Salad action

You can toss just about any ingredient into a salad and keep it healthy.

Just about anything can be a salad ingredient and, as self-serve salad bars have grown in size, the selections from nature’s bounty have increased in direct proportion to customer demand. Beyond the traditional staples such as lettuce, tomato, cucumber and onion, choices may now include any vegetable, fruit, grain or protein, chopped, sliced, diced, julienned or grilled, offered hot or cold. No matter what the main components, salads retain their good-for-you reputation since it’s mainly the cheeses, croutons and dressings that add calories and fat.

Today, salads take center stage in venues coast to coast where operators and their customers are seeking the excitement of made-to-order demo cooking plus more healthful options. For example, as part of the "Live life well" campaign now in full swing at 669-bed University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center, little green apple logos are popping up on "all the healthy stuff," executive chef Mark Dyball reports.

Now, every Thursday there’s some display cooking in the servery. Plus, on the first Thursday of every month, the emphasis is on healthy. One recent "first Thursday," two chefs on Dyball’s team were kept busy tossing Baja Shrimp Salad to order. They were following a recipe developed by chef-manager Gabriel Gomez, who is credited with designing most of the location’s recent recipes. More than 250 customers waited their turn to get a plateful of about seven medium sized (31/40) marinated shrimp tossed with baby greens, roasted corn, peas, carrots and diced tomatoes served with an avocado lime dressing, further seasoned with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper—all for $5.99.

In the bowl: "We buy the shrimp pre-cooked for this salad and marinate them for a few hours in olive oil, garlic and chipotle chile," Dyball explains. "Greens are pre-cut and pre-washed. We add our own romaine to the mix because it’s two-thirds less expensive that way. We thaw the frozen corn, then grill it on the flat top the morning of service; and the carrots are diced thin on the mandoline, which is a bit labor intensive. All items are set out separately. Then, as the customer comes up, the chef puts them in a bowl, adds the dressing, tosses the ingredients in front of the customer, puts it into a serving bowl and garnishes it with colorful tortilla strips."

For a Harvest Turkey Salad, some of the prep is also done the day before service. Rolled turkey breast, for example, is roasted and chilled, then julienned the next day. Meanwhile, candied pecan halves are tossed in a reduced simple syrup, then placed on a sheet pan in a 325°F oven for several minutes.

Education to-order: "This salad, with three ounces of turkey per portion, includes a bit of crumbled gorgonzola, candied pecans, sliced pears, sliced apples—skin on both—and dried cranberries," Dyball says. "After the salad is tossed with a pumpkin/pomegranate/blueberry vinaigrette, we add the candied pecans. The lines are still out the door for fried chicken every Thursday, but there are about 250 customers for this healthy turkey salad. We provide education with the display cooking, and when we do these healthy demos, we often have the dietitian at the event to provide nutrition information about the recipe and to answer questions."

Since salmon is so popular, it was a natural for a healthy salad demo-cooking spotlight. In the UCLA Medical Center version—classy enough for an upscale buffet—the side of salmon (poached the day before) is covered with “scales” of thinly sliced cucumber, then coated with aspic for shine. "The salmon, sliced in front of the customer, is served with baby field greens, pre-tossed in a real Champagne and dill vinaigrette, also portioned out by the chef," Dyball reports. "In addition, there’s a Waldorf salad on the side—a healthy version including diced apples, walnut halves, grapes, plus sliced celery—all tossed in a plain yogurt, sugar and vinegar mixture."

Fishing for sales: As part of its Club Fast Tracks "limited time only" promotions, Aramark recently introduced several Fish Market Salads to its business, healthcare and university accounts. Chad Glidewell, senior foodservice director at a telecommunications account in San Diego, ran the program two weeks in a row. With a daily lunchtime customer base of about 180, he found the Fish Market Salads did about 25% to 30% better than other salads and increased participation at his made-to-order salad station by about 15% each week.

"Our made-to-order salads range from $5.19 to $5.59. A spinach salad, for example, is $5.29, and these cold Fish Market Salads are priced at $5.59," Glidewell notes. "The first week we ran a four-ounce portion of tilapia atop mixed salad greens that were tossed with a pesto Caesar dressing, plus a scoop of lentil salad. During the second week, it was grilled salmon with Tex-Mex dressing (cumin and chili combined with garlic and freshly chopped cilantro) on the greens with a side scoop of barley salad. Each week we offered one additional salad choice such as barbecued chicken Caesar (the first week) and spinach salad with hot bacon and mushrooms the second week."

Tossed sizzle: At least one salad per week makes its appearance at the action station in each of the Corporate Image Dining Services accounts located in multi-tenant office buildings in Connecticut. The best seller at Café Nyala, in Westport, is Sizzling Thai Steak Salad and corporate chef Sal Cantalupo makes sure his chefs toss the meat with the salad rather than laying it on top.

"Flank steak is marinated in an Asian marinade overnight, then grilled off, cooked to rare, sliced and sautéed to order in the action station," he points out. "Sesame noodles are cooked in soy sauce-based water to give them flavor and color, then we combine them with a salad blend of cabbage, avocados, whole basil leaves, whole cilantro leaves, cubed mangos, shredded carrots and roasted peanuts—all tossed in a homemade Thai dressing. Since we toss it to order, the customer can indicate any ingredients to be omitted."

