I am so grateful for immigration because along with the cheap, hardworking foreign labour (especially dishwashers) it brings into Australia, it also gives us a taste of exotic cuisine. However, as appreciative as I am to be able to eat “beef rendang” at my local, as a Malaysian, I am terribly ashamed of the monstrosity that Australians identify as Malaysian Satay. First of all, satay sauce is made from ground spices, roughly chopped peanuts and coconut milk that has been simmered for hours, not bloody peanut butter and chilly! When I have more clout in the food scene, I aim to start an “Authentic Cuisine” movement and petition against bastardized crap. The Authenticity Label should be just as important as the Heart Foundation Tick. Come on guys, if you have to tailor your food to “suit local tastebuds”, the locals don’t deserve it!
The Dubious Origins of the Chinese Fortune Cookie:
San Francisco and Los Angeles both lay claim to the origin of the fortune cookie. Makoto Hagiwara of Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco is said to have invented the cookie as an extension to Japanese desserts in 1909 (Martin 2004), while David Jung, founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles, is said to have invented them in 1918 (Brunner 2005). San Francisco's mock Court of Historical Review took the case in 1983. A federal judge of the Court of Historical Review determined that the cookie originated with Hagiwara and the court ruled in favor of San Francisco. Subsequently, the city of Los Angeles condemned the decision.
1. Martin, James (2004), "Fortune Cookies: A San Francisco Invention"
2. Brunner, Borgna (2005), "The History of the Fortune Cookie"
I feel sorry for vegetarians/ vegans/ people with allergies in general because they probably get discriminated on a regular basis. I remember when my younger sister would receive the same reaction from people when she told them that she was a vegetarian – they responded as if she had just died. Little do these “special diet people” know that they also cause a cruder response in the commercial kitchen as well. We especially do not respond well to vegans because we rely on pounds of butter.
How to season a new Moroccan Tajine:
1. Soak tajine for at least 24 hours prior to its first use
2. Leave it to dry in the sunlight (preferable the garden) for a few days
3. Rub olive oil in the inner surfaces of the lid and base
4. Put 1 cup of water, some bay leaves, chilly, salt and pepper into the tajine and place in a cold oven. Set the temperature at 200°C and leave for an hour.
5. For its first few uses, do not go over 240°C but gradually work your way towards this high temperature
6. Good tajines can be used over gas stoves (on top of a heat diffuser), ovens and barbeque grills
7. There is a huge difference when using the tajine because of the flavour that it imparts into the food.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The only time you can call me a bitch is when you put “Grill” before it
I was in the CD store and chatting with the owner who could not believe that I was a chef until he saw the scars on my arms. I have now reconciled with myself that as long as I am a chef, I will never have nice nails or hands. Perhaps this is also a suggestion to hand cream manufacturers to use chefs as their ultimate litmus test, rather than using animals.
Tips on Char-Grilling Steaks:
Always oil the meat before cooking, to maintain its moisture.
Let the meat rest to allow the muscles to relax so that the juices are retained within the meat. As long as you do not cut it, it will retain its heat for a few minutes.
Have you ever eaten out and appreciated the perfection of your ordered meal? How the meat is cooked just the way you asked; how the vegetables and mash are also nice and hot? And how everyone gets his or her food at the same time? Commercial cooking is almost like a well-coordinated orchestra. Usually the sous chef conducts the entire operation. The order comes in for seared salmon with Asian vegetables, medium rare grilled eye fillet and a side of truffled mash. The sous chef starts searing the meat and as the meat is three minutes away from ready, calls out for the mash to be heated. Two minutes away - the vegetables are dropped in the boiling water and the chef calls out for the fish to be cooked. One minute away – the meat and fish are left to rest, while everything else is assembled on the plates by the sous chef. Now imagine trying to handle orders from ten tables with about six persons per table.
