What does an AI Christmas meal look like?

Are you entertaining for Christmas and are afraid of forgetting the accompaniments for the main course? - asked for the help of ChatOn AI, the paid version of ChatGPT, to establish a traditional Franco-Canadian New Year's Eve menu and another, more eccentric one.

Romain Avril, a French chef based in Toronto, sifts through these suggestions and spices them up with a few tips.

As an input, theIA offers heavy dishes

With a tourtiere as a starter, it's a bit riskybelieves Romain Avril, because It’s a pretty heavy dish.which would rather have its place in the middle of the meal. His advice? Mini pies in canape modewith an endive or frisé salad.

Romain Avril is especially very surprised by the pudding chômeur, offered as a starter. For starters, it's dessert. Secondly, it's very, very heavy, we might as well move on to the gifts straight awayhe jokes.

Dishes not too riskynot always festive

With a turkey and chestnuts, ChatOn AI has didn't take too many risksbelieves Romain Avril. He advises adding a little garnish under the skin, to really give it very tasty flesh.

For lovers of meatballs, another AI suggestion, the chef suggests varying the sauce with meats that are a little more off the beaten track, such as elk or ostrich.

For side dishes, he considers cornbread not really a Christmas dish, unlike roasted vegetables. that go well with turkey and mashed potatoes. He also advises infuse with a little garlic and rosemary to enhance. Romain Avril also suggests grating a little truffle on top.

Dry and hearty desserts

Finally, after this already copious menu, the log is of course a must. Romain Avril suggests opting for the frozen version, for example praline-hazelnut, a little lighter than the classic log.

As for the sugar pie, if it's not an oddity of the Canadian winter, the chef imagines it more for New Year's Eve at the end of the year than at Christmas.

Costs at a glance

With a few exceptions (pea soup and cornbread have been discontinued), these recipes are possible if you set a budget of $300 for 12 guests, or $25 per person

Red meat is extremely expensivewarns us the chef who advises to be smart in the accompaniments. He suggests using potatoes which don't cost much. He also recommends little chickenssimple to prepare.

To reduce the budget while being creative, spices are a way to bring warmth, comfort and slightly different tasteslike lemongrass.

Romain Avril points out that cooking yourself, even if it means involving everyone, often allows you to lower the bill and suggests, for example a chicken liver mousse with a little cognacin the absence of foie gras. Moreover, nice training also enhances the experience and it costs nothing.

What about an eccentric meal?

Unlike a traditional meal, artificial intelligence suggestions vary more when you request an eccentric meal and whether or not you apply a budget.

Author of the recipe book The Vegan BridgeRomain Avril believes that it is possible to make an original plant-based meal. He had detailed a proposal in 2022 for -.

A path that artificial intelligence has not taken at all.

Oysters or salmon as a starter

While theIA suggests cooked oysters, Romain Avril advises choosing fairly large oysters that can be cooked.

He also likes the suggestion of salmon, less expensive, especially if it is beautiful wild salmon, rather than farmed, easy to garnish with lemon zest, grapefruit or Buddha's hand.

Be careful with tough meats

As a main course, Romain Avril likes the suggestions ofIAwhile pointing out that the Peking duck suggestion is quite difficult to execute.

Christmas is certainly not the time of year to try things.

On the contrary, the other proposition, the filet mignon, remains a very easy dish to make. Romain Avril likes the idea of ​​accompanying it with a chocolate sauce. Be careful to choose dark chocolate 70% or morespecifies the chef.

As an accompaniment, a celeriac puree with truffle oil is something that's not going to be very, very expensivewhile being original. Use in small quantities and at the end.

Desserts that take you on a journey

Romain Avril prefers eccentric dessert offerings to the classic menu suggestions.

We travel and I really like traveling through dishes. The matcha log will bring us a little more lightness. A pavlova allows you to have an exotic, more tangy touch, things that are fairly easy to do and very inexpensive.

For a chocolate tart, good chocolate and cream have a certain cost, but it is possible to get by at 8-9 dollars per person, he estimates, because it does not need to be very large. Romain Avril would punctuate everything witha little ganache on top, for example with avocado, for a lighter touch.

The verdict?

Whether it's the traditional or eccentric menu, ChatOn AI hasn't gone too far wrong in general, believes chef Romain Avril.

THE IA are rather conservative, in the sense that they will draw inspiration from what existssays Sam Mengel, chief technology officer for the company Multiverse Computing and member of La French Tech Toronto, but they are not always creative.

A type of artificial intelligence Large Language Model (large language model), like the one we used, involves predicting the next wordcontinues Sam Mengel. He notes that the literature is abundant on Franco-Canadian Christmas meals, and that the notion of tradition in this area is relatively consensual.

To improve the results, one possibility would be to multiply the questions by explaining what the traditions are and what the user likes or dislikes, says Sam Mengel.

Although the dishes presented are individually satisfying, do they all fit together well from a flavor standpoint?he asks himself. This is perhaps where an AI will have more difficulty.

This perhaps explains the accumulation of rather heavy dishes in the traditional menu.