07:30Uh, you get a can of chickpeas and you can literally like puree, take half the chickpeas
07:34from that can, puree it with all of the liquid from the can.
07:38And then you're going to add probably like a cup of water and then you'll add like maybe
07:42one and a half to two cups of this vital wheat gluten.
07:45But you're also going to add whatever spices that you'd like your chicken to taste like.
07:49So, uh, traditionally, uh, in my household, we would use, when we were frying chicken, we
07:53would use laurie seasoned salt, granulated garlic, granulated onion, black pepper, right?
07:58Put that in and then your chicken is already seasoned.
08:01Once, uh, and then you're simply going to take that.
08:03It's like a bread dough at that point.
08:04You're going to knead it.
08:05Okay.
08:06You keep stretching and stretching and pulling.
08:07And that's how you get these striations that actually look like meat.
08:11You see how that looks like meat?
08:13So how it looks like meat.
08:15Okay.
08:15And that's what striations.
08:18And then you're simply going to, um, take that, uh, kind of mold it into a ball, wrap it
08:25in foil fairly tightly.
08:26And then you'll steam it for about two and a half to three hours.
08:29Once you do that, it forms a really nice type, uh, seitan and you have a nice big, uh, serving
08:37of seitan that you can sort of spread out throughout all the dishes on any sort of dish that you
08:42would use.
08:42I use the same chicken for just about anything that I'm going to add chicken to, whether
08:45it be pot pie, my Alfredo sauce, gumbo, whatever it is that I'm adding chicken to, I will use
08:52this seitan and it's actually fairly cheap.
08:55It's really simple to make and it's really cheap.
08:57And so now, now that our cheese is melted, we're simply going to add the chicken to the
09:03sauce.
09:03And one of the things that it does, although this chicken already has its flavor, you
09:06still want whatever you're cooking, you want the flavors to marry.
09:10Okay.
09:11So you're going to put this chicken in and let it kind of marinate a little bit and cook
09:16up with the Alfredo sauce itself.
09:18And then once that's done, you've got your broccoli and listen, we don't have to over
09:25complicate this.
09:26Vegan is hard enough for most people, right?
09:29I was about to say, I want to do that.
09:31I don't want to interrupt you, but I wanted to say like, listen, you're making it sound
09:34like it's really simple, but that whole like two and a half, three hours, letting it marinate,
09:37like being a vegan, you need to be really clear to me and true with the people that this
09:41is not an easy lifestyle.
09:42It is not.
09:43If you want to do everything yourself.
09:45However, there are companies that sell seitan already made their company sell this pre-made
09:52chicken.
09:53So you can get this stuff pre-made.
09:55I personally like to make my own because I'm a little brat, obviously.
09:59I just enjoy it.
10:00Right.
10:01I enjoy the art.
10:02But if you're really like for now, a lot of people are doing the Daniel fast, no meats,
10:05no sweets.
10:06And this is a really good alternative because it's tasty.
10:10It's filling.
10:11It's fun.
10:12And you really don't feel like you're missing anything.
10:14Okay.
10:14Okay.
10:15So once it comes to a boil, you're literally going to add salt and pepper to taste.
10:20Okay.
10:21We got a little bit of salt and I really love to go with the fresh cracked black pepper.
10:26There's something about, you know, the cracked pepper that gives you this really nice flavor.
10:31And if you have a little bit of nutmeg, it's great to add that as well.
10:36Nutmeg kind of brings up that flavor.
10:38It brings up all the flavors in the chicken.
10:40It brings out the flavor of the cheese.
10:42And then all you're going to do at this point, take some frozen broccoli, some frozen broccoli
10:48florets, and you're going to drop them in.
10:50And then you're simply going to add your pasta, give it a quick stir and let that pasta heat
10:56through.
10:57Dinner is ready.
10:58When I first went vegan, I almost gave up because it felt really, really hard.
11:03And then I just started to think about, okay, well, what are some of the dishes that I really
11:07enjoy eating?
11:08I love chicken pot pie.
11:09Okay.
11:10Well, if I don't want to make a pie crust, I can simply go to the store and purchase.
11:14They have vegan pie crust.
11:15You can use phyllo dough, which is always, always, always vegan.
11:18So there's different things that you can do, right?
11:20You're going to use the same thing.
11:22You're just going to substitute out your heavy cream and you're going to substitute your
11:25butter for a vegan butter.
11:27Really simple substitutes and things that you can exchange fairly easily in today's time.
11:33And also feel free to email me, hello at firstbatchartisan.com with any of your questions and concerns about
11:40different substitutes in baking and cooking or the like.
11:43I'd be more than happy to answer any of your questions.
11:45And yeah, I wish you were here to see this and taste this.
11:49Before you go, will you tell us a little bit more about First Batch Artisan Foods?
11:54Tell us all about it.
11:55What do you have in store?
11:57So First Batch Artisan Foods, we are literally a plant-based, whole food plant-based dessert
12:03and vegan food manufacturer.
12:05So we prepare several things for several different restaurants.
12:09What we typically do here now since COVID, we've sort of had to pivot.
12:13And now what we do is offer meal prep services each week.
12:16We also have private chefing services that you can reach out to us personally for.
12:20We have the things that we're most famous for are sweet potato pies.
12:23We call them cookie pies.
12:24They are carried at Slutty Vegan, Wadatta ATL, and a couple other local stores and a couple
12:31outside of the state, a couple stores outside the state.
12:33We have brownies, cinnamon rolls, cookies, anything that you could imagine.
12:37Because I'm such a foodie and I'm so greedy, I've learned how to veganize all of this stuff
12:41and actually make it taste great.
12:43So anyone who tastes my products, they don't believe it's vegan.
12:46I don't even tell them it's vegan.
12:48I was like, oh, here's a cookie.
12:49And they eat it.
12:49They're like, it's great.
12:50I'm like, awesome, it's vegan.
12:51So that's what we do.
12:52We take the things that you love to eat and we veganize it.
12:56And then we offer it to you.
12:58Wonderful.
12:59And where can everybody find you?
13:00You shared your email address, but if they want to learn, I keep talking about this Instagram
13:04handle.
13:04Where can they find you and get more information about First Batch and you?
13:08Awesome.
13:09So my personal handle is at Plant Based Princess.
13:12If you want to have a few laughs and giggles, I'm the one to follow.
13:15And then for First Batch Artisan Foods, we are at First Batch AF.
13:20And the AF stands for Artisan Foods, not what you may think.
13:24So please feel free to follow us there.
13:26We're always giving plenty of updates, et cetera.
13:29Reach out.
13:30Our telephone number is there.
13:31Our website is there.
13:33Ways to order.
13:34However, we're not shipping at the moment, but Ways to Order if you're here locally is
13:37also there.
13:38So please feel free to follow us.
13:41Awesome.
13:41So my love, our dearest plant-based princess, Demetra, thank you so much for spending time
13:48in the Essence Wellness House Kitchen today and giving us a wonderful vegan recipe that
13:52we all can use.
13:54May God be with you.
13:55Namaste.
13:56Namaste.
13:57Thank you so much.
13:58Bye.
13:59Bye-bye.
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