Pâte de Mangue

This is my second time making pâte de fruits. First time was during my attachment in Shangri-La. They turned out alright but I would prefer a firmer texture. The thermometer died out on me while I was boiling the final mixture so I think I didn't really hit 110 degrees celcius.

Al Dente Pronto

I can't get enough of this place. I did a 2 course set meal this time. All the starters were really meat heavy, the only vegetarian dish was the Mesclun mix with apricot and walnut oil dressing and boy, did I make a good choice. I am not a big fan of salads but my instinct told me to stick to this one.

It was an inspiring ordeal every mouthful. The mixed greens were firm and duh....green. No wilting bits and lots of height. The amount of walnut oil dressing was just right and not overwhelming. The nutty flavour lingered on long enough for it to complement the crunchy greens. The tomatoes, partially drenched with the dressing, were so strategically spaced you keep stumbling into them every minute or so. Oh yea, I searched high and low for the apricots but I couldn't find or sense them anywhere. Was it a screw up? I don't know... but the starter awed me that's for sure.

Instantaneously, I got this crazy idea of making walnut oil powder with maltodextrin.

I had the red snapper, assorted mushrooms and brown clams for my main course. The fish was really juuui-ceeh. There were lots of fish stock under it to keep it moist throughout its journey into my eager mouth. It looked almost like a soup course to think of it. I spooned in the remaining stock in the end but just managed to stopped myself from licking it clean. The drinking straw looked really handy at that point of time but that's not the way to behave in public.....yea?

This place is a gem. It inspires me.

Thou shall not crack

Hot and sour noodle and spiced cold seaweed from one of my favourite noodle stalls. All their noodles are handmade.

Some of my cheesecakes cracked last week and I was bemused so I got home and exhausted the internet on the causes and prevention of cracks. It's tricky baking these cheesecakes with the deck ovens because two of the decks are stone and the other two, steel so they each have their own temperaments, pun unintended.

All of them turned out perfect tonight. No cheesecakes shall ever crack under my hands from now on.

Dehydrated cheesecake batter. Frickin yummy licious. Sweet and sour with a very rich mouthfeel. I am sooooooo going to include this into something sometime in the future.

Going back to restaurant on Monday

Some meringue buns that I made for the Chef de Partie. She uses them for her buffet decors.






My first pliable chocolate ganache.

Latest news is I am going back to the restaurant this Monday. Apparently, the sous chef stormed out of the restaurant kitchen during lunch time and rumours have it that he's not coming back so that worsens the lack of manpower situation.

I don't really care. I am just happy I won't have to deal with the buffet items anymore and I will be on my own.

Ice-cream mix calculations

I wasn't really satisfied with Chef Migoya's explanation on how he derived his required nonfat solid amount in his book. So I decided to find out how the formula was derived and it led me to this.


http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/iccalc.html


It has opened up a whole can of worms. And they are tasty.


This is going to keep my brain busy for a while.

Swiss Gruyere

This is the highlight for today. Just a block of mouth watering lip smacking tasty gruyere that we use for our quiches. My task to grind them up into little pebbles. They taste best straight out of the seal. I popped in three cubes of it when no one's looking. The chef offered me some too. Little did she know I was already riding on it like a crazy cowboy. Being around sweetie stuff the whole day, you really crave for something savoury. This was my saviour. The flavour is really complex.

Unresolved stuff

1. Natural blue colouring
2. Liquorice extract
3. Apple peel pectins
4. Ice-cream and sorbet formulations
5. Walnut bread
6. Black Black Black
7. Get a freakin chocolate thermometer
8. Get a goddamn refractometer
9. Get cocoa bean chocolate molds
10. Chocolate decors
11. Red basil
12. Puff pastry techniques from Pastry and Baking magazine
13. Rhubarb
14. Salt salt salt
15. Mushrooms mushrooms mushrooms

Black sesame macarons

Stayed back at work to whip out some black sesame macarons. It was a last minute decision so the conditions weren't exactly ideal. The egg whites were too cold so the meringue didn't have the optimum texture that I was looking for. I didn't have the patience to wait for the skin to form as well as I had already partially drifted into zombie land at the end of my shift so I had a couple of casualties. Nevertheless, majority came out decent.

After work, I used up whatever humane attributes that were left in me to get to Spinelli's. Passed by the new chocolate shop so decided to take a peak. Countless chocolate shops had been these before and all failed. Let me see....we had The Cocoa Tree and Chocz before. They were giving out samples so I tried some. I did what most would have done, I rubbed the chocolate pieces against the palate. The mouthfeel wasnt as smooth as I would have prefered but they were really BIG in the flavour department. There were so many notes and they were really intense. I could still sense the flavours after half an hour. I have to give them lots of props for not using soy lecithin and vanilla flavours in their chocolates, not to mention they are of single origins! Even the cocoa butters are single origin...now that's nearly unheard of.

