Argentine dynamo: Chef Valentina Garcia Montaño speaks
On surviving restaurant industry as single mom, live fire cooking, and her menu at Cucina, at Richardson Hotel
Cucina executive chef Valentina Garcia Montaño went deep on her Argentinian roots, growing up on a finca, a ranch where she cooked everyday meals over live fire with her family, in Four Bites Show S1E5.
We got a quick taste of some Argentinian specialties she misses, and how she got her Che Garcia Chimichurri on the shelf at Dash’s, Lexington Co-ops, Premier Gourmet, The Farm Shop, Sgt. Pepper in Lewiston.
Montaño also discussed how being a single mother in the restaurant industry informs her current role, executive chef, Cucina at the Richardson Hotel. Her most important role is still mother of Martina Garcia Montaño, 21.
Special guest star: Mohammad Choudhary, executive chef, Buffalo Tikka House. We were recording our conversation at the restaurant, 948 Main St., when Choudhary stopped by to make sure we would eat before we left.
I could have edited out his unexpected appearance, but it gives me a chance to tell you that Choudhary’s cooking is topnotch, and there’s more Four Bites coming on Buffalo Tikka House.
Montaño talked about her culinary education at Erie County Community College, and the first-class dining deals available to people who know about the culinary program dining rooms. ECC City and North campuses both have dining rooms where students practice on customers during alternate semesters.
This semester ECC North is taking reservations. The Statler Erie Dining Room is open 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays. Also, dinner service every Wednesday 5 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. Reservations are required for both: call 716-851-1381.
It’s located in the Spring Student Center at SUNY Erie’s North Campus, 6205 Main St., Amherst. It’s easier to get to the Spring Student Center from Wehrle Drive, though. Also: if you email blanton@ecc.edu and ask nicely, you can join the email list that provides details of the weekly menus.
First up at the Statler Erie Dining Room, Southwestern menu, Feb. 6-9.
I voiced appreciation of Montaño’s use of bitterness, leading to her mentioning her Cucina menu’s contorni selection: grilled radicchio with lemon and gorgonzola dolce. Here’s what it looks like.
She also described humita, an Argentine corn pudding along succotash lines.
Asado, cooking over live wood fire, is her happy place. If she got to design her own restaurant, no expense spared, it would all be live fire, she said. So here’s a taste of what she means, from her own backyard asado for her daughter’s birthday.
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