Reflections

The course has come to an end now and I could not be sorrier. After 4 days of doing nothing but eat, sleep, and dream food, I suddenly feel like the bottom has fallen out of my world. I still wake up at 6am with the anticipation of cooking the day's menu, only to realise 2 minutes later that "hang on, there are no classes today - I don't have to be up so early".

Looking back, I just think this has got to be one of the best "vacations" I have ever taken. It was not relaxing - on the contrary, it was exhausting and sometimes stressful, what with the 7am starts and 4 hours on the feet rushing for lunch service. However,I am in my element in the kitchen, and to me, a cohesive team working together like that feels like a well-tuned orchestra giving a recital. I have not been so intellectually challenged and motivated since university, and I can't think of a time that I have ever been happier in my day job.

I took out of the course more than just mere recipes. I acquired techniques and tricks, learnt all about flavour dynamics, and rediscovered just how passionate I feel about food. I made good friends on the course as well - it is just absolutely amazing how that instant connection is established through the one single commonality - the love of making good food.

Where do I go from here? Well, I know now where my heart lies, even if I am unsure whether it is something I want to do for a living. I know I am a more-than-decent cook right now, and I could be really great at this, but I don't know if I could ever be a great chef. I know the restaurant business is hard, and I am under no illusions that the reality is quite different - not just about the food, but really about the entire package that is delivered to the consumer. This dilemma continues to befuddle me.

What I do know is this - the minute I get home, I'm getting started on my demi-glace from duck bones, and with the rest of the duck, I'm going to have fillets to make steak (like magret), legs to make confit, and a 6 month store of home-rendered duck fat. YUM.

Recipes

This is intended for the team members of "Team Amateur". For easy sharing, I've decided put the recipes of the extras I prepared on this blog. All measurements are not precise because I normally just taste and adjust as I go along.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

The chicken
Ingredients:
Chicken stock
Scallions (to taste)
Garlic (to taste)
Ginger (to taste)
Salt (to taste)
Chickens
Sesame oil
Soy sauce
Scallions
Cilantro

I start with a chicken stock (or water and chicken backs). Flavour stock with scallions, garlic, ginger and salt to taste. Cook chickens in stock. Most Chinese cooks prepare the chicken such that there is sometimes still a touch (just a touch) of pink at the bone of the thigh - this prevents the breast of the chicken from being too stringy and dry. The proper technique is to take the chickens out when done and immediately dunk them in a salted ice bath just long enough to stop the cooking process. Then take them out and rub sesame oil over the skin. This prevents discolouration and drying out. Do not butcher until ready to serve. (Obviously I didn't quite follow the proper technique...). 15 min before serving, cut into pieces and dress in sesame oil, soy sauce, scallions and cilantro.

The rice
The ingredients:
Garlic, half a large bulb
Ginger, about the same quantity as garlic
Long grain rice, pref Jasmine, about 4 cups
Rendered chicken fat (enough to coat rice, say half cup)
Chicken stock, about 6 cups or so
Pandan leaf. 2 (optional, but adds lots of flavour)
Salt (to taste)

When cleaning the chickens, I would cut out and reserve any excess fat I can find (lots near the neck, around the skin of the neck, and near the butt). Render this fat in a dry pan without excessive browning. Remove chicken skin remnants. Puree the garlic and ginger together, then fry this garlic and ginger in the fat until aromatic, but not coloured. Pour dry uncooked rice into the fat and fry until some of the grains turn opaque - this shows the fat is being absorbed. There should be just enough fat to coat every grain evenly. Pour rice mixture into pot or rice cooker, add stock, salt, and pandan leaf, anf cook until done.

The chilli sauce (or relish)
(Will - if you bottle some variation of this, you have to send me one.)
Ingredients:
Red mild chillis or red bell peppers, 1 part
Garlic, 1 part
Ginger, 1 part
Thai bird or habernaro chillis, to taste
Lime juice, to taste
Fish sauce, to taste
Sugar, to taste
Kaffir lime leaf, 2, rib removed (optional)

Blitz everything in a blender until smooth. It is meant to be a dip but I think it's probably fine to leave some of the red pepper pieces chunky if preferred.


Sweet and Sour Sauce
(This is for Lisa.)

Ingredients:
Ketchup
Zhejiang vinegar (or white rice vinegar is fine)
Sugar
Chilli puree or Tabasco sauce
Pomagranate molasses (optional)
Soy sauce
Cornstarch mixture

Mix all of the above except cornstarch solution to taste (Sorry it's so imprecise). I would use a vegetable base of garlic, onions, bell peppers, chillis and some acidic fruit (like pineapple or strawberries) for the sweet-sour, and thicken with the cornstarch mixture The main protein is usually deep-fried in a light batter or dry cornflour coating before being mixed with the sauce, but grilled items work as well for a low fat version.

Nazi in the Kitchen

There were 2 parts to the final day of our course. The first part was to prepare a Vietnamese menu (pho, stirfry, rice paper rolls) and the second was to perfectly panfry steak to medium-rare in a pan, and then make a classic pan sauce. My course mates would be surprised to hear that even the Vietnamese menu was challenging to me because, truth is, while I know most of the individual ingredients and have eaten authentic street food in Vietnam, I have never combined the ingredients the way the Vietnamese do it.

Anyway at least for the frst part the menu, I was a bit of a Nazi (I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes!). I took it upon myself to coordinate the soup and the rice rolls, and because there was so much left over chicken, I also decided to make classic Hainanese chicken rice with the chilli sauce to go with it.

