The Substitutes that Help a Chef to Save Valuable Time
When an on-board chef gets pushed to prepare a meal in a hurry, he does not welcome the sudden discovery that his pantry or refrigerator lacks a certain ingredient. By the same token, the professionals at a marine catering company do not want a chef’s valuable time to be wasted, because the minutes spent preparing a specific dish have yielded an unusable mix, one that lacks a necessary ingredient. Those two examples highlight the significance of knowledge of food substitutes.
Substitutes of for the baker in the kitchen
Suppose, for example, that the kitchen on a cargo vessel has notified the appropriate members of on-board catering management about the need for more flour; still, that important ingredient has not yet arrived. If a cook wants to prepare some baked goods, he might not have all the white flour that he needs. That should not be a problem, if the same cook understands how to stretch the available stores of flour by using oat bran. The addition of oat bran represents an effort to boost the fiber and protein content of the completed backed good. An expert at a maritime catering company should appreciate the beneficial nature of that boost. A man that consumes something with added protein and fiber tends to stay full for a longer period. Obviously, he works harder when he is not experiencing hunger pains. In the same way that a specific substitute can help a chef that is low on flour, several different substitutes can come to the aid of a cook that finds his pantry to be low on sugar. Addition to cake dough of one teaspoon of vanilla allows a cook to cut in half the amount of sugar required. Alternatively, by substituting unsweetened applesauce for the sugar, the cook’s smart action has made that sweet, white powder a superfluous ingredient. Sometimes food substitutes can help a baker to transform a calorie rich treat into a low-calorie source of healthful nutrients. For example, mashed ripe bananas or pureed peaches can be used to replace butter or oil, during preparation of a chocolate or spice cake or during the making of some spice muffins. Pureed pears can substitute for oil or butter in a coffee cake or a quick bread. Each such substitution allows the person served the pureed-containing baked goods to benefit from an input of antioxidants in his system. Other health-giving nutrients enter the body system as well, if the member of a cargo vessel’s team has eaten baked goods with the right sort of substitute for oil or butter. For instance, bananas are high in fiber, potassium, and Vitamin B.
How to use food substitutes in main dishes
An expert at a marine catering company might know lots of different sauces to use with cooked spaghetti. Yet that same expert might not know what to do if an on-board pantry lacks any of that long, thin pasta. The chef that makes such an alarming discovery does not have to panic, if he knows about the useful substitute. Spaghetti squash can substitute for genuine pasta. A cook’s reluctance to use spaghetti squash might stem from his familiarity with the degree to which the squash’s taste and texture differ from those found in the true pasta. That reluctance should be balanced by the realization that the squash’s long strings do not contain any gluten and do have a pleasant nutty taste. Moreover, spaghetti squash contains both potassium and Vitamin A. On-board catering management must provide cooks with items for the refrigerator, as well as those for the pantry. For instance, a cook’s desire to use sour cream ought to be satisfied. If sour cream is not available, then the appropriate substitute should be on one of the refrigerator’s shelves. At a conventional grocery store, a Greek yogurt normally serves as the best substitute for sour cream. Still, a suitably thick Norwegian yogurt can be found in a retail establishment like that of a Whole Foods Store. A marine catering company might even want to arrange for purchase of some Norwegian yogurt whenever a catered vessel sails into Scandinavian waters. Similarly, it might order the buying of some Persian yogurt whenever a catered vessel travels in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf.