THERE is nothing that speaks volumes about love and comfort like a well-cooked meal.
Whether it is the family coming together during Sunday lunch or meeting new people while dining in a restaurant, good food brings people together and helps build connections with one another.
For foodie and home cook Erwan Heussaff, that same love for cooking has allowed him to connect with a fan who shares his culinary passion through Carousell’s Reboxing campaign. The campaign is part of Carousell’s new tagline, “Everyone Wins” which shows how winning can be as simple as both buyers and sellers getting a great deal or as meaningful as building new connections and realizing ambitions.
“I like the concept of reboxing things that you don’t really need anymore and passing on those items to people who actually need them. For this campaign, I decided to share some of my favorite kitchen tools. Hopefully these repurposed items will be part of someone else’s journey in realizing their dreams,’ Erwan shared.
Nicole Jastive was the lucky winner. A culinary arts student from De La Salle University College of Saint Benilde, she impressed Erwan with her shared passion for cooking as well as her ambitious dream to win a Michelin Star down the road. As a bonus, she teamed up with Erwan and his team of chefs in preparing dinner at Chingalo, Erwan’s newest food business project in Chino Roces.
The dinner started with a light salad of arugula tossed in vinaigrette and topped with cheese tuile, cherry tomatoes, and roasted pine nuts. Peppery and zesty, the salad whetted people’s appetite in preparation for the meal.
This was followed by a vegetable strudel. Here, a puff pastry log envelopes a hearty mix of stewed vegetables dotted with herb cream.
The sweet-savory cream serves to counterbalance the rich taste of the vegetables while the puff pastry crust added texture to the dish.
This was followed by a duo of Bolzico Beef steaks cooked in different manners. The grass-fed beef ribeye was cooked a la minute and finished off in the grill to impart some smokiness. Meanwhile, the grass-fed sirloin steak was cooked sous-vide for 3 hours to soften the connective tissue at the top of the steak before being seared at the grill. These were served alongside dirty rice — brown rice sautéed with aromatics and minced beef.
The meal ended with 2 desserts. In one, choux pastry was stuffed with dulce de leche cream and topped with a light drizzle of caramel. The other dessert was the classic crí¨me brulee — the caramelized sugar shell on top giving way to sweet creamy custard underneath.