Everything went fairly smoothly. What I did not anticipate was the rice paper being so difficult to work with (sticky %^#*$ bastards), and I forgot to think ahead about how to present the pho. Also I could not find the big slightly spicy sweet red chillis we typically use for the chilli sauce, so I improvised - I used red peppers (no heat, just for the colour) and added thai bird and habenero chillis (lots of heat) to the mix. It turned out perfectly.

For the second part of the menu, my group made the classic brown sauces of bercy, financiere and robert sauces. Ooohh YUM. I think the minute I get home, I'm going to start a beef/duck stock for demi-glaze and just freeze a batch. I'm also going to buy a nice bottle of Madeira - It was such a revelation to discover how awesome this liquer tastes flambed in a sauce! I can't wait!!

Beans Beans Beans

Mexican food in Asia is dismal to say the least. I think of it as greasy, sloppy, tomatoey, beany (oorgh), one-dimensional hot-with-no-other-spice-overtones food. Today however opened my eyes to another side of the cuisine.

Today the amateurs got placed into the same group, an arrangement which worked much better. We had to prepare a Mexican menu (excellent for me because I have zero experience preparing the cuisine), and dishes of note were the snapper stuffed with seafood and the seviche. I learnt how to remove the backbone of a whole fish without butchering the skin (not easy), as well as how to prep a cactus (spiky slimy bastards!). What really struck me was how similar to South-East Asian cuisine the marinade was for the fish - chillis, coriander, limes and garlic - it's like Thai without the lemongrass and galangal.

What do I think of Mexican food now? Well, I still don't like beans and sloppy tomatoes, so I'm yet to be convinced about chili and chili-derivative dishes. And I still think the spice and herb overtones can be turned up. But I guess that is an unfair comment as I am used to associating spicy-hot with other equally strong herbs and spices. I really did enjoy the seafood-based and non-bean dishes.

Flied Lice Paladise

Fwah. Todayy ah my gloup cooka Chinesey and all them lestaunt plofessional donno what dey doin. Dey all cooka clappy Texa-Mexi fooda in deir lastaunts. Yukk. I sooow dem how to flavour a flied lice and make-a sweet sour shlimp.

Ahhh. Some molon luin da flied shlimp. Forget to season batter and underfly da shlimp. Soggy batter. Ooorgh.

Fwah. I speaka gooda Englis and I make-a good sweet-sour. Flice lice paladise!!

Out of My League

Today was the first day of classes at the Culinary Institute of America where I am dong the "Career Discovery: The Flavours of Napa Valley" course, and I found myself completely out of my league here. For a start, of the 18 participants in the class, 14 are sponsored food professionals, of which 12 are men. Only 4 are paying students (all female, myself included). All 14 of them have had some form of professional kitchen experience, and I count 2 current sous chefs, 2 or 3 line cooks, one head pastry chef, a few kitchen operations managers, and a couple of senior executives... PHEW!

To say I learnt a lot about cooking today would be a complete understatement. Without doing the course proper justice, but for the sake of conciseness, I will list a few of these new insights here:

1. I worked in a professional kitchen for the first time. WOW. Makes my relatively well-togged out home kitchen look like kiddy-play.

2. Everything is hot. Burners and ovens work at much much higher temperatures. Do not ever grab a pan or pot without a mitt or a towel.

3. Everything is heavy. I almost keeled over under the weight of a not-that-big pot of boiling water.

4. It is physically challenging. For close to 4 hours, I was on my feet chopping, moving, mixing, kneading, rolling. It was hard work and my feet still hurt right now.

5. I learnt how to clean a fresh artichoke for the first time.

6. I made gnocchi for the first time. (I don't even like the stuff...)

7. I learnt proper knife skills.

8. The pros in my class have a lot of industry experience and tricks up their sleeves, but they are not perfect. My lunch quail for instance, which was made by 2 line cooks, was beautifully flavoured but undercooked (tsk tsk...).

9. Presentation, presentation, presentation.

10. I discovered I actually already know quite a number of the techniques they teach (it feels good...) :)

Pet peeves? Just a few.

1. I can't help but think that some of the pros aren't that passionate about food. I guess for them, it's a job, it pays the bills, they are here because their employer sent them. 'Nuff said.

2. The pros have their own set ways of doing things, and I can't help but feel I'm slowing things down.

3. Someone trying to explain authoritatively to me what an emulsion is (this person by the way, is not even a kitchen person, but runs "front-of-the-house"). I mean - HELLO, I know what an emulsion is. I aced chemistry, I make bearnaise, hollandaise, aioli all the time.

4. Getting asked why my English is so good. Uh................................. Because I am a native speaker, I scored 6/6 in GMAT writing??! (sorry could not help that...)

But I had fun. A lot of fun. Would I recommend the course to others? Well I think if one came fresh without any home cooking experience at all, it would be very tough and demoralizing. Granted, the instructors did mention that to have a majority of food professionals in the course is quite atypical, but I think the instructors themselves assume some level of basic kitchen proficiency even among the amateurs. But for me, it is the right level. It pushed me to think about food at a different level. I can't wait for tomorrow.

PS. CIA did not manage to score us a table at The French Laundry. What they did manage to get us was a table at Thomas Keller's new restaurant. Ad Hoc. I had the best cheesesteaks and cayenne crisps there today. YUM.