I am just going to leave the chocolate in my mouth and not chew it the next time I pop one in. It's going to be rad!

Just realised they are S$19 per bar! Yea, I'm definitely getting more of them soon.

ORD mode

Child's play croquembouche. Good practice but I know I am capable of better things. Am I hungry enough to execute them? That is the question.





Goddamn Hawkers promotion is back. Get that Kueh Tutu making machine out of my sight! I hate hawkers promotion. Hawker food in a hotel??? What a big no go. This is turning into a circus.

I was fascinated with the green bean flour used to make these takos. Interesting gummy texture.

82 is the magic number.

Hopefully my last week doing buffet.

I enjoy today's struggle decorating the desserts for the buffet. It's all ad lib. I just walk around hunting for things that interest me. For the sour cherry mousse, I knew initially I didn't want any custard, topping cream or nuts on them so that makes things easier. I knew I got to add some height to it hence the strawberries. Paused, walked around and found some raspberry glaze in the chiller. I thought the wavy red chocolate pieces suit the dessert pretty well. The plate was a little bare so I threw some streusel in. That pumped me up for the next stage.

Next dessert was vanilla bavaroise. I wanted to stay on the beige side and I found some lovely crunchy choux pastry rods. Laid them next to the bavaroise trying hard to figure what my next move was. I decided to take some risk and drizzled some vanilla sauce on them. Then I was struck with an idea. The strawberry leaves from the previous set looked nice and green and the choux sticks look like tree barks. Hhmmmm.....KaaPow! I saw Chef Boutin using strawberry leaves before when we didnt have mint and I was quite fascinated with his versatility. They were still pretty bare so I walked around.....again and found some old meringues. Jamie Oliver came into my mind as I recalled him crushing some meringue on his baked strawberry dessert. I think the meringue added a nice texture and colour to the dessert.

These are the milk chocolate shooters. I piped dollops on dark chocolate ganache while thinking of what to put next. I knew I wanted to put more chocolate on them so I got some old chocolate shavings and chocolate macarons. Crushed the macarons and baked them till they are crunchy. It looks like earth after putting the chocolate stuff on the ganache so I thought I would use pistachios to symbolise a sprout emerging from fertile soil.

I am still glad I am leaving to the restaurant soon. They just need to find someone to replace my position and it's adios.

Black glutinous rice

I was looking for my bag of black sesame seeds to bring to work tomorrow for my black sesame macaron project but I found these instead. Black glutinous rice so I decided to play around with them. I am not familiar with local ingredients strangely enough but I am trying to digest as much as possible whenever I come across them these days. So I gave them a good fry up in the saucepan to make them pop and release their nutty aroma before I do anything else. I thought I might just go with the traditional way to softening them in boiling water and see how it goes from there.

Now I know why people pre-soaked them the night before. These things soak up everything I sight. I must have used 10 times the amount of water in relation to the rice. I don't have any palm sugar at home so I used light muscovado instead to sweeten it up. I am going to leave it in the fridge to mature overnight (actually, I am feeling lazy and I want to go to bed) and think of what to do with it tomorrow.

Trifle and puffy sticks.

Instead of waiting for the jelly to set, why not pipe the custard straight in and get a swirl effect. I thought they looked pretty cool.





Some leftover puff pastry dough being turned into giant sticks.

Liquorice

I have been studying about this the whole day. I think it was the pickled nutmeg flesh that my parents bought me which sparked it off. They brought the pickles all the way from Penang. Nutmeg trees grow wild there. As soon as I got home, I googled on pickled nutmegs and apparently, they are usually flavoured with liquorice. I have only used them (paste form) to make liquorice creme brulees. I thought they tasted alright. But that's about it.

One thing led to another (not unusual when googling) and I found out they are popular in Southern Italy, where the roots are eaten raw and you can get them from Chinese medicinal shops. They are called Kumchoe there. I also recalled having seen some pictures from Fat Duck serving liquorice jelly coated salmon.

I got fascinated with the liquorice candies especially the ribbons. The jet black colour is so shiny and inviting.

So I guess it's brainstorming time.

Quick lunch at Al Dente Pronto.

I wasn't expecting anything special when I ordered the stewed vegetable fettuccine with arugula. It was supposed to be eat and piss off routine. Well, I guess having seen so many establishments come and go over the years on this corner of Great World City kind of make me think this is just another one fo those hit and run eating places or probably the same establishment as before, just with a different facade.

I knew I was so damn wrong from the first bite. This must be one of the juiciest vegetable stews I have ever had. There's plenty of arugula to go with every mouthful. I have so fallen in love with this herb. Its bitterness complements the sweet and juicy eggplants and zucchinis so well.

Pâte à Choux and necking swans

Any decent pastry cook can just pluck a choux pastry recipe out from nowhere. The only tricky part is the number of eggs required is always different from batches to batches due to the type of flour used, humidity of the flour and how dry the panade gets before the eggs are added.

