Fine Dining At Home 1/3 - Chilled Tomato Gazpacho

I told you about the DBS Indulge MasterChef Class I attended and the recipes I would share when I attempted them myself. Well, this is the colossal effort dinner - to an extra virgin chef, this feels like a 100-step and a 100-ingredient recipe. I'll share everything with you but it probably needs to break into a few posts!

Not for the faint-hearted.

Ready? Let's go.

Recipe 1 Chilled Tomato Gazpacho with Lime Vodka Jelly and Spanish Olive Oil Sorbet (serves 4)

Ingredients for gazpacho
2 red peppers
1 shallot
3 Tbsp tomato puree
3 garlic cloves
1 cucumber
1 kg over ripe tomatoes
1 stick lemongrass
1/2 bunch basil
Few sprigs coriander
1 litre tomato juice
Salt
Sherry vinegar
Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce

Ingredients for olive oil sorbet
100 ml EVOO
30 ml natural yoghurt
200 ml stock syrup
2 lemons (zest and juice)

Ingredients for lime vodka jelly
200 ml plain vodka
200 ml water
4 limes
6 leaves of gelatin

Method for gazpacho
1. Sweat peppers and shallot until soft, then add puree and cook for a couple of minutes.
2. Peel and chop the garlic and cucumber, as well as chop the rest of the ingredients and mix together.
3. Add the pepper mix, season well with salt, sherry vinegar and Worcestershire sauce.
4. Marinade overnight.
5. Remove lemongrass before blitzing and pass through a large-hole strainer at least twice.
6. Adjust seasoning, spice and ensure it is well chilled.
7. Serve cold on cold plates (my own notes).

Use the lemongrass as a stirrer! But remember to remove when blitzing.

Method for olive oil sorbet
1. Pour the olive oil, yoghurt and stock syrup into a mould along with the zest and juice from the lemons.
2. Churn to make sorbet and serve immediately or freeze (my own notes as his didn't make sense to me)

Method for lime vodka jelly
1. Place vodka and water into a vacuum pack bag along with lime rind and slices of lime.
2. Seal and place into water bath at 50C for 40 minutes.
3. Take out and leave to infuse for as long as possible (make in advance and leave for future use).
4. Soak gelatin leaves inside ice cold water.
5. Heat up 1/10 of the liquid and whisk in the gelatin leaves until all have disintegrated.
6. Whisk that liquid back into the vodka and leave inside the fridge for at least 5 hours.
(Own notes: I didn't understand steps 5 & 6 and basically just did my own jelly after the water bath.)

My sous vide machine came in handy. 

The flavour of the gazpacho was amazing, and I've decided this is my go-to recipe for all tomato soup! Bennett expressed surprise that cold soup hasn't taken off in hot and humid Singapore. Well, I'm a convert now, but I think most locals still prefer their soup warm if not hot.

The sorbet and jelly, while keeping the soup temperature down, also lifted the game, otherwise it would be just another tomato soup. There is enough in the recipe to keep for future use. It differentiates your dish from home cooking, and it's worth all the effort.

Up Next, Recipe 2 - Pan-fried Scottish Salmon with Warm Salad of Beetroot. Look out for the basil pesto recipe which was a hit with my diners that night. Plus how to make citrus powder and olive dust!

My Maiden Paella

Learned it at lunch time and made it for dinner with friends.

Like salmon, Paella is pronounced without the L sound. Many foreigners believe this to be a Spanish national dish, but my Spaniard friends - no, not the late Mr Seabass - tell me it's in fact a regional dish, from Valencia on the east coast of Spain.

My chef friend learned this dish when he spent some time in a restaurant in Spain. Watch out, he is going to open his restaurant soon in Singapore! We thought we'd better catch him before he becomes famous, so he was over at my place this weekend to teach us how to cook paella.

The most expensive ingredient in paella is saffron, but if you omit this, you lose the authenticity, some golden yellow hue to the dish, and of course, it's antioxidant properties. And needless to say, you will need a paella pan to make this - it is traditionally round, shallow and made of polished steel with 2 handles. Chef taught us how to season the pan - er...what was it he said about treating it with oil and vinegar?!!

I have forgotten the taste of paella since my visit to Barcelona years ago. But what surprised me today was that the squids and mussels were not rubbery even though they was in the pan for a while. Overall, an interesting maiden attempt at a famous dish with somewhat relative success for a virgin chef. 

