Slow Meat Tips from Slow Food Seattle's Own Chef Varin Keokitvon

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Getting ready for your Super Bowl party this weekend? We’re focusing on Slow Meat in the run-up to the Seahawks returning to the Super Bowl. Slow Meat has two major prongs: eat better and eat less.

We were very pleased to have Chef Varin Keokitvon join our board last year. Varin has won the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise and the National Chaine des Rotisseurs Jeune Commis competition and was head chef at Farestart. For more about his background, check out this article from the International Examiner. He's currently hard at work on a new endeavor that we'll keep under wraps for now! One thing we've all especially enjoyed about working with Varin so far is his sharing nature: he's always got some delicious treats for board meetings, and shares excellent cooking ideas and tips. Here he's put together some strategies for incorporating Slow Meat into your menu planning. Thanks, Varin!

Try Nose-to-Tail cooking!

Buying a whole animal and learning how to preserve could also help you in using every last bit sparingly. Here's what you could do with one duck:

  • Breast - Make into prosciutto and shave on salads

  • Hindquarter - Confit and shred for pastas

  • Fat - Render and save for sauteing, it will impart an awesome duck flavor

  • Carcass - Make into stock, reduce to glaze and use to give a delicious meaty flavor to anything

Menu Ideas

Vegetable Kababs with Organic Chicken Thigh
Cauliflower, red pepper, mushroom, broccoli, chermoula, farro
(kebabs are a great way to utilize less meat and you could put whatever you have in your fridge on the stick! You could also marinate it in anything you want.)

Roasted Butternut Squash-Quinoa Salad
Crispy applewood smoked bacon, roasted onion, green bean, cauliflower, lemon-chili vinaigrette
(Sprinkling a little bit of bacon bits, shaved bresola, parma ham trim, or other cured meat products on entree salads like the one above are a great way to use scrap and also reduce your consumption of meat.)

Simple Artisan Baguette
Kurtwood Farms Dinah, Jamon Serrano, plum jam
(Putting the best ingredients you can find in between an awesome baguette is also a great way to use less meat.)

Hearty Organic Pork Stew
Barley, turnip, carrot, green onion, chili. kabocha squash
(Soups and stews are the best way to utilize everything you have in your fridge.)

Food, Slow MeatSlow Food Seattle