Total grilling times for a 450g rump, sirloin, entrecote, porterhouse or T-bone beef steak
Rare: 6-8 minutes
Medium: 10-12 minutes
Well done: 12-14 minutes
Total time will vary depending on the type of pan, heat, quality an thickness of the meat.
Within 3 days of stepping into the industry, I was promoted to Breakfast Chef and now after approximately 3 weeks, I have taken the responsibilities of the Sous Chef (although I am not allowed to formally have the title because I’m not a qualified chef). I can finally call myself The Grill Bitch and have apprentices cook my meals. The power trip becomes me.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
I'd like something that sounds awfully expensive & exotic, please.
I am not sure what irks me more – chefs mispronouncing French cooking terms or chefs misusing them. This must be the product of informal education between apprentices and chefs that go unchecked. In combination with deep-seeded insecurities of lacking in university qualifications, they abuse French terms to sound intimidating and smart. I now tolerate a younger (and overly confident) chef who keeps using the term “mise en place” for service and I cringe every time he does so.
Mise en place: French literal term “put in place”, meaning that the preparation is ready up to the point of cooking.
In combination of the actual taste of the dish and its presentation, one other factor is rarely given credit – the vivid illustration written in the menu. Beautiful prose often serves as the mental appetiser to what is to come. Beef steak, gravy with a vegetable stack gives the impression that one is eating at an Retired Services League club, but if it was described as Grain Fed Angus eye fillet, served with a red wine jus and a tien of summer vegetables, one would more likely associate it with fine dining. Make it sound exotic and intimidating – if it works in the kitchen, it would certainly work in the restaurant!
Grain-fed: Fed grain-dominated rations for a minimum of 3 months in controlled conditions, Such beef has maximum marbling,
Grass-fed: Raised and fattened on pasture. Advocates of grain-fed beef suggest that climatic variations and seasonal differences can lead to an inconsistency of quality in grass-fed beef.
Mise en place: French literal term “put in place”, meaning that the preparation is ready up to the point of cooking.
In combination of the actual taste of the dish and its presentation, one other factor is rarely given credit – the vivid illustration written in the menu. Beautiful prose often serves as the mental appetiser to what is to come. Beef steak, gravy with a vegetable stack gives the impression that one is eating at an Retired Services League club, but if it was described as Grain Fed Angus eye fillet, served with a red wine jus and a tien of summer vegetables, one would more likely associate it with fine dining. Make it sound exotic and intimidating – if it works in the kitchen, it would certainly work in the restaurant!
Grain-fed: Fed grain-dominated rations for a minimum of 3 months in controlled conditions, Such beef has maximum marbling,
Grass-fed: Raised and fattened on pasture. Advocates of grain-fed beef suggest that climatic variations and seasonal differences can lead to an inconsistency of quality in grass-fed beef.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Chefs behaving badly
You have probably heard that all head chefs behave like rock stars and I am here to confirm this. Waitresses flirt with them because they have to be fed, and if they want to be fed well, that’s what they resort to doing – the concept is somewhat Neolithic. Because in the barbaric kitchen domain there is no such thing as the Human Resources Department, comments and acts of sexual harassment are rife and commonly accepted. All this bad behaviour stems from years of abuse by other chefs and dishonest owners so when they have climbed to the top of the food chain, they transcend all past aggression to others as if it is a rite of passage.
Ageing of meat/ Maturation: After the animal is killed, the flesh is still warm and it passes through a stage known in France as pantelante (twitching). Then rigor mortis sets in. In the next stage, rassise, the flesh becomes tender and flavoursome as the sinews are less taut and the muscles relax. The speed and intensity with which meat ages is influenced both by the quality of the meat (which is affected by the animal’s diet) and the ambient temperature.
