FOOD & LIFE

The taste of success, less sweet

New York chef Tom Valenti is willing to deal with diabetes. It's flavor he can't live without.

By Mike Sutter
AMERICAN-STATESMAN RESTAURANT WRITER
Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Chef Tom Valenti is clear about one thing: "There is no such thing as a diabetes diet."

But there is such a thing as balance for people with diabetes, something Valenti found out 14 years ago when he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes. For Valenti, the diagnosis was especially pointed. As a chef, he is surrounded constantly by the starches, sweets and excesses that can spell disaster for someone whose body has trouble processing sugar in the blood.

His restaurants — Ouest and West Branch in New York City — are full-tilt temples to New American cooking, with no compromises made for the diabetic chef. The pursuit of flavor drove Valenti to co-write a new cookbook with Andrew Friedman, "You Don't Have to Be Diabetic to Love This Cookbook" (Workman Publishing, $19.95). It preserves the comforts, adventures and tastes of real food in dishes that people with diabetes can live with.

Don't bother looking for nonfat cream cheese or artificial sweeteners in this book. Instead, try lobster bisque with ribbons of tarragon or spaghetti-squash spaghetti or mint chocolate pot de cr?me. There's a section devoted to sandwiches, wraps and quesadillas, including a steakhouse wrap with filet mignon. The ingredients and techniques are hardly exotic. What's different is that each recipe — along with the usual statistics — lists the food exchanges and carbohydrate-choice numbers that many people with diabetes use to regulate what they eat.

In Austin on a searing summer lunch hour, Valenti is visiting Annies Caf? & Bar, the airy farm-to-table bistro that recently reopened on Congress Avenue. The goal is for the chef to navigate the menu, to find a balance between health and flavor in a place where the bounty ranges from a simple arugula salad with grana Padano cheese to a peanut butter volcano brownie.

He's trying some Spanish rice, robust and aromatic, speckled with nuts and tomato. It's part of a sampler dish also laden with saut?ed cherry tomatoes, some Chinese-spiced broccoli and mustard greens with bacon. Questioned about his choice of rice and its blood sugar-spiking carbohydrates, Valenti is more concerned about the salt in the tomatoes, saying heart disease also lurks in his family's medical history. Diabetes can be a malady magnifier of sorts, making other health problems harder to treat, harder to diagnose, even. Watching sugar and carbs is just one leg of the predict-consume-and-measure trifecta of vigilance people with diabetes are forced to follow.

"I was diagnosed 14 years ago," the 50-year-old chef said. "Fifteen years ago, 17 years ago, I was having a ball. I was going out at least three nights a week with Mario and Bobby (fellow chefs Mario Batali and Bobby Flay), and we would meet after work, and we would eat and we would drink — and eat. When I was diagnosed, I didn't just stop. It took me a while. But as I got older, I wanted to start feeling better. You've got some choices to make."

In Houston the day before, Valenti had eaten brisket, ribs and turkey at Goode Company Barbeque , then had two bites of pecan pie. Blissed as he was, he started to tank afterward. "I could feel my balance waver," he said.

Valenti says being surrounded by food, the kinds of fresh foods delivered to his restaurants or that line the shelves of organic markets, can be an advantage. "But we're all bombarded by bad choices on the road."

"Every day you make your deal with the devil," he said. "I know that if I'm going to Jean Georges tonight for dinner, I can't not have something that the pastry chef makes there. So I'm going to provide myself the route to get there, starting in the morning."

Valenti also talks about how important it is to make time to cook — how it's easier for him to control his blood sugar with his own cooking — "because most of the time you don't know what you're getting when you're out." Even at Annies, the Oriental broccoli salad is cloyingly sweet and overly salted. "If you were sitting in a Chinese restaurant, and you had a big bowl of General Tso's chicken, that wouldn't even occur to you," he said. "But here, it really stands out. It has too much of everything."

A salad arrives with roasted red and gold beets and true baby carrots, plus greens and goat cheese, topped with a perfectly cooked piece of salmon. Valenti agrees that even in the presence of pizzas, pasta salads and pastries in the cases at Annies, it's easy to make good choices here because even the simple greens and humble grilled chicken taste great. Valenti's sacrifice to dodge hidden sugars and cut calories is to put the sauces and dressings on the side and to gingerly brush the food across them.

But he knows the limitations of righteous behavior at the table and in the kitchen. "The thing about the book is we realized that you've got to let things go once in a while," he said. "You've got to let them have pizza or they'll lose their minds."

That recipe's on page 50 of the cookbook.

msutter@statesman.com; 912-5902

Recipes even a diabetic could love

These recipes by Tom Valenti and Andrew Friedman from "You Don't Have to Be Diabetic to Love This Cookbook" (Workman Publishing, $19.95) are followed by nutrition information, including carbohydrate choices and exchanges, two tools used by people with diabetes to calculate the impact of foods on their blood-sugar levels.

Strawberry Cobbler

This is a quintessential summer dessert that takes fresh, seasonal fruit and does something simple and delicious with it. You can adapt this recipe to use other fruits such as peaches. Bear in mind that sweetness varies from batch to batch of strawberries, so you might be able to use less sugar if the ones you have are particularly sweet. By the same token, if the fruit is especially juicy, you might need to use a bit more cornstarch to bind the filling. This recipe calls for almond flour, available at specialty food shops, which lends body and flavor to the topping.

