What Do Monks Eat? Find Out With Eric Ripert
What is “temple food”? That’s something Eric Ripert, chef of New York City’s Le Bernardin, plans to find out in the second episode of his Cooking Channel show “Avec Eric” on Saturday. He travels to Seoul, Korea, where, with the help of some Buddhist nuns and monks, he learns to make vegan dishes that are “healthy not only for your body but also for the mind.”
Yahoo Travel has a preview showing Ripert cooking earthy mushroom soup at Baekyang-Sa Temple in South Korea’s Naejangsan National Park. “For the nuns and the monks who are cooking, it’s basically a meditation,” he says of their process, which involves planting, harvesting, and cooking all of their food.
Upon his return to his home kitchen in New York City, Ripert puts his own spin on the soup, making a consommé, or clarified broth, with tomatoes instead of mushrooms, and flavoring it with ginger, scallions, lemongrass, and garlic. “It’s light and refined in flavor,” he says. Watch how to make it above.
Episode 2 of the third season of Avec Eric airs Saturday, March 7, at 9:30 a.m. EST/8:30 a.m. CST on the Cooking Channel.
More clips from the show: