Carrot Top Pesto and Potato Peel Chips: Recipes and Anti-Waste Techniques

Cornellà de TerriIn Catalonia, every family throws away their trash throughout the year. 63 kilos of foodA huge amount of food that, day after day, goes bad in the refrigerator or pantry of Catalan homes, without giving it the attention it deserves, until it's too late and it's no longer fit for consumption. And a large part of the solution to avoiding all this unjustified waste lies in the kitchen. By rolling up our sleeves and putting on our aprons to learn how to use up all those half-wilted or grilled fruits and vegetables that at first glance don't appeal to us, but which, with creativity and good treatment, can be transformed into equally valid ingredients for an excellent dish.

Chef Lluc Quintana, from the restaurant Can Chapas de Cornellà de Terri, is an expert. Aware of this problem, for the fourth consecutive year he actively participates in the Gastrorecup, organized by the Department of Agriculture of the Generalitat of Catalonia, under the auspices of chef Ada Parellada. The project invites restaurants from around the world to prepare a meal at affordable prices, cooked exclusively with foods that, despite meeting all safety standards, have been left out of the market due to their unattractive appearance, faulty labeling, or lack of customer demand.

Quintana details some techniques or solutions to apply at home and make the most of things we usually throw away, but that are worth cooking: "Carrots can be used 100%. They can be roasted, the peels can be used for broth, and with a clean leaf, you can use a radish and vinaigrette; they're very good," she explains.

And she adds: "With vegetables, we waste the peels. But with potatoes, for example, if you wash them very well, whether you boil them, bake them in the oven, or fry them, you can add salt, pepper, and paprika and make some extraordinary chips." The same goes for artichokes: "We normally throw away 60%, but with all this you can make a broth, 2 or 3 hours, until they are very tender, and then a cream."

Finally, Quintana emphasizes that, in order not to throw away more than necessary, the most important thing is above all to plan: "Go shopping for just enough for the week and a little more, organize it well, and don't be so fussy; some vegetables that are spoiling, you have to eat them again, no matter how much time we have to cook, how much time we have to cook, how much time we have to cook, how much time we have to cook, and how much time we have to cook," she explains.

500 kg of recycled food in a menu for 50 diners

In this year's Gastrorecup, which runs throughout the month of October, some seventy restaurants in Catalonia have joined the initiative. Also participating, of course, is Can Xapes, which this week prepared a meal with repurposed food for around fifty diners. The restaurant received around 500 kg of surprise food on the same day: dozens of boxes of apples, carrots, peppers, cabbage, parsley, and eggplants harvested by the gleaning groups, the volunteers who recover vegetables and fruits left in the fields because they were too large, ugly, or had small bruises. Quintana and his team also received six five-kilo pieces of bacora (a little-known fish similar to tuna), which a fishmonger in Girona had been unable to sell and had a lot of work to clean. And a lamb shank with one part burned by the freezer, but everything else was perfectly good, plus dry bread from the Girona bakery La Puntual, which revives the oven.

And with all that, she prepared this menu: for starters, toast with carrot leaf pesto and roasted carrot cream with yellow curry and yogurt. First, a fried egg with eggplant chanfaina, green pepper, onion, and tomato, and a mushroom stew. The fish was grilled bacora with creamy parsley, cauliflower, and roasted red pepper. The meat was boneless lamb with mashed cabbage and potatoes, grilled chard, and roasted juice. And for dessert, apple in white wine with spices, vanilla cream, and roasted apple.

Among the starters, the carrot-leaf pesto was particularly surprising, with its fresh, citrusy flavor. Among the other dishes, the creamed and chanfainas of speared vegetables are so good that it's impossible to tell they come from produce rejected by the markets. The rich, firm figs are reminiscent of tuna, even more meaty. The lamb, intensely flavored, stood out for its perfect cooking and creamy texture. And the dessert, with apple in white wine and vanilla, rounded out the menu with a delicate and balanced sweetness. It's definitely worth taking note of.