An Earth Celebration Menu: Low-Carbon Recipes for Your Earth Day Party
By Roxanne Hawn
This Earth Day—or any holiday, for that matter—why not host a low- or even zero-carbon celebration? Menu selection, travel planning and carbon offsets make such an event not only possible but pleasurable.
Jason Rogers, executive chef at the St. Julien Hotel and Spa in Boulder, Colorado, hosted a zero-carbon dinner for Earth Day last year. Rogers developed recipes for a five-course meal made from local, natural, or organic proteins and produce. On average, the various ingredients traveled 43 miles from farm to plate.
The hotel calculated its carbon emissions in tons for the day of the event, including local food transport, wine shipping from California, and guest and staff travel. Though their use was 13.61 metric tons, the hotel purchased offsets through UHG Consulting, also in Boulder, for 100 metric tons.
You too can achieve a zero-carbon dinner party by creating a seasonal, local menu and asking guests to offset travel. Offset the food’s travel costs yourself, or ask each guest to sponsor one course or ingredient.
Lamb Ravioli in Broth
Serves 8
Pasta Dough
11⁄2 cups flour
1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
1⁄2 tablespoon water
1⁄2 tablespoon olive oil
1. Make a mound of flour with a well in the center. Sprinkle salt over flour.
2. Add eggs, yolk, water and oil to well. Using a fork, incorporate eggs and liquid in a circular motion, pulling in small amounts of flour until dough becomes stiff.
3. Knead dough, adding flour as necessary to prevent sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes.
4. Wrap in plastic and let sit for 30 minutes.
5. After dough rests, roll out and cut into 21⁄2-inch circles.
Lamb
1 leg of lamb
1⁄2 quart chopped onions, carrots and
celery in 2:1:1 proportion
Red wine (enough to 3⁄4 cover meat)
1 sprig rosemary
5 garlic cloves
1 gallon demi (beef stock reduced by half)
1. Season and sear lamb leg in a rondeau (shallow, wide-bottomed) pan.
2. Add onion-carrot-celery mix, red wine, rosemary and garlic cloves.
3. Reduce wine until thick and syrupy.
4. Add demi. Cover and simmer on medium-low heat until lamb falls off bone.
Broth
1. Strain remaining braising liquid. Pour strained liquid back into pan, then reduce slightly and season with salt and pepper.
Ravioli Filling
Meat from braised lamb, finely chopped
2 eggs
1 cup Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper
1 cup hard goat cheese, grated
1. Combine meat, eggs, Parmesan, salt and pepper. Add goat cheese and mix thoroughly.
2. Roll into ½-ounce balls.
3. Place ball in middle of ravioli circle. Place another circle on top. Use small amount of water to make ravioli edges stick together.
4. Cook in boiling water until raviolis float.
To plate: Place several ravioli in a shallow bowl. Ladle broth over ravioli.
Parsnip Flan with Roasted Beets
Serves 8
Rushing spring produce to market burns a lot of carbon-based fuels. Instead, focus on readily available, easy-to-store root vegetables in early spring.
Parsnip Flan
1 cup cream
4 egg yolks
1⁄2 teaspoon nutmeg
1⁄8 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano
1⁄2 tablespoon salt
3 ounces boiled, peeled and pureed parsnips (about 11⁄2 medium parsnips)
1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Whisk together cream, egg yolks, nutmeg, cheese, salt and parsnips. Let sit at room temperature for at least 2 hours.
2. Lightly whisk after resting to reincorporate ingredients. Pour into lightly oiled 4-ounce ramekins.
3. Cover ramekins with foil and place in a shallow pan. Fill pan with water to half submerge ramekins. Bake 45 to 60 minutes, or until flan is firm when tilted. Cool and unmold.
Roasted beets
¼ pound baby beets (yellow, red, candy stripe, chiogga)
11⁄2 cups water
1⁄2 cup sweet white wine, such as Riesling
1 sprig thyme
1⁄2 shallot, chopped
3 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place beets in a small Dutch oven. Mix in all other ingredients.
