In The News

FoodService Director
An Asian Marketplace at Washington & Jefferson College

The desire for Asian flavors is now in every market segment, and the recipes span far beyond Chinese and Japanese.

Earlier this year, culinary experts were calling Korean the next “hot” trend. But in non-commercial markets, Korean, Malaysian, Indonesia and a variety of other exotic Asian flavors are already working their way onto menus and into the hearts and stomachs of customers.

Leading the charge are both nation- al and regional foodservice management companies, such as Pittsburgh-based Parkhurst Dining Services. As part of its Hemisflavors recipe collection, for example, Parkhurst chefs team up with chefs at client campuses to prepare foods from around the globe using authentic ingredients and food preparation techniques.

At Washington & Jefferson College, in Washington, Pa., Aaron Weaver, general manager for Parkhurst, says Korean tacos are the most popular item on the Hemisflavors menu. Shaved eye round of beef is marinated overnight with soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, water, minced garlic and ginger and cooked in a tilt skillet. “The protein absorbs those flavors,” says Chef Chris Hall. “We use a flour tortilla and add Napa cabbage coleslaw in the taco. It’s very popular with the 700 or 800 students we serve every day. We have 15 different items when we do Korean week. We’ll also do Thai and Vietnamese weeks.”

Thai dishes include shrimp in coconut soup, firecracker shrimp with basmati rice, Thai chicken lettuce wraps and Thai noodles with curry sauce. “Sushi is also popular and sometimes we’ll do fish tacos with Japanese seasonings and stir-fries,” adds Hall. Also popular is a Japanese stuffed cabbage dish with chicken, water chestnuts and chilis.

“Sourcing ingredients is not that difficult,” Weaver says. “If we don’t get them from our primary vendor, we’ll go to an Asian store in Pittsburgh to pick up spices, because we try to be as authentic as possible. It’s fun to see the different cultures on these field trips.”

Scott Keats, culinary director for the Business Services division of Aramark, is building a “globally influenced Asian menu” for the company’s new Lifeworks Restaurant Group, which creates branded restaurant concepts for B&I clients.

At a California Lifeworks site, for example, dishes include crispy fried bean curd, Vietnamese stir-fry beef with red curry, Korean bibimbop shrimp, Japanese sushi, Indian tikka masala and chili seared Pacific halibut with mantou, which are Korean fried buns. All dishes are prepared with responsibly sourced ingredients, says Keats, who adds that customers appreciate learning about new food cultures. In addition, natives of the countries being featured are happy to find a touch of home on the menu. “Our mantra is ‘inspiring life and work’,” he

At Marvell, in Santa Clara, Calif., the semi-conductor company’s employ- ees are served Indonesian street food by Sugijanti Sastradi, executive chef for Bon Appétit at the account. Sastradi prepares a variation on goat barbecue using lamb, and improvises from his own culinary background with pickled cucumber for sweet and sour notes.

“I’ll also make Singapore rice noodle with jicama salad,” says Sastradi. Malaysian influences, along with Chinese and Japanese, also are on the menus offered to the company’s 2,300 employees. “About 80% of my customers are Asian,” he adds. Responding to the ethnic makeup of their communities, many school foodservice operators have added various Asian flavors to their menus. For example, at Cedar Lane Elementary School in St. Paul, Minn., Cook Manager Sharon Childers serves a student body that is 65% Hmong. “We serve Hmong bean fried rice that was developed for us by people in the community. We do a lot of Chinese-style items and a Thai peanut chicken with noodles that is very popular,” says Childers.

In Boston Public Schools, many Asian ethnic groups are represented, including a large number of Vietnamese students. However, currently there are no Vietnamese recipes in the database. However, Foodservice Director Helen Mont-Ferguson says she hopes to add some soon. “We’re working with a few local chefs to develop more ethnic menus,” says MontFerguson. “One of the challenges we face is the culinary skill of my employees. We’re working on more skills training as well as customer service, food safety, etc.”

At Medford (Mass.) Public Schools, however, Foodservice Director Jeanne Irwin has created a cold Asian noodle bowl as well a new veggie lo mein recipe with egg rolls to satisfy her district’s Asian population.

In Tulsa, Okla., the foodservice department at St. Francis Health System makes a popular sweet and sour chicken as well as bul- gogi from a recipe created by “an old Chinese lady who used to work here years ago and had a great recipe,” says Melinda Fogg, produc- tion coordinator. “We cook beef knuckle in bag in a giant water bath. The meat is marinated in soy sauce, black peppercorns, onion, garlic, oil, white or brown sugar and water. It cooks for eight hours at 180 degrees and then is chilled.”

St. Francis also recently introduced sushi in its demo area, Fogg adds.

At the University of Maryland, Dining Services is planning to do an Asian stir-fry station, according to Senior Executive Chef John Gray, who says: “Asian is definitely at the top of the list right now.”

Gray has been going to seminars on Korean dishes and is thinking about introducing Korean barbecue this summer. “Students are so food-wise right now, and Asian is growing in popularity,” Gray says “The big challenge is training cooks to do it properly. They got so used to pulling stuff out of boxes that they for- got how to cook and lost the willingness to learn.” A local company comes in to the dining halls twice a month to serve fresh sushi, and Gray’s also doing old favorites such as shrimp lo mein and sweet and sour chicken. “We may add Vietnamese pho in our c-stores, where it would fit well with sushi we carry there.”

In Colorado, Mike O’Brien, executive chef of 80-bed Mercy Regional Hospital in Durango, offers his cafeteria customers a Thai orange roughy salad and Oriental chicken.

“We use a lot of Asian ingredients like Thai chili paste or miso paste,” O’Brien says.

