We had a Wellspent dinner at the academy. Literally. Everything on the menu was artfully created by our chefs using spent ingredients like spent coffee, carrot and ginger, to name a few. The spent as delicately made into batter, noodles, oils and more. Spent ingredients are mostly by-products or sidestreams which are often discarded.
In an era where food wastage is rising at an alarming rate, At-Sunrice is looking into different ways of upcycling food and combining spent ingredients with everyday foods, as we work towards improving the nation’s food security and making the Singapore Green Plan 2030 a reality.
Take tea leaves for example. Most of us usually throw them away once we have brewed our cuppa. But what if we told you that you could use these same ingredients to create a gastronomic masterpiece all the same?
The appetiser we presented at the Wellspent dinner, titled Amuse, was a trio of fermented Long Jin tea leaves, spent chips with Jamón ibérico, and coffee spent karaage.
In the making of Amuse, we took spent Long Jin tea leaves and fermented them for two to three days and used them to create a spent version of Lahpet Thoke – Myanmar’s famed savoury tea leaves appetiser. Fermented, the tea leaves were full of flavour, nutrients and antioxidants.
Rounding up our mains was this exquisite Okara noodles with ExCoo sauce – both the noodles and the sauce were created with spent.
Okara is the pulpy by-product of soya milk. Okara is considered by some health foodies as a “miracle food” as it is low in fat, high in calcium, protein and fibre. The chefs experimented with the ingredient until they were satisfied with both the taste and texture.
The result was fresh noodles, chewy and firm fresh noodles which held its form and shape when tossed and cooked with the ExCoo sauce made from prawn shells, fish bone and crustaceans.
This is only the beginning. We intend to continue on our mission to help tackle the $400 billion food waste problem by creating upcycled ingredients with our partners and work with innovative chefs to create Spent cuisine to raise the awareness of how we can all eat in a way that heals our planet.
If you’re interested in booking any of our Wellspent dinners and getting a taste of Spent cuisine, we’d love to have you. Leave your details with us and we will get in touch with you.
