BLOG | BY ECO WARRIOR PRINCESS
Australian Thai street food restaurant, P’Nut Street Noodles has partnered with renowned chef and MasterChef Australia 2017 winner, accountant-turned-chef Diana Chan, to create slow food menu “Asian Soul Food Minimum Waste, Maximum Taste” that embraces a root to stem food philosophy that minimises food wastage.
The dishes have been created with sustainability in mind, to inspire Australians to be become aware of unnecessary food waste and encourage them to become more creative with food scraps instead of discarding them. With an estimated 7.3 tonnes of food wasted in Australia per year – equivalent to 300 kg per person – P’Nut and chef Diana Chan are hoping to shine the light on more sustainable food practices.
According to P’Nut General Manager, Petra Orrenius, 65% of the food wasted can actually be repurposed. “We realised that we could utilise the often-unused vegetable portions, such as broccoli stems and carrot ends, that currently go to waste as the perfect base for some beautiful soups and stir fry dishes,” said Orrenius.
“We felt it was best to collaborate with a chef who was 100% committed to sustainable cooking practices and shared our heritage and values, and so collaborating with Diana Chan felt only natural.
The menu, inspired by Chan’s Malaysian heritage, features four traditional dishes with a modern twist: Malaysian Fried Rice, Black Pepper Noodles and Malaysian Hearty Soup and handmade Pork Belly Wonton Dumplings using whole vegetables including bok choy, broccoli stem, ginger, shallots and carrots that would otherwise have gone to waste. The slow food menu is available across all 11 restaurants in New South Wales and Queensland.
A more sustainable industry is what the chef has been working towards. In 2017, after winning Australia’s MasterChef, Diana Chan went on to host the SBS program, Asia Unplated with Diana Chan, a cooking series exploring authentic Asia flavours and home-style dishes and introducing viewers to sustainable cooking techniques. The chef said the vision behind the new P’Nut menu was to create flavoursome yet affordable dishes that were easy to replicate at home and inspire customers to adopt a zero-waste lifestyle by joining the root to stem food movement.
“As a chef, I feel responsible for caring about the ingredients I use and have always been passionate about finding ways to reduce food waste, as well as increasing awareness throughout the sector and general public, and am confident that this collaboration with P’Nut will provide the perfect culmination of this,” said Chan.
“I am so pleased to see restaurants becoming more environmentally conscious and utilise some of their ingredients that would otherwise be going to waste in their menu, and even more so in restaurant chains like P’Nut.”
P’Nut create tasty Asian-fusion dishes from scratch and cater to many dietary requests including gluten-free, nut-free and vegan.