3 cups strawberries, hulled, larger berries cut in half

1/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar

2 tsp. finely grated orange zest

2 tsp. cornstarch

2 Tbsp. (1/4 stick) unsalted butter

2 Tbsp. almond flour

2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

Nonstick cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Put the strawberries, 1/3 cup of the sugar, orange zest and cornstarch in a bowl and toss to combine. Let the berries stand while you make the crumble topping.

Put the butter, almond flour, all-purpose flour and remaining 2 Tbsp. of sugar in a bowl, toss them together and work the mixture with your fingers until it comes together in a loose dough.

Spray a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Put the strawberries in the dish, using a rubber spatula to gently pat them down into an even layer. Sprinkle the crumble topping evenly over the strawberries.

Bake the cobbler until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling, about 45 minutes. Let cool slightly and serve warm.

Serves 10.

Nutrition information per serving: Calories: 97. Fat: 3 grams. Saturated fat: 2 grams. Trans fat: 0 grams. Total carbohydrates: 17 grams. Dietary fiber: 1 gram. Total sugars: 14 grams. Protein: 1 gram. Cholesterol: 6 milligrams. Sodium: 1 milligram. Exchanges: Fat 0.5, other carbohydrates 0.5. Carbohydrate choice: 1.

Chicken Chaat

The Indian dish chicken chaat features the combination of heat and acidity that I love. It's spicy and fragrant, but - because the chicken is steamed - also very clean and fresh. Picking the chicken up with lettuce leaves makes it a fun social centerpiece to a meal for family or friends, keeping things casual.

3/4 cups coarsely chopped Spanish onion (from 1 medium-size onion)

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro leaves

1 medium-size clove garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. freshly squeezed lime juice, plus 4 lime halves for garnish

1 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tsp. garam masala, available at specialty food stores and Indian markets

1 tsp. chopped hot green pepper, such as serrano

1 tsp. red chile powder

1/4 tsp. coarse salt

1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, steamed, sliced lengthwise and cut into 1/4-inch pieces

8 iceberg lettuce leaves

Put the onion, cilantro, garlic, olive oil, lime juice, lemon juice, garam masala, green pepper, chile powder and salt in a large bowl and mix to create a sauce. Add the chicken and toss well. Divide the chicken among 4 small plates and serve with iceberg lettuce leaves and lime halves. Use the lettuce to scoop up bites of the salad. Serves 4.

Nutrition information per serving: Calories: 174. Fat: 5 grams. Saturated fat: 1 grams. Trans fat: 0 grams. Total carbohydrates: 4 grams. Dietary fiber: 1 gram. Total sugars: 2 grams. Protein: 27 grams. Cholesterol: 66 milligrams. Sodium: 204 milligrams. Exchanges: Fat 0.5, lean meat 3, vegetables 0.5. Carbohydrate choice: 0.

Eggs in Hell

In his first cookbook, the great California chef Jeremiah Tower featured a dish called Eggs in Hell, Spanish-Style. I've long since forgotten exactly what it contained, or how it was made, but the name has stayed with me for years, an amusing moniker for a breakfast that sounds more like a Quentin Tarantino movie than something to eat. Eventually, I couldn't resist any longer: I devised my own interpretation of Eggs in Hell. It's devilishly red and appropriately spicy, with runny yolks that make it sinfully (get it?) fun to eat. Note that you will need four attractive small baking dishes or ramekins in which to cook and serve this.

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 small Spanish onion, finely diced

3 large cloves garlic, very thinly sliced

1 small plum tomato, cut into small dice with its seeds

1/4 tsp. coarse salt

21/2 Tbsp. cider vinegar

1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

11/2 Tbsp. reduced-sugar tomato ketchup

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 Tbsp. minced fresh cilantro leaves

1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. water

4 large eggs

1 Tbsp. minced fresh chives

1 oz. crumbled goat cheese, Jac k or queso blanco (about 1/4 cup crumbled)

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Heat the olive oil in a small, heavy-bottomed, nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until softened but not browned, about 4 minutes. Stir in the tomato and salt and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes.

Stir in the cider vinegar, red pepper flakes, ketchup, black pepper, cilantro and water and cook until warmed through, about 2 minutes.

Divide the mixture among 4 small baking dishes or ramekins and crack an egg over each serving. Set the ramekins on a baking sheet and bake until the egg whites are set but the yolks are still runny, 12 to 15 minutes.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and use tongs or oven mitts to carefully transfer 1 ramekin to each of 4 plates. Scatter some chives and cheese over each dish and serve hot.

Serves 4.

Nutrition information per serving: Calories: 151. Fat: 11 grams. Saturated fat: 4 grams. Trans fat: 0 grams. Total carbohydrates: 4 grams. Dietary fiber: 1 gram. Total sugars: 1 gram. Protein: 9 grams. Cholesterol: 222 milligrams. Sodium: 236 milligrams. Exchanges: Fat 1, medium fat meat 1, high fat meat 0.5, vegetables 0.5. Carbohydrate choice: 0.

- All recipes from `You Don't Have to Be Diabetic to Love This Cookbook' by Tom Valenti and Andrew Friedman