How Erwan Heussaff cooks quick, healthy meals in his condo

‘I’m a huge food processor fan. I put soups and salsas in there. You can put your vegetables and chop them up. It’s probably the one I use the most.’

There’s no better poster boy for successful weight loss than Erwan Heussaff, who went from being a 240-lb. “fat kid” to the 150-lb. heartthrob he is today.

A triathlete, Heussaff is not just some meathead jock either but a thinking woman’s heartthrob: a food expert who created a massively popular blog, “The Fat Kid Inside,” and a self-made restaurateur with over seven restaurants and bars under his (extremely trim) belt.

As many ladies will attest, there are few things sexier than a man who can cook.

The fact that Heussaff can maintain his sleek physique while living in a small condominium and leading a hectic lifestyle didn’t escape the folks at Philips, who enlisted Erwan to endorse appliances like the Airfryer, which he often uses because frying in oil is so bad for you.

“I don’t see fat as a bad thing,” declares Heussaff, who admits that he loves lard and duck fat, in particular. “I see deep frying as a bad thing. It kind of kills the flavor and most of the nutrition. You can air-fry and drizzle extra virgin olive oil on top or put some butter on it for flavor.”

Before heading to the gym or taking a shower, Heussaff sets the timer on his Airfryer to cook his ingredients (it roasts and grills as well), and when he comes back he has a healthy meal all prepared.

“When you’re a YUPinoy — a young, urban Pinoy like Erwan — it’s a challenge to have a healthy lifestyle,” notes RJ Buenaventura, general manager of Philips Personal Health. “The cornerstone is a healthy diet but it’s very hard to have with a hectic schedule, traffic, and moving into smaller and smaller spaces. Our kitchen solutions help you create healthy, delicious and hassle-free meals.”

Philips Consumer Lifestyle business development manager Reah Ronsayro concurs, noting that appliances like induction cookers are safer than gas stoves for condo dwellers, and that multi-use gadgets like the Airfryer, food processor/blender and juicer are ideal for small kitchens. “All appliances are compact and can store easily,” she says.

Heussaff proved how much you could do in a small space with a few well-chosen appliances by whipping up a five-course meal at Red Light, his popup-kitchen concept on Felipe Street in Makati where he collaborates with cooks eager to try out new concepts.

“We’re doing very straightforward, simple food — I didn’t want to do anything too crazy,” he said. “The point is it’s easy to do nice stuff at home.”

He started off by serving burrata on buttered, toasted rye bread — all made from scratch. Burrata is one of my current food favorites, so I had no trouble polishing off the rich, runny cheese, which contrasted beautifully with the crisp bread.

Whether entertaining or cooking for himself in his “absolutely tiny” condo, Heussaff says the appliance he finds most useful is the food processor. “I’m a huge fan, it makes everything easier,” he says. I put soups in there, salsas … you can put your vegetables and chop them up. It’s probably the one I use the most.”

A close second would be the stick blender: “They’re the easiest to handle and they’re mess-free. I love to cook but hate to clean, so I like appliances that don’t get too dirty.”

He advises novice cooks to be organized, to do their prep work in advance. “I like to put everything together and precook as much as I can, organize it so it’s clear and I don’t forget things,” he says. “Every course, even at home I like to plate; it’s more fun.”

In his fridge you’ll always find onions, squash, tomatoes, radishes and coconut water, while his favorite seasonings are pimenton dulce (sweet smoked paprika), cayenne, five-spice, and turmeric. “It’s good for inflammation so I have it in my juices, combined with ginger and lemon.”

Secret to successful weight loss

Heussaff is quick on his feet, answering questions while assembling complex and intensely flavorful dishes in front of us like corn chowder with poached shrimp salad and grilled fishcakes with Romesco sauce and toasted quinoa.

Quinoa is a popular health food, so we ask him how he lost the weight and more importantly, how he maintains the weight loss.

“I kill myself at workouts as much as possible every day,” he grins, “but honestly, just clean eating, knowing exactly what’s going into your body, that’s the most important. Once you understand food and how it’s made, then it’s so much easier to make, but people tell me, ‘I ate healthy today, I ate a sandwich.’ I don’t know where people got the idea that sandwiches are healthy all of a sudden; it’s just because they see it as not a complete meal. I always tell people it’s important to do your own research, like the Internet has everything on it, so it’s so simple for people now to figure out what’s healthy and what’s not.”

He stresses the importance of eating well-chosen carbs and more lean proteins, vegetables and fruits, and we get exactly what he means after sampling his next dish: tender, perfectly cooked hanger steak with salsa verde, sour cream, and a sweet potato-squash mash in place of the usual mashed potatoes, which Erwan admits is his all-time favorite food.

Another comfort dish is soup like batchoy: “When I’m having a long day, I enjoy something broth-y, something hot, it reminds me of my childhood.”

The only things this amiable young man hates is making dessert (“It’s the most annoying because you need to follow a recipe), slow-moving staff (“I can be a Nazi in the kitchen”) and customers who walk into his restaurants with preconceived notions of what the restaurant’s supposed to be like — and even what he’s like, being the BF of Anne Curtis and all.

“I get that a lot,” he says of his celeb status. “People think I’m cooking so even before they sit down they nitpick on purpose: ‘It’s so hot, the music’s so loud, why’s the table wiggling?’ You can’t handle it any other way but be cordial about it.”

Erwan, who started cooking when he was eight, has worked in the hospitality industry for over 10 years, in countries like France, Greece, Vietnam, China, and Russia.

“I eventually settled in the Philippines because I was looking for different opportunities. After Russia they wanted to send me to Nigeria but I said no, it’s too crazy. In the Philippines it’s an exciting time because there are a lot of homegrown concepts starting up and more international franchises coming in, so we can show what we have and what we can do.”

Never having trained as a chef, he developed recipes just by cooking and loving to eat. “That’s why I was fat, I just loved to eat, and I would eat everything,” he confesses. “For me that’s the best way I could learn. I’m not as technical as most people but I understand good flavor, and that’s what I base my cooking on.”

He says his dream kitchen would be an open-plan one with no walls between cook and consumer. “It would probably be bigger than my condo,” he laughs. And, I’m sure, contain all the state-of-the-art appliances he finds so useful.

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Philips’ Airfryer, induction cooker, food processor, hand blender and juicer are available at leading appliance stores.

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