Does salad grow on trees?

Harvard’s Food Literacy project links produce, farmers and students.

Admittedly, Harvard University students in Cambridge, MA, have a great deal of intellectual prowess. But, over the years it seems their basic understanding of where food comes from has steadily dwindled. Therefore, as sort of a basic Food Roots 101, the Food Literacy Project was developed and put in place on campus two years ago. It’s the brainchild of Silver Plate winner (Class of 2006) Ted Mayer, executive director of Harvard University Dining Services, and it’s now being coordinated by Jessica Zdeb.

"Students wanted to know more about food but many are coming in with less and less knowledge about it—some not even knowing that food is grown," Zdeb asserts. "When we pulled tomatoes from the salad bar (because of price), students were up in arms. They didn’t get the connection between hurricanes and damaged or lost crops. They didn’t realize weather is a huge factor  in turn, what’s going to be in the marketplace."

Local availability: To help remedy the situation, the Food Literacy Project encourages buying local produce that is made available on campus from mid-June through the fall. "It’s mostly for grad students and faculty," she says.

"And, in the fall of 2005, we ran Savory Spotlights in which, during one meal period, the focus is on a product such as olives—we brought in six or seven different types that day. Also, one day during September, we’ll have entirely local produce where a station is set up in the dining hall, a chef serves a salad and two farmers from whom we  buy visit several campus dining locations. This past fall, we did a Farmers Market Vegetarian Wrap station. It featured field tomatoes, which can’t go through the slicer because they’d turn to mush. So our chefs thought of folding them into a wrap."

Harvard Dining Services takes its nutritional cue from the Harvard School of Public Health Healthy Eating Pyramid. Therefore, in addition to a daily salad bar in residential dining, the department also offers two prepared salads each day with an emphasis on whole grains or legumes, such as a Whole Grain Mushroom Salad featuring barley, shiitake mushrooms, parsley and roasted red onions tossed with a vinaigrette dressing.

Here’s the scoop: In response to ongoing questions from students in regard to portion size, Zdeb is now planning several "serving size tours" of the dining rooms. "A staff dietitian will work with students to help them understand what the serving sizes listed on the menu cards mean and this, of course, includes the salad bar," Zdeb says. "We’ll concentrate on dressings and prepared salads in terms of being aware of serving/portion size. "

CSAs: Bringing fresh produce to the workplace

Defining local as within 150 miles of its accounts, one contractor supports the farmers who can make it happen. 

Parkhurst Dining Services, through its FarmSource program, partners with more than 100 farms in order to provide locally grown produce to its client locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York. Now, the contractor is hooking up with farmers who can commit to making weekly deliveries to customers’ offices—and then having its chefs provide recipes from salad dressings to salsas, plus quick-and-easy demos on how to properly handle and store this produce. Jamie Moore, director of food and beverage, has been spearheading his company’s sustainability efforts.

"I belong to the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and through them, year after year, I’ve been talking to a lot of farmers. Many would like to be included, but some small farmers can’t grow enough to be involved with us. But we’re able to get them involved through our FarmSource program by creating Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) opportunities for customers to create a relationship with a farm and receive a weekly basket of product. A consumer pays in advance for the forthcoming harvest. On March 20th I had a conference call with our chefs and told them to talk to their clients, such as Highmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Pittsburgh, to get approval. There must be a minimum of 10 drops, that is, 10 boxes per location, or it’s not worth the farmer’s time to deliver there.

The customers come down once a week to pick up their boxes. The entire program runs through the farmer and the customer to allow for a CSA drop. I have one at my house where 10 of my neighbors come to my CSA in my garage. What separates us (at Parkhurst Dining) from my garage set-up, is having our chefs get into the CSAs as well, by also being one of the customers the farmers deliver to. The week before the next delivery, the farmer e-mails the chef as to what’s going to be in the box—perhaps cucumbers, turnips or zucchinis—so the chefs will have recipes ready.

In addition, our chefs will offer cooking classes (for our customers) including training in cooking techniques, and present recipe ideas at each location relating to the product consumers have purchased. Customers might want to know what to do with the five pounds of spinach they’ve just purchased. The chef will offer a class that day to show how to blanch the spinach, then package and freeze it for future meals. Or the chefs might present ideas for preparing some quick salsas or gazpachos if the delivery includes tomatoes. They might receive Lolla Rosa, a type of lettuce that’s often in mesclun blends. In one demo, the chef might show how to mix a variety of lettuces together to make your own mix, then develop a salad dressing to go with it. There might be chayote (pronounced chi-OH-tay) and the chef can teach them what it is  and how to use it; it’s a gourd-like fruit that can be used raw in a salad, like a radish, or it can be split, stuffed and baked like acorn squash.

We’re using three farms in our pilot of introducing CSAs to eight business-and-industry locations. They’re all in the Pittsburgh area since that’s where we’re based so we can easily monitor the program to see how it’s working."