My Banana Tree - Part 2

Remember the banana tree I told you about? See my earlier post on this here when it was just a baby. Well, here's an update of it. It looks really good and is growing up to be a fine, organic banana in my backyard. God's creativity is so mind-blowing.  How did He decide that bananas should form this way? I'm really excited to know when I can take it down.

Lunch at Bark Cafe

Yesterday, I had my lunch at the Bark Cafe along Upper Changi Road North, just next to the Changi Chapel Museum. They've been there a while now but it's my first visit, and I must say, overall, I enjoyed the food. Here are some pics to share.

Your standard Caesar Salad - so long as the ingredients are fresh, I'm not fussy on this. I eat my salad "kosong", ie, with no dressing. It puzzled me that the waiter offered us a chilli sauce with this.

Escargot - flavourful and beautifully baked but it would have been better to have some bread pieces to soak up all those cheesy goodness instead of having to use a spoon.

The Mojito was way too sweet for me - looks like I have to try to make my own. For a mint-adverse person, I actually found the mint way too mild. The sugar drowned everything. Too bad.

Now, with all my duck encounters, I almost feel anyone who wants to cook duck for me must be worthy of it! I have high expectations of any duck dish and will be anal and critical if they're not cooked to perfection. This is their roasted black pepper duck breast. First impression: looks like Chinese roast pork (char siew) so I was not particularly excited. I'm looking for a golden brown, not dark brown skin. On skin crisp, I rate it 7/10. While it was crispy, it lacked the extra crunch I was anticipating as I sank my teeth into it.

In the midst of my conversation on the sorry state of education in Singapore, I ran an entire taste review at the back of my head. On my first few bites, I could taste only black pepper and nothing else. It could have been pork or chicken, it wouldn't matter. The black pepper was overpowering and I wanted to taste duck, since that was what I had ordered. But the taste grew quickly on me, and I found myself forking non-stop one piece after another - I suspect the subtle plum sauce kept me going. An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins, so they say.

The mash potato was lumpy - not sure if that's the intent of the chef. So that was forgettable for me, especially after that irresistible pommes mousseline I had in Mozaic, Bali.

I chose an Apple Crumble for my dessert as I found out recently through my research that it has half the sugar content and double the apples when compared to an Apple Cake. I've also just bought myself a sauce bottle to do this chocolate zic-zag so I can do pretentious food at home as well.

Our bill came up to S$97.00 - I think it's relatively fair compared with many bistros where we've condoned their practice of blatant daylight robbery. I have my usual gripe on the lack of passion of the service staff at good restaurants, but overall, I would come back here to eat again.

Now, I was in the Changi area to visit Food and Hotel Asia, Asia's largest international food exhibition and conference. But the massive jam and utter traffic chaos outside the Expo Halls put me off and I made a quick about turn - I am allergic to crowds.

I already had a good day - good friend, good food, good conversation - and was happy to go back home to find more poppy seed recipes.

Food to get you in the mood

During my weekend stay in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, I ordered a roast beef salad at the resort restaurant. It's just another roast beef salad but it got me quickly in a holiday mood because everything about it was right. Colour, texture, freshness, flavours coming together. Whoever made this dish did not treat it as "just another salad". He took pain and care and I noticed and appreciated and loved. I could stare at my own pictures forever.

Beef strung on a lemongrass with freshly pound chillies dripping down my waiting fingers. Heaven.

It seemed the greens on my table conspired with the natural forest I was staring out into (one of the few remaining in Indonesia, may I add) to make my holiday one of pure culinary pleasures. Speaking of which, I am having my dinner at Mozaic tonight, rated one of Asia's top 5 restaurants for 3 consecutive years. I can't wait to be culinarily-educated and palate-trained by Chef Chris Salans.

Food cooked by students from Culinary Institute of America in Singapore

This was my lunch yesterday cooked by students from the Culinary Institute of America in Singapore. It's tucked in the corner of the Temasek Polytechnic campus, on the eastern part of town. I was delighted at this lunch surprise from a friend in church. In the menu booklet, the Institute invites diners to interact with the students and ask questions about the food - not that I needed that invite. I had 20 questions for every dish served out to me. 

Apologies for bad photography - blame it on the iPhone. 

I chose a cured fish starter - if you've been reading my blog, you know I'm an incurable cure-r, having done home-cured salmon and home-cured pancetta. My dish came with a cured red snapper paired with diced tomatoes, and cured mackerel with mango, served on a biscotti that had gone soft and retoasted, I think. The mackerel smelled and tasted fishy, like otah (fish paste). The red snapper however was lovely to the bite, and tasted very fresh and beautifully cured, just the right taste and texture for me, and I rushed home to research more about cured red snapper - with vodka! (Who's ready for the next private dining seating on this??!)

