Chef Karam Is In The Star..!!!

The chefs who prepared the menu for the Symphony of Chefs dinner are (from left) Frederic Cerchi, Emmanuel Stroobant, Antoine Rodriquez, Bala Murali Nanda and Karam Singh.

TWO days before Valentine’s Day, a group of men got together to produce a five-course menu that few people would have the opportunity to enjoy in one seating.

Butternut pumpkin purée, Norwegian salmon with Champagne sauce, and Kobe beef in two styles were bookended by a lobster-foie gras combination and Valrhona chocolate mousse.

A celebrating couple would have found any one of those dishes unforgettable, but experiencing all five would be long remembered after the romance is over!

The dinner, billed as the Symphony of Chefs, presented a menu that was distinctively French in its cooking methods, presentation and service, and the fact that it was served at a chef’s table in the kitchen amidst the activity added an atmosphere of conviviality – another typical feature of the French meal – to the proceedings.

The dishes also showcased luxury ingredients that explain why French culinary arts have become synonymous with gourmet food. However, it was an invaluable experience for the students of Taylor’s School of Hospitality and Tourism (TSHT), which hosted the dinner, to learn from chefs of such high repute, who each prepared his signature dish.

The common impression that French food is rich and time-consuming to make was only substantiated by the elaborately prepared dishes at the dinner. It should be noted, however, that this type of gourmet dining experience is mostly reserved for high-end restaurants.
“French cuisine is considered a major world cuisine,” says Chef Antoine Rodriguez, executive chef at Le Meridien KL.

Chef Antoine Rodriquez’s Kobe Beef Cheek.

“But there are not many fine dining restaurants for French food in Asia,” he adds, citing unfamiliarity with the ingredients and cooking methods as the reason for this.

“It is harder to appeal to the masses here, unlike Italian food, for instance, which is based very much on chilli.”

But Rodriguez says Asians would not be averse to all French food.

He says the food in the south and south-east of France, which is warmer, is light, uses a lot of seasonal vegetables and meat like lamb, which the Malaysian palate would be more familiar with.

“It is more a summer cuisine,” he says.

“It’s just like food in the north and south of Thailand,” Chef Emmanuel Stroobant interjects.

“I think the cuisine that resembles French cooking the most is Japanese,” explains the TV personality known as the Chef in Black.

“In terms of cooking according to the season, the ingredients and presentation, they are very similar.”

Much of French cuisine is, in fact, fairly simple, relying on high-quality fresh and seasonal ingredients that are lovingly prepared rather than complex recipes.

Chef Karam Singh’s Varlhona Chocolate Mousse.

“That is the basis for all types of French cooking regardless of ingredients and region,” says Stroobant.

At the heart of every French kitchen, both domestic and professional, are a number of cooking techniques and food preparation methods.

It may seem simply as a way for head chefs to torture their underlings but the meticulous way food is cut up, for example, is just as important as how it is cooked.

Bill Buford writes in Heat, an account of his time as a “kitchen slave” in a three-star restaurant in New York, about being forced to discard a whole mound of carrots he had been dicing up and would eventually be pulped anyway, because they were not all a uniform size.

The cut he is talking about, known as brunoise in chef-speak, entails cutting vegetables into 3mm cubes.

As the traditional base of most French soups, a trinity of diced carrots, celery and onion – or mirepoix – is essential. Cutting the vegetables the same size allows them to cook at the same time.

Before puréeing the butternut pumpkin for his soup, TSHT lecturer Chef Frederic Cerchi first smoked the squash using a mixture of sugar, star anise and cinnamon, among other things.

“It’s an autumn-winter type of dish,” says Cerchi of the deep yellow soup topped with a swirl of crème fraîche and served uniquely in a mason jar.

Stroobant’s dish of lobster wrapped in duck liver – or to use its fancy name, Torchon de Foie Gras et Homard Canadien – was prepared sous-vide, yet another cooking method employed in French kitchens. Here, the roll of meat was wrapped tightly in cling film and poached in a water bath in the oven.

“This type of vacuum cooking prevents the meat from drying out as there is no direct heat on the food,” he says.

Pan searing is a common technique which seems simple, but takes a good sense of timing to keep the food from burning or being undercooked. It is a technique used to brown food quickly over high heat on the range top. Pan searing cooks the surface of the food (usually meat, poultry or fish) at high temperature so that a caramelised crust forms.

Chef Bala Murali Nanda, course leader in TSHT’s Diploma in Culinary Arts programme, prepared a pan-seared Norwegian salmon served over a polenta pancake with sautéed slices of zucchini, daikon and brinjal layered with caviar.

An essential lesson in French cookery is stock reduction. Glace de viande, a thick meat glaze made by reducing meat juices, which gives it a rich flavour, is something that students would learn very early in their culinary arts programme.

Rodriguez’s Kobe beef jus seemed to be an element in itself on the plate. The dish came with a side of creamed potato and was garnished with rocket and Parmesan shavings. The second style of meat was Wagyu cheek in a “curry” sauce.

For dessert lovers, the exclamation point to the dinner would have been the Valrhona chocolate mousse with caramelised bananas in Cointreau by Chef Karam Singh, TSHT course leader for pastry (short courses).

The chilled mousse was set in a chocolate crumb base, which also contained the orange liqueur – with a 40% alcohol content! – and plated with a chocolate scroll, fresh berries and Alexander Calder swirls of fruit coulis.

(Adapted from The Star, 16 March 2008)

p/s: He's amazing chef that i've ever met...he's so cool and absofab... CAIYOK!!!

fRASY lIVE lUX

~XOXO~