I had some leftover panade so I thought I would just fool around with some tribal, crispy sticks, fences and bird heads. I like the tribals.....the rest are so old skool.

I will probably lose some fine dining credibility because of these. Yea....necking swans. The last time I did this was when I had my first lesson on choux pastry in school.

Quenelle demo

In my desperate attempt to master the quenelling technique, I have sent one of my loyal guards 500 miles away to KL to secretly capture an LG demo in a shop which prohibit photography or anything of that nature. A risky but fruitful ordeal. Enjoy....

Chocolate scrolls

This is my first attempt using a bench scrapper instead of the usual utility knife. Slowly getting the hang of it.

Tart shells

Hand made pâte sucrée fluted shells.

I really dislike the pre-packaged tart shells that we get. It feels embarassing pushing those things out onto the table. They are pretentious. You might say they are good for feeding the masses. But hey, people aren't dumb eaters these days. They can sense a factory made shell when they see one and they won't lay their fingers on it. So it's back to square one.

Arrrggggghhhh!!!! (battle cry)

Religieuse project

I got so high from doing this. To break it down. It's made up of two chocolate profiteroles. The filling is chocolate custard. The bottom profiterole is glazed with dark chocolate glaze while the smaller one on the top is glazed with caramel. Chocolate buttercream is piped using a tiny rosette tube all around the gap between the two. Chocolate soil is sprinkled on them and a chocolate shaving is placed on the peak. Texture wise, it covers quite the spectrum. taste wise, it's oozing and crackly goodness.

Profiterole younglings after being dipped in caramel.

I enrobed a Sacher cake wiih ganache and decorated it for the photoshoot tomorrow but I discovered much later that it had been canceled.

Leftover caramel was used to make a couple of caramel cages.

Bumped into this by accident

They come in biodegradeble plastic bags. My respect to the bakery which produce these beauties. It's not pure rye, more like siegle but the taste is awesome. I am a sucker for rye. It goes so well with a large of butter.

Religieuse wannabes

Lots of chocolate puffed chouxs for my religieuse project. I will probably fill it up with chocolate custard and glaze them with chocolate for the bottom puff and caramel for the top. These things have more options for bursting flavours compared to macarons.

A tray of pistachio soil/crumble that I am going to use for decorations. These things are so moorish on their own. It's one of the best things that I have learnt from my stint in Pontini. I am going to make a chocolate version soon probably using extra brute cocoa powder. They are going to blow some heads off. KaaPow!

Harris Suntec Branch Closing Down Sale

Clarissa tipped me off about the closing down sale. She seems to know where all the discounted books are in Singapore! I got huge 50% discounts for two of the books and an ample 25% on the last one.

Just a quick review on these. The Taste of France is all about authentic provencial styles across France. Just when I thought I knew most of the french traditional items, this book came up with lots of things that I haven't even heard of till now.

Mellissa's produce book is an excellent guide to current popular fruits and vegetables circulating in the market these days. It's always good to study and know your principal ingredients thoroughly because they are, afterall, the core of all creations on the dining table. Being in Singapore, we rely on specialist suppliers for all our ingredients. We always assume that we are getting Grade A quality items and tend to take things for granted.

I have been eyeing on Creole for a long time since I saw it on the shelf at the bookstore near my place but it wasn't cheap. Creole cuisine suits Singapore really well since it uses lots of tropical produce which are in abundance here. It distinguishes itself from the local cuisine since they are made using European techniques.

Knowledge is Power.

Daylight come now, me wanna go home.

Come Mr. Tallyman, tally me bananas.


These are Musa Giant Cavendish which we use for our banana breads. They are not really nice on their own but they are very sturdy and firm which makes them good for exporting. Available all year round as well cause it's grown everywhere.

Mango shortcake was one of last night's tasks.

Candies

Oh look! Candies!

Back in noon shifts..oh yea..

I took a pic while I was wasting my time helping out on one of the screwed up functions. I don't know why I am supposed to do this shit. It's a no brainer. View from ballroom bar area. Wish I have views like that from my station.

The Italian restaurant asked for chocolate mousse for one of their VIP function. So I whipped out some traditional mousse au chocolat. Rich flavour and light texture obtained using volumised yolks, stiff meringue and good dark chocolate.

Some chocolate caraques to go with the mousse. I am getting better at these. But I am still in no position to make chocolate cigarettes. Need more practice on those.

Chocolate shavings from the leftover chocolate.





One of the tasks for tonight. The usual strawberry shortcake but there's something special about tonight's so I took a pic.

I finished all my tasks very early tonight and it was barely dinner time so I went down to the restaurant to check out what the peeps are doing. Being busybody..... The chef gave me something to play with. It's this Fizzy effervescent (spelt that without refering to the dictionary) thingy made mainly from sodium bicarbonate and citric acid.

I made strawberry effervescent candies with it. They were alright but I am going to dry them up and hopefully pulverise them into powder tomorrow.