Here are some pictures from the cooking lesson as well as from my first attempt right after the lesson! Recipe and method at the bottom of this post.

Sweet paprika, saffron and short grain rice

Some kniving skills from chef

Many tips from him as we went along, including how NOT to cut your fingers!

Exuding aroma as it simmers away

The messier, the more authentic!

My version

Recipe
1 large onion, chopped or finely diced
5 Tbsp olive oil
Salt to taste
2 chopped green chillies (more kick if you don't deseed)
2 garlic cloves, minced

Chorizo or any meat (optional)

1 good pinch of saffron (about $10 for a good pinch)

Pulp from 2 large tomatoes, skinless
1/2 tsp sugar
11/2 tsp sweet paprika
2 cups short grain rice
3 cups stock (bring to boil before adding. Don't add cold stock from fridge)
1/2 cup white wine
Seafood: 200g white fish, 5 prawns, 10 mussels, 2 squids (choose your own favourites)

Method
1. Sweat onions in olive oil over low heat till translucent. Ensure no colouration, ie, don't wait till onions turn brown.
2. Add green chillies and salt.
3. Add garlic. No discolouration.
4. Add chorizo or meat if you prefer (optional)
5. Throw in the saffron. It needs time and heat to infuse. Sprinkle paprika.
6. Add tomato pulp and sugar. Cook till jammy consistency. Put to medium heat and let it evaporate.
7. Add seafood (in some parts of Spain, they add only fish and squid first, and the rest later).
8. Sprinkle sea salt. Add hot stock.
9. Add rice by scattering the grains all over the pan and in between seafood pieces.
10. Simmer for about 15 minutes (then add remaining seafood if you did not put all in at step 7). It is important NOT to stir the rice or seafood. Leave them to simmer as when you placed them in. Stirring will result in gooey paella. The result you're after is loose al dente grains, not starchy lumps.
11. Turn off heat, then rest and toss before serving. The messier, the more authentic.

Grilled Aubergine Parcels

This picture was taken with an iPhone under a big tree with ants threatening to swarm in on our food, so do excuse the quality.

It's our Ladies Vegan picnic lunch date again, and since the success of my ratatouille in the park, I expected to keep up with the imaginary standard I have now imposed on myself. A simple salad doesn't quite cut it. So I decided on this aubergine (eggplant, brinjal) parcel recipe. It had looked cute on this Meditteranean cookbook I got for my last birthday. Those cookbook writers always make them look so easy. 

Recipe

2 large long aubergines

225g mozzarella cheese

2 plum tomatoes

16 large basil leaves

salt and pepper

2 Tbsp olive oil

For the Dressing

4 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp sun-dried tomato paste

1 Tbsp lemon juice

For the Garnish

2 Tbsp toasted pine nuts

Torn basil leaves

Verdict: I need to do this delicious and healthy dish one more time, if nothing else for a better shot!

Whole Fish Baked, Meditteranean Style - Rest in Peas, Fish

I organised the burial service of this Spanish Seabass last night. It was a beautiful memorial for everyone present. Tomato and Onion, along with Lemon, showed their ardent support. We decided on a Meditteranean theme to pay tribute to the Spaniard's birthplace. He's a long way from home and having no relatives here can be such a lonely affair.

After washing and drying Seabass with a kitchen towel, I embalmed him by rubbing sea salt all over, and stuffed thin slices of garlic into the lashes on the body. With bacon strips, I barded him following the ritual of an Egyptian mummification process to prevent dehydration and drying out.

As in all funeral wakes, you get a much better idea of the deceased when everyone shares memories about their dead pal. I found out Seabass had an uncanny versatility to be baked, fried, steamed, poached - filleted or whole. There was some confusion on the scene as to how we should pronounce his name. But call him sea-bus, sea-bes or sea-base, it was clear he was a much respected creature amongst his species and beyond. 

More details about him emerged from the deep seas as emotions ran high. As it turned out, Seabass was only 1% Carbohydrate and 37% Fats. Everyone was impressed, in a poignant sort of way. But you hear the oohs and ahhs when it was revealed he was 68% Protein. Lemon was crushed and let out its tears. It was more than we could stomach.

He was finally incinerated at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes, with a bouquet of fresh dill on top. 

Thank you for being a blessing to us. Now rest in peas, fish.

This ends my Yu-logy ("Yu" is fish in Chinese).

Read my Open Letter to the Macarons.