When a chef has been abused to the point that is insufferable, you may find that he/she may leave without notice or quite literally walk out of the kitchen as soon as payday comes around – in the midst of a full service. You may also find that your prized produce has gone missing (which explains why all the good meat and coffee are locked up). In the restaurant where I work, the executive chef, sous chef, chef de partie and I have decided to walk out of the restaurant today because the owner was planning to replace all of us with cheaper staff and he did not pay government-compulsory superannuation. We all have other jobs already lined up, which is the one great thing about being a chef – you are guaranteed a job anywhere in the world.
Hanging/ Faisandage: Derived from the French word “faisan” (pheasant). The operation of leaving red meat in a cool place for varying length of time to make the flesh more tender and improve in flavour. In theory, beef should be hung for 3-4 weeks at -1.5°C, 15 days at 0°C, two days at 20°C or one day at 43°C. In practice, however, it is hung in a cold room at 2°C for 5-6 days.
Ageing of meat/ Maturation: After the animal is killed, the flesh is still warm and it passes through a stage known in France as pantelante (twitching). Then rigor mortis sets in. In the next stage, rassise, the flesh becomes tender and flavoursome as the sinews are less taut and the muscles relax. The speed and intensity with which meat ages is influenced both by the quality of the meat (which is affected by the animal’s diet) and the ambient temperature.
When a chef has been abused to the point that is insufferable, you may find that he/she may leave without notice or quite literally walk out of the kitchen as soon as payday comes around – in the midst of a full service. You may also find that your prized produce has gone missing (which explains why all the good meat and coffee are locked up). In the restaurant where I work, the executive chef, sous chef, chef de partie and I have decided to walk out of the restaurant today because the owner was planning to replace all of us with cheaper staff and he did not pay government-compulsory superannuation. We all have other jobs already lined up, which is the one great thing about being a chef – you are guaranteed a job anywhere in the world.
Hanging/ Faisandage: Derived from the French word “faisan” (pheasant). The operation of leaving red meat in a cool place for varying length of time to make the flesh more tender and improve in flavour. In theory, beef should be hung for 3-4 weeks at -1.5°C, 15 days at 0°C, two days at 20°C or one day at 43°C. In practice, however, it is hung in a cold room at 2°C for 5-6 days.
Monday, February 18, 2008
The scars bring out the brute in me
I have managed to acquire two burns from hot oil, another on my wrist for accidentally touching the edge of a hot saucepan, cuts of my left ring finger, a hairline cut across my forehead (which I can’t recall how I got it) and scalded finger tips from immersing food in boiling water – all this in one day. I get branded on a daily basis and because I work in intense heat, I tend to be more aggressive. I am starting to curse a lot more than usual and when I get attitude from people, I tend to lash out at them– no more “Delicate Asian Flower”. The other day, I politely asked the waitress to serve out the dish immediately and she quipped, “My name is X and I only respond to my name, thank you very much!” I was already under so much pressure trying to cook through the orders and just lost it. I asked her what my name was and she didn’t get it right, so I told her and said, “So don’t you forget MY NAME, you fucking high school dropout!” She’s been nicer to me ever since.
In the abattoir, health and hygiene inspections take place at three stages – on the living animal, on the viscera (internal organs) and on the carcass; at the two latter stages this may lead to confiscation of all or part of the product. If all the inspections are satisfactory the carcass is branded as conforming to legal requirements.
You will find that in many restaurants, the kitchen and the wait staff do not mix well. Quite understandable when the wait staff gets abused by fussy restaurant patrons and in turn, will annoy the chefs. On the other hand, chefs work in intense conditions and the kitchen functions like a well-oiled machine but when an order is not taken correctly and the food is sent back to the kitchen, chefs will take it out on the wait staff, as it disrupts the somewhat smooth-flowing operation. I have noticed in really great restaurants, one partner would head the kitchen while the other partner heads the dining room and this creates great team interaction between the two domains.
In the abattoir, health and hygiene inspections take place at three stages – on the living animal, on the viscera (internal organs) and on the carcass; at the two latter stages this may lead to confiscation of all or part of the product. If all the inspections are satisfactory the carcass is branded as conforming to legal requirements.
