Chef Sonny Mariano has good advice for home cooks who wish to incorporate blueberries into their dishes: “Be playful with it.”
First, why even blueberries?
Aside from the obvious nutrition, blueberries are now also readily available in most supermarkets. Chef Sonny, who is executive chef of the Tasteless Food Group, played around with US blueberries and came up with a menu of around 15 items including drinks that highlighted the fruit in a limited-run event at Khaiba in Rockwell.
His star dish, the Kaldereta, stems from his childhood in Pampanga where the dish was a staple family fare. In collaborating with the US Highbush Blueberry Council for a six-course lunch that highlighted the versatility of the berry, he showed that there is more to the fruit than the cheesecake we all love.
Working with fresh, dried, frozen and powdered blueberries, Chef Sonny presented sweet to savory dishes and back again, starting with blueberry cookies with white chocolate, and a pass-around assortment of nibbles that included sourdough bibingka with blueberries and cheese, beef tapa empanada, chicken liver pate cigars with blueberry and balsamic compote, and drinks that were a feast for the eyes as much as for the tongue.
Kevin Hamilton, global vice president, Marketing and Communications, of the United States Highbush Blueberry Council, told DAILY TRIBUNE that the Philippine market has shown promise in the region, “because it’s a large country with a growing population that’s becoming more affluent,” he said.
While blueberries in a salad are normal, what Chef Sonny did was smoke them. His Smoked US Blueberry Salad was a delightful surprise, served with Pandesal and Jamon, fried pandesal stuffed with US blueberry ketchup, prosciutto and labneh.
Other Khaiba staples, the Chicken BBQ, Wagyu Short Rib Bistek, Miso Prawn and Lamb Shank Kaldereta, received fresh retakes with US blueberries.
Of course, Chef Sonny, known for his desserts, gave the blueberry a simple but memorable spin with his US blueberry soft serve ice cream with blueberry chocolate stracciatella.
The bottomline is that blueberries, while perhaps a little foreign to the Filipino menu, are in fact quite easy to incorporate into our palate — and Chef Sonny Mariano proved it.