2. Cover and cook for 60 to 90 minutes, or until tender when pierced with a fork.
3. Discard roasting liquid. Let beets cool.
4. Using a dry cloth, wipe off beet skins.
5. Slice beets and chill until ready to plate.
To plate: Place one flan on plate or in bowl and cover with beet slices.
Local = Low-Carbon? Not Always
Many factors, including flavor and community economics, make eating local foods a great idea. However, local doesn’t necessarily mean low-carbon.
“If you’re looking purely at the filter of carbon emissions, the food miles most often talked about in local eating are not a good proxy for carbon emissions,” says Maisie Greenawalt, director of communications and strategic initiatives for Bon Appétit Management Company, which launched a Farm to Fork program in 1999. “I think a lot of us would like it to be that simple, but unfortunately, when you’re looking at carbon emissions, there are a lot of other factors at play.”
Dairy cows and beef cattle, for example, release methane gas through digestion. Methane is 20 to 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming, and conventionally raised livestock accounts for 18 percent of global greenhouse emissions. Livestock allowed to graze naturally actually improves carbon storage in the soil, but that’s rare—most livestock is raised in a feedlot. “So, if you’re looking to eat low carbon, one thing you should look at is reducing the amount of beef and cheese that you eat,” Greenawalt says. Look for beef and cheese produced by free-range cattle.
Here are more low-carbon food suggestions:
■ Stop food waste by eating leftovers or cooking smaller portions. Wasted food means all the energy it took to grow and transport that food goes to waste, too.
■ Eliminate air-freighted foods that travel long distances fast, including shipped fresh fish and out-of-season berries. How food travels (not just how far) makes a difference.
■ Reduce tropical fruits and processed sugars. They’re not local to most of us, and they require harsh processing and long transport.
■ Choose seasonal foods. For example, eat vegetable soups in winter rather than fresh salads, which are out of season unless they are grown locally or at home with season-extending techniques.
Bon Appétit has developed an online calculator to help you understand how your food’s carbon emissions add up.
Flatiron Steak with Natural Jus and Root Vegetable Mash
Serves 8
A new take on old-fashioned meat and potatoes, this dish harnesses rosemary, garlic and root vegetables to round out tastes and textures. Use modest beef portions and a full cast of culinary characters.
Steaks
4-pound flatiron steak
(cut from steer shoulder)
1⁄2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
2 sprigs rosemary
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Red wine
1. Marinate flatiron overnight in oil, salt, pepper, rosemary and garlic in the refrigerator. Remove from refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
2. Place steak in a roasting pan and pour wine so steak is half-submerged. Let sit in wine at room temperature for 1 hour. (Meat will sit at room temperature 2 hours total before cooking.)
3. Cover pan and roast at 350 degrees until medium rare (about 135 degrees in the interior).
4. Let rest 10 minutes before slicing to serve.
Root Vegetable Mash
5 carrots
11⁄2 rutabagas
11⁄2 parsnips
1⁄2 potato
1 garlic clove
4 cups duck fat, from local butcher
(or substitute olive oil)
1 cup sour cream
1 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper
1. Simmer all vegetables (rough, large dice) in duck fat until tender. Strain fat.
2. Mash vegetables. Combine with sour cream and heavy cream.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Natural Jus
Wine from roasting pan
1 cup demi (reduced beef stock)
Salt and pepper
1. Put remaining wine from roasting pan into a saucepan, add demi and reduce for a few minutes.
2. Strain, then pour over sliced steaks.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
To plate: Place rounded scoop of vegetable mash on plate. Cover with slice of steak and drizzle with jus.
Roxanne Hawn writes on a variety of lifestyle topics from her home in the Rocky Mountains. Of Italian descent, she admits food plays a major role in her life.