Canteen Refreshment Services Branch Celebrates Diversity with Employee Cookbook

To wrap up National Coffee Service Month, our branch spotlight for the month focuses on our largest coffee and refreshment services branch, Coffee Distributing Corp. (CDC), with locations in Garden City Park, NY, and Union, NJ. Our CDC branch provides office coffee, refreshment services, and pantry provisions to businesses throughout New York, New Jersey, and southern Connecticut. In addition to being our largest refreshment services provider, our CDC branch is also one of Canteen’s most diverse, enriched by many different ethnicities and backgrounds.

As part of Canteen’s ongoing commitment to celebrating diversity, associates in our CDC branch recently put together an employee cookbook, full of favorite and family recipes from each employee. The cookbook is an illustration of our many diverse backgrounds and how we can learn and appreciate our differences through our love of culinary activities. Recipes in the cookbook include “Ackee and Salt Fish,” from one employee of Jamaican heritage, “Hungarian Chicken Paprika,” and “Dominican Pastelon.” CDC’s cookbook offers collaboration of many family recipes shared by the diverse CDC family.

The recipe below comes from an associate in our CDC branch, whose mother passed the recipe down from generations before her.

Causa Rellena con Pollo – Yellow Potatoes with Chicken Salad
The name causa comes from the Incan Quechuan word kausaq, meaning “that which gives life.” During the colonial period in Peru, the newly arrived Spaniards adapted many of the native foods and combined them with foods they brought from Europe, creating the distinctive Peruvian cuisine that exists today. Causa is one of these hybrid dishes: a combination of the ancient potato, avocado, and aji amarillothat are all native to Peru, and the lime, garlic, and chicken imported from Europe. Hearty yet refreshing, cool yet mildly spicy, causa is an intriguing mix of the abundant flavors found in the region.

Prep Time: 50 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 8 yellow potatoes (about 2-3 pounds)
• 3 fresh yellow chili peppers
• 3 limes
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or butter
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon prepared mustard
• 1 ripe avocado
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Black olives (for decoration)
• Parsley (for decoration)

Preparation:

• Cook the potatoes in salted water until soft. Peel and pass them through a potato ricer (or mash them), then set aside.
• Remove the seeds from the chili peppers, and sauté them in vegetable oil with the garlic until softened. Place them in a food processor or blender, along with the juice of the 3 limes, and salt/pepper to taste. Process until smooth. Stir lime/chili mixture into the potatoes.
• Poach the chicken in water seasoned with salt and pepper. Shred the cooked chicken, and mix with the mayonnaise and mustard. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• On a plate, shape half of the mashed potato mixture into a square or rectangle. Cover with the chicken in a smooth layer. Layer with slices of avocado. Layer the other half of the potato mixture on top and smooth with a knife. Decorate the top with parsley leaves, slices of hard-boiled eggs, and olive halves.
• Serve chilled.

Variation: You can also shape the potatoes and filling into individual servings. Remove the top and bottom parts from a clean empty can to make a ring. Grease the inside of the can with vegetable oil. Rest the can on a plate, and layer the potatoes and chicken inside the can, then carefully remove the can. To shape the causa into one large ring, you can use a cheesecake pan with removable sides.

Keep an eye on our blog for more employee recipes or vending-ingredient-based recipes in the future!

Our CDC branch is the largest office refreshment services provider in the Tri-State area. Contact CDC directly, or to find a refreshment services or vending servicesbranch in your area, browse additional Canteen locations.