Actress Anne Curtis’s husband, celebrity chef Erwan Heussaff, is truly an enterprising cook, able to make the most of available ingredients at hand for his recipes.

For Heussaff, the stems or leaves of a cauliflower can still be useful in cooking and he tackled this in his Instagram post yesterday, Oct. 11.

“Who here throws away the stem/leaves of your cauliflower?” he asked, showing a dish which made use of cauliflower stems as an ingredient.

Heussaff admits he was formerly as guilty as most cooks who think that stems have no use and should therefore be disposed, but he now loves them. He said stems are useful because “they are tender and absorb so much [flavor].”

“Funny how food works,” he said. “We tend to associate ingredients with a particular preparation or a list of recipes we are familiar with, never thinking ‘[Hey] this is just a leaf like any other, why don’t I try sautéing it and see what happens?'”

erwan youtube 5 ingredients — Image: YouTube/Erwan Heussaff

Heussaff then offered a recipe on how to enjoy the stems and leaves of a cauliflower.

“[Next] time you cook cauliflower, keep the steams. Blanch them in 5% salt water, strain and then roast or sautee in some brown butter. Made it here with a roasted whole cauliflower, some tahihi and labneh.”

His fans warmly accepted the tip, with some requesting him to make a vlog on a dish using these ingredients, or identifying other dishes where cauliflower stems and leaves can be used, such as in vegetable lumpia.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGMb2u9jnMJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

While still in Australia due to the lockdowns, Heussaff has been regularly producing recipes, sharing them to fans via his YouTube vlog. His latest cooking demos include five-ingredient meals, and a duo demo for gyudon (Japanese beef bowl) and bistek (Filipino beef steak). JB

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