Word of the Week: Bouquet Garni

I came across this word a couple of years back and had to read it a few times to understand what it was. Some cook books have a way of complicating things. It is actually just a bunch of herbs tied together and thrown into your stock or soup. Why do some cookbook authors have to overcomplicate it for virgin chefs like me? The essence of the herbs seeps into your dish as you simmer it making it more flavorful. Stringing it together makes it neater when they float in your big pot and makes it easier to remove when done.

Here, I soak a sprig of rosemary for a touch of freshness to my cold drinking water. It's been there for weeks and looks just as fresh. The flowers are from a stranger in a carpark who gave me some healthy stalks to grow and multiply. Yes, spread the cheer!

Never fails to impress guests.
(Oops, condensation threatens any potentially good photography!)

See previous Word of the Week:

Mise En Place

Barding

Rotisserie

Dollop

Bain Marie

Vinify

Papillote

Schmear

Mirepoix
Chiffonade
Confit

Don't trust a lawyer, truss a chicken.

My evenly-roasted chicken shared with mom on a rainy afternoon

I've always thought trussing was just a bunch of fiddly nonsense that chefs liked to do to impress the ignorant. But I've since learned that there are many advantages to trussing a chicken. This includes getting an even roast all over the bird. Untrussed, the wings and legs are loosely hanging and isolated and stick out so hot air flows around all sides. Trussed, they're less exposed. Also, the legs help prevent the breast from drying out. In addition, besides getting a more appealing bird to present at the serving table, you also prevent herbs stuffed in the cavity from falling out in a rotisserie. 

I did not have any culinary string to use today, if there's even such a thing. Guess what I used instead - cloth string my mom uses for bed linen! So long as they were clean and could do the job, I allowed my trussing curiosity to override my culinary discretion.

It was difficult to truss and click at the same time, and I made a photography 101 mistake of laying the bird against a red backdrop. Still, I wanted to show you this step-by-step because you will find this is the easiest way to do it compared with everything else on the web. In other words, this method is "dummy-certified" and should be successfully attempted by all virgin chefs.

After marinating, lay chicken flat with string underneath it starting at
the level where the wings are.

Tuck wings underneath and tie around them. Then criss cross downwards
towards the legs. Tighten string as chicken will shrink after cooking for a while.

Continue to tie around the leg bones.

Pull and bring both legs together. You can also cross the legs.

Finish off with a knot. You can trim off the excess or like me,
tie a ribbon and make it look like a present.

Overall, this can be tightened. I should be using the 'proper' string as
the large band here is not ideal. 

And the result of my first trussed chicken.

Months later, a chef saw this post and gave me a few more tips - read here for his comments.

An EVC friend

I met a fellow food blogger and one of the winners of my blender giveaways. She turned out to be the sweetest thing on earth. We had a good exchange of common likes and ideas over butter chicken and fruit naan (have you heard of that?) and laughed about whether we would order a dal makhani, the same dish that won her the blender in the first place.

Besides buying me a lovely North Indian lunch, look what she also got for me.

A magnet sewn inside!

And here's the best part:

Hand-sewn and personalised, from an EVC reader.

I made a new friend, because I blog. She sure made my day. Thanks, my new friend!

Overcoming culinary fears

The fear-overcome half cake, cut horizontally

Cutting a cake horizontally into half has been one of my culinary fears. It's the same feeling I get waiting to be jabbed while the nurse is preparing her equipment and trying to make conversation with me at the same time. Our brains are programmed so negatively to always expect things to go wrong. 

So it was with a thumping heart that I embarked on my first attempt, expecting that the cake would break into chunks anytime. Miraculously, it didn't, and in fact, the starting and ending points met, to my utter bewilderment. My virgin baker jaw literally dropped and thought, Did I just do that??

Julia Child says, Be fearless! And I overheard also on the food channel, It's your kitchen, you can do whatever you like.

And so, I was rewarded with the opportunity to apply an inner layer of ganache between the 2 cakes, and that makes my cake look so much more appealing. 

I have many more culinary fears but am taking them down one at a time. What about you? Are you afraid of doing anything in your own kitchen?

It's the first time I have baked a cake with 2 layers of ganache.

Fusion dinner

Take a look at the fusion dinner I put on the table tonight.  It's my first try on every dish here and with no recipe.

Western salad: Pan-seared tuna salad crusted with roast black sesame seeds. It took me 2 minutes to cook and assemble this dish, faster than instant noodles and by far more nutritious. One ingredient food. Power food with minimum mise en place. I apply some oil on the tuna so the seeds stick. Sesame seeds from my friend TS who doesn't read my blog - THANKS!

 Fast food, upscaled! Picture looks impressive?

Next: Brown Olive Rice with Minced Pork. I apply the "wok-hei" technique that I learned in at-Sunrice and was rather pleased with the result. Husband is not big on carbo so I reduce the portion here. My skinny son went for a refill, he liked it. It's always rewarding when a fussy eater approves of your dish. Everyone complimented on this dish.

Thai or Chinese?
A new angle for the reluctant photographer.

Gorgeous olives soaked in brine from my friend - thanks, Joyce!

And finally, Monkfish en papillote with julienned vegetables. I made this up myself. Using foil, I made a bag, dumped the fish, veggies and mushrooms in, poured some white wine and seasoning, and steamed for 25 minutes. It was ok, but not as flavorful as I imagined it in my head. Looks like I need to better understand flavours and how they come together. Did you notice my beautifully julienned carrots?

Monkfish fresh from the market today

Overall a good day in the office. I cooked myself happy.