Entries for the One Planet Plate Presented by HSBC award are open right now. This is a worldwide campaign presented by HSBC and Food Made Good HK, and any restaurant can submit an entry – just one recipe – that will be judged by these criteria:
Celebrate local: use locally sourced, seasonal and non-intensively-farmed produce
Waste no food: rethink how food surplus or common by-products are used
More veg: shift the proportion of animal protein towards plant-based ingredients
Source seafood sustainably: protect the oceans by choosing fish from reliable stocks
Low carbon footprint: cut the use of natural resources from farm to fork
One Planet Plate is one part of Food Made Good HK’s Annual Awards, which will be taking place in November 2022, and this year’s winner will be announced then.
The One Planet Plate website is a tremendous resource, with the world’s very best restaurants sharing their recipes here. You will find The Chairman’s recipe for giant grouper head with fermented chilli, a gorgeous aloo gobi recipe from VEDA using a whole cauliflower, as well as elegant dishes from Amber and The Mira. And that’s just in Hong Kong!
How to win
We got to thinking and decided to go straight to last year’s winner, Punam Chopra of SpiceBox Organics, and grill her, so to speak, about her winning entry.
Signature breakfast burrito
Hong Kong’s One Planet Plate award winner in 2021 was the signature breakfast burrito. It’s comprised of biryani rice, red bean paste, egg or tofu scramble and cucumber and tomato slices, laced with SpiceBox’s special mint chutney and wrapped in a toasted tortilla. By making use of existing dishes (using efficient and low-footprint supply lines) of scramble, biryani rice and mint chutney, Chef Chopra was able to create this wholesome, winning meal.
How did you go about creating this dish to suit the One Planet Plate criteria?
Whenever we brainstorm as a team at SpiceBox Organics about adding something to our menu, the first thought is of what we can do with existing ingredients. If some exotic ingredient pops up in mind, we start tracking its way to us from the source, and these insights determine our final decision.
We wanted to bring our own unique touch to the burrito, which was planned as a part of our all-day-breakfast menu. The superstar ingredient was the organic biryani blend we already use and the organic basmati rice, which has been a part of our menu as “traditional biryani” since we added our café section to our stores. It made sense to use these two ingredients in the rice burrito. The mint chutney, another existing product, gave a spicy, delicious touch. It took us some time to test this dish out, gather feedback and perfect it. We always had sustainability in mind – the organic beans (for the bean paste), basmati rice and biryani blend are from our existing source of products, which are bought in bulk and shipped by sea. And the vegetables and herbs used are from local organic farms.
RELATED: SpiceBox Organics recipes and guides
What are the advantages of the ingredients you use for this dish?
As mentioned above, the supply chain being streamlined without having to source too much from other outside sources was a game changer. We try to stick to our supply chain being steady, with a minimal carbon footprint. Beans and rice may be bought in bulk and shipped by sea.
Can you share the other dishes you use the same ingredients for?
The rice is used in the traditional biryani. The beans are used in the vegan bean chilli and in our daily vegan soup (another very sustainable dish). The mint chutney is used in our kathi rolls, and the cucumber and tomato are used in our curried chickpea and warm sprouts salads as well as in many side salad dishes.
Do you have any other dishes like this?
I am excited about how we use all parts of the vegetables to create our soups. Since we use florets in our salad, we use the stumps of broccoli and cauliflower, carrot and zucchini ends, kale sticks and celery stumps to make our daily vegan soup. It is a much sought-after dish, and we try to create a unique flavour for each. Most of the time, we have nothing to waste, and that makes me so happy.
We make a lot of hummus. All of the boiled stock is used for so many things – soups, aquafaba and in making the hummus itself. Some leftover vegetables are also used to make stock for our vegan bean chilli, enhancing its flavour.
What ingredients do you always have on hand at home?
I would definitely have rice, beans and chickpeas as well as mung beans. These are versatile and can be made into salads, hummus, stews, soups, snacks. The mung bean is used to make sweet as well as savoury dishes in Chinese and Indian cuisines.
Rice is good as a grain and staple. It can be in many dishes like congee and kichadi (Indian congee) and as an accompaniment to beans to make a perfect nutritious meal. Both of these ingredients are helpful in reducing waste as they can be made in batches and used to create several dishes to add variety.
Look for #oneplanetplate on Instagram to see the newest entries for the awards