Chef Advice

Chef Advice: A Conversation with Dave Ingram of Insalata's

By Caron Osberg

Dave Ingram is the pastry chef at Insalata’s Mediterranean Cuisine in San Anselmo, California, just north of San Francisco. We talked to him one busy afternoon as he was preparing pastry delights for the season’s orders of holiday parties and catering.

Chef Dave has been at Insalata’s for about three years, but he has been a chef since he was a child. “When I was a little boy, I was amazed that you could combine sugar, eggs and flour and make this thing called a cookie,” he told us.

“Just six years old making cookies with my mom, I was amazed.” And after 23 years in the restaurant industry, he says he always comes back to pastry. “I have done all aspects of kitchen work, including savory dishes. But I always come back to pastry. I have an affinity for it,” he told us.

The subtle flavors valued by pastry chefs, home bakers and restaurant guests make vanilla a powerhouse in the taste category. Pastry work often involves simple ingredients such as cream or butter and eggs with sugar. Often added to these delicate flavors is the pastry chef’s workhorse: vanilla. To complement the humble components of his confection creations, Chef Dave prefers Tahitian vanilla. Tahitian vanilla is not as widely used as the planifolia, or bourbon-type vanilla, which produces the popular vanilla scent and flavor. The Tahitian bean has a thin skin and a bean pod that is usually short and chubby. The scent is fruity, floral and a little unexpected.

Chef Dave explained why Tahitian vanilla is an important choice for Insalata’s, “It has such a nice, subtle flavor in a dish where the vanilla is a prominent flavor.” He uses both the vanilla bean and vanilla extract, depending on what he is baking.

In a dish where the vanilla is a central flavor or in a dish with light-tasting ingredients, such as pastry cream or custard, Chef Dave urges home bakers to use the whole bean as opposed to an extract. In cookies, cakes, or anything baked with chocolate, he recommends an extract. The key is to use vanilla bean for a pronounced flavor. Using the beans generally provides a more intense flavor simply because there’s more vanilla available. But what is vanilla’s secret? What makes it so fundamental in the baking kitchen?

Chef Dave knows the reason and told us, “Without it, you don’t get the heightened flavor of butter and cream. It heightens those flavors and brings them out the way salt may bring out flavors in a savory dish. It brings out the buttery or creaminess of a dish. It adds depth and richness you wouldn’t have if it wasn’t there.”

Chef Dave shared another benefit to using vanilla bean. Home bakers will get more than flavor when they chose the vanilla bean over extract. “You get a minute bit of texture with tiny little vanilla bean seeds that you don’t have in an extract…it is nice with a crème Brule, pastry cream or custard. It is a tiny black speck, and it’s pretty.”

With all the talk about vanilla, we wondered if there were any tricks to using a vanilla bean, but Chef Dave assured us the vanilla bean pod is easy and worthwhile. “Use a very sharp paring knife. Try to split just one side, but it’s OK to cut all the way through and scrape both halves. If you dig into the pod, you might get a little fiber, but that’s OK. Use the bean at room temperature because cold makes it harder to scrape. If I’m flavoring a custard where I have the pod in the milk and I’m simmering flavor into the milk that way, sometimes I will remove the pod, let it cool off and run my finger down it to get a little more out of the pod. If you get a little fiber and don’t want it – it may look stringy – you can just strain the mixture. The seeds will come through and you’ll remove any of the fiber or flesh.”

The vanilla bean pod shouldn’t be thrown away after being scraped clean of its beans. The scraped pod can be warmed in milk or placed into a tightly sealed container of sugar. The milk can be used to make a warm vanilla milk drink or used in a recipe where milk is warmed, such as custard. The sugar will become vanilla sugar, which can be used in coffee or sprinkled on top of cakes and cookies.

We were grateful to Chef Dave for spending time with us, and we couldn’t help asking him for a tip before we let him get back to his year end baking. He knows how hot a kitchen can get whether it be from warm summer weather or continuous holiday baking, so he shared this helpful kitchen hint, “When working with pastry dough in summertime or in a hot kitchen, you can chill your counter top by putting a bag of ice on it for an hour or so. This works with any countertop – marble or otherwise.”

With great advice in hand, we said farewell to Chef Dave. We had visions of vanilla bean pods dancing in our heads, so we headed home to think creatively about using vanilla beans in our kitchens.

Gourmet Vanilla Beans

Pure Vanilla Extract

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