You will find that in many restaurants, the kitchen and the wait staff do not mix well. Quite understandable when the wait staff gets abused by fussy restaurant patrons and in turn, will annoy the chefs. On the other hand, chefs work in intense conditions and the kitchen functions like a well-oiled machine but when an order is not taken correctly and the food is sent back to the kitchen, chefs will take it out on the wait staff, as it disrupts the somewhat smooth-flowing operation. I have noticed in really great restaurants, one partner would head the kitchen while the other partner heads the dining room and this creates great team interaction between the two domains.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Food Photo Shoot
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Would you like my knife in your chest or in your back?
I have a new Japanese boyfriend called Shun – not only is he beautiful, he is also very sharp. Although size-wise he is not as impressive as my former lover, the 23 cm still does the job. The only problem with Shun is that I am forced to also spend money on Shun’s partner Kai but after a few trysts with Kai, I have discovered how wonderful he is with all my other knives!
My knives are the loves of my life and as a commercial chef, you have to dedicate time (and money) sharpening your tools of trade. Using a ceramic rod on a daily basis can keep your knives sharp but after a month, it still loses its edge which is why you should maintain it by having it professionally sharpened, or buy a KAI electric knife sharpener.
If using a sharpening stone, chefs either use water, soapy water or oil but stick to just one medium. I would recommend just water as using oil could get messy and soil your knife wallet. When using water, soak the stone for at least 15 minutes prior to sharpening your knife. Depending on the make of your knife, the angle of the blade could range from 15-35 degrees from the surface of the sharpening stone.
While we are in the realms of discussing sharp objects, I might as well mention the backstabbing that happens in the kitchen. Even the executive chef’s position is not safe unless he is in co-partnership with the restaurant owner (and this may happen if the owner thinks that he can replace the executive chef with someone who would cost less). Just as how you would observe certain signs in the office to indicate there is some movement in the corporate world (e.g. HR department instructed to halt employee intake prior to large mergers/ redundancies), there are also signs in the kitchen when someone has to leave unexpectedly. You know that you are being replaced when the owner insists on getting your recipes from you, or you know that the chef is leaving on his own accord when he doesn’t give a rat’s ass to perform a stock-take of the larder. So if you are a chef, keep your recipes to yourself and do not share it with anyone.
Serrated knives (such as bread knives) will eventually lose their sharpness and because they cannot be sharpened, they have to be replaced every few years.
My knives are the loves of my life and as a commercial chef, you have to dedicate time (and money) sharpening your tools of trade. Using a ceramic rod on a daily basis can keep your knives sharp but after a month, it still loses its edge which is why you should maintain it by having it professionally sharpened, or buy a KAI electric knife sharpener.
If using a sharpening stone, chefs either use water, soapy water or oil but stick to just one medium. I would recommend just water as using oil could get messy and soil your knife wallet. When using water, soak the stone for at least 15 minutes prior to sharpening your knife. Depending on the make of your knife, the angle of the blade could range from 15-35 degrees from the surface of the sharpening stone.
While we are in the realms of discussing sharp objects, I might as well mention the backstabbing that happens in the kitchen. Even the executive chef’s position is not safe unless he is in co-partnership with the restaurant owner (and this may happen if the owner thinks that he can replace the executive chef with someone who would cost less). Just as how you would observe certain signs in the office to indicate there is some movement in the corporate world (e.g. HR department instructed to halt employee intake prior to large mergers/ redundancies), there are also signs in the kitchen when someone has to leave unexpectedly. You know that you are being replaced when the owner insists on getting your recipes from you, or you know that the chef is leaving on his own accord when he doesn’t give a rat’s ass to perform a stock-take of the larder. So if you are a chef, keep your recipes to yourself and do not share it with anyone.
Serrated knives (such as bread knives) will eventually lose their sharpness and because they cannot be sharpened, they have to be replaced every few years.
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