FoodService Director
An Asian Marketplace at Washington & Jefferson College

The desire for Asian flavors is now in every market segment, and the recipes span far beyond Chinese and Japanese.

Earlier this year, culinary experts were calling Korean the next “hot” trend. But in non-commercial markets, Korean, Malaysian, Indonesia and a variety of other exotic Asian flavors are already working their way onto menus and into the hearts and stomachs of customers.

Leading the charge are both nation- al and regional foodservice management companies, such as Pittsburgh-based Parkhurst Dining Services. As part of its Hemisflavors recipe collection, for example, Parkhurst chefs team up with chefs at client campuses to prepare foods from around the globe using authentic ingredients and food preparation techniques.

At Washington & Jefferson College, in Washington, Pa., Aaron Weaver, general manager for Parkhurst, says Korean tacos are the most popular item on the Hemisflavors menu. Shaved eye round of beef is marinated overnight with soy sauce, sesame oil, brown sugar, water, minced garlic and ginger and cooked in a tilt skillet. “The protein absorbs those flavors,” says Chef Chris Hall. “We use a flour tortilla and add Napa cabbage coleslaw in the taco. It’s very popular with the 700 or 800 students we serve every day. We have 15 different items when we do Korean week. We’ll also do Thai and Vietnamese weeks.”

Thai dishes include shrimp in coconut soup, firecracker shrimp with basmati rice, Thai chicken lettuce wraps and Thai noodles with curry sauce. “Sushi is also popular and sometimes we’ll do fish tacos with Japanese seasonings and stir-fries,” adds Hall. Also popular is a Japanese stuffed cabbage dish with chicken, water chestnuts and chilis.

“Sourcing ingredients is not that difficult,” Weaver says. “If we don’t get them from our primary vendor, we’ll go to an Asian store in Pittsburgh to pick up spices, because we try to be as authentic as possible. It’s fun to see the different cultures on these field trips.”

Scott Keats, culinary director for the Business Services division of Aramark, is building a “globally influenced Asian menu” for the company’s new Lifeworks Restaurant Group, which creates branded restaurant concepts for B&I clients.

At a California Lifeworks site, for example, dishes include crispy fried bean curd, Vietnamese stir-fry beef with red curry, Korean bibimbop shrimp, Japanese sushi, Indian tikka masala and chili seared Pacific halibut with mantou, which are Korean fried buns. All dishes are prepared with responsibly sourced ingredients, says Keats, who adds that customers appreciate learning about new food cultures. In addition, natives of the countries being featured are happy to find a touch of home on the menu. “Our mantra is ‘inspiring life and work’,” he

At Marvell, in Santa Clara, Calif., the semi-conductor company’s employ- ees are served Indonesian street food by Sugijanti Sastradi, executive chef for Bon Appétit at the account. Sastradi prepares a variation on goat barbecue using lamb, and improvises from his own culinary background with pickled cucumber for sweet and sour notes.

“I’ll also make Singapore rice noodle with jicama salad,” says Sastradi. Malaysian influences, along with Chinese and Japanese, also are on the menus offered to the company’s 2,300 employees. “About 80% of my customers are Asian,” he adds. Responding to the ethnic makeup of their communities, many school foodservice operators have added various Asian flavors to their menus. For example, at Cedar Lane Elementary School in St. Paul, Minn., Cook Manager Sharon Childers serves a student body that is 65% Hmong. “We serve Hmong bean fried rice that was developed for us by people in the community. We do a lot of Chinese-style items and a Thai peanut chicken with noodles that is very popular,” says Childers.

In Boston Public Schools, many Asian ethnic groups are represented, including a large number of Vietnamese students. However, currently there are no Vietnamese recipes in the database. However, Foodservice Director Helen Mont-Ferguson says she hopes to add some soon. “We’re working with a few local chefs to develop more ethnic menus,” says MontFerguson. “One of the challenges we face is the culinary skill of my employees. We’re working on more skills training as well as customer service, food safety, etc.”

At Medford (Mass.) Public Schools, however, Foodservice Director Jeanne Irwin has created a cold Asian noodle bowl as well a new veggie lo mein recipe with egg rolls to satisfy her district’s Asian population.

In Tulsa, Okla., the foodservice department at St. Francis Health System makes a popular sweet and sour chicken as well as bul- gogi from a recipe created by “an old Chinese lady who used to work here years ago and had a great recipe,” says Melinda Fogg, produc- tion coordinator. “We cook beef knuckle in bag in a giant water bath. The meat is marinated in soy sauce, black peppercorns, onion, garlic, oil, white or brown sugar and water. It cooks for eight hours at 180 degrees and then is chilled.”

St. Francis also recently introduced sushi in its demo area, Fogg adds.

At the University of Maryland, Dining Services is planning to do an Asian stir-fry station, according to Senior Executive Chef John Gray, who says: “Asian is definitely at the top of the list right now.”

Gray has been going to seminars on Korean dishes and is thinking about introducing Korean barbecue this summer. “Students are so food-wise right now, and Asian is growing in popularity,” Gray says “The big challenge is training cooks to do it properly. They got so used to pulling stuff out of boxes that they for- got how to cook and lost the willingness to learn.” A local company comes in to the dining halls twice a month to serve fresh sushi, and Gray’s also doing old favorites such as shrimp lo mein and sweet and sour chicken. “We may add Vietnamese pho in our c-stores, where it would fit well with sushi we carry there.”

In Colorado, Mike O’Brien, executive chef of 80-bed Mercy Regional Hospital in Durango, offers his cafeteria customers a Thai orange roughy salad and Oriental chicken.

“We use a lot of Asian ingredients like Thai chili paste or miso paste,” O’Brien says.