My main was an interesting composition of lentils wrapped in black crepes in a mixed garlic herb sauce, with honey roasted pumpkins, and topped with fried leeks. Vegan. I'm learning to wake my palate and taste in a deliberate fashion, always conscious of the effect the food and each ingredient has on my tastebud. This dish, I enjoyed, although half a portion would have sufficed for me. The lentils had a Middle Eastern-Moroccan twang, and the leeks were very flavourful. Even the green sauce was palatable to me, and seemed appropriate with St Patrick's Day round the corner.

 I asked our student-waiter what made the crepe black, making it look like a Japanese seaweed. He smiled and said, Today's crepe is darker than it should be! Essentially, it's blackened using 2 ingredients, black bean puree and bamboo charcoal powder. That word again. I had just blogged about it a month ago - see post on Black Bread.

Poor girl had to go into the kitchen to bring this out to show me.
At the rate I'm going, I may be "black"-listed and banned from
coming back to this restaurant!

And here's our trio dessert: 1. Coconut sorbet with dragon fruit cubes and candied parnsips. The parsnip took the limelight from the sorbet.

 2. Yuzu tart with raspberry sauce. It was ok, ok - know what I mean? Like, forgettable.

3. Warm apple cake with a dollop of vanilla ice cream. This was the most humble and heart-warming dessert. In my friend's words and with hand to heart and a peaceful sigh, he said, Eating this just makes me feel so happy. Soul Food. I want my food to have this effect on my diner! 

My curiosity still unsatiated, I asked if I could have a tour of the kitchen. They willingly obliged. (God, that woman!) The student-sous chef brought us round, boasting of their state-of-the-art equipment and a chill room for salad and cake preparatory work to ensure freshness. I unabashedly asked the Executive Chef from the States if she was open to sharing her recipes or if they were trade secrets. For my audacity, I was rewarded with the recipe for the apple cake, her father's recipe from her hometown back in New York. Will post when I get to test it. Overall, well done to the student-chefs and the service crew. I would really like to be back there soon. And this time, with a decent camera. Ciao for now!

Slow-roasted Duck Legs

Prodded on by the relatively good success I've enjoyed so far with ducks, today, I ventured into duck legs, and again was similarly rewarded with a stunning outcome.

I used a dry mixture of minced garlic, shallots and thyme and left it in the fridge overnight.

Next day, preheat oven to 200 degrees C/400 degrees F. Remove dry mixture and place duck legs in a roasting pan. Add preferred vegetables like carrots or onions. I had some baby potatoes to get rid of so I plonked them in hoping I could call them potato confit, which by the way seems to be a favourite in gourmet magazines.

Cover loosely with aluminium foil and pop it in the oven for 45 minutes. You don't need to oil this baby. It's full of good animal fats in it and you can render more duck fat!

After 45 min, remove foil, drop temperature to 170 degrees C and roast skin side up in the oven for another 45 minutes.

And wahla, this is how it looks at the end - nicely browned crispy skin duck legs with meat shreddable by a fork.

Check my other duck posts:

1. Roasting a whole duck in 4 hours
2. Roasting ducks in Munich
3. Pink-blush duck breast with crispy, crackling top, done home sous-vide style. This is a clear winner and was featured in the Asian Food Channel Official FB Page on 06 February 2012. It is now the most popular post on my blog.

Home-cured Pancetta - Part III

Click here for - Home-cured Pancetta Part I (This took about 10 days)
Click here for - Home-cured Pancetta Part II (This is supposed to take 30 days but I can't wait!)
Click here to find out what a pancetta is - Word of the Week: Pancetta

OK, it hasn't been a month yet since Part II but I am giving in to my impatience and utmost curiosity on how this is going to turn out. Besides thinking about duck fat, my mind also keeps wandering to this thing that has been sitting in my fridge for the past 2 weeks. To be quite honest, my expectations range from "I could get botulism from this" to "At worst, just junk the whole thing."

So, this is how it looks right now. Completely dry by now. The bottom part has darkened considerably.

I slice them open to find this. OK, looks kinda promising but I am still totally wary. It smells good in a herby way.

Not sure of what to do next, I cut them into a typical pancetta look. It looks like lard with layers of fat interspersed with meat of different shades. I decide to take the risk and pop one in my mouth. It tastes salty and rubbery and I spit it out!! Oopsy. What am I going to do with this thing? I need some advice here. Hello, anybody there? Houston, we have a problem.

OK, think!

OK. I cling-wrap them back and I'm going to use it as if it already works as a pancetta. I'll add them to my pizza or pasta tomorrow. Or I could pan-fry them to see what happens.

Anyone has any better ideas?

Now, while I have little to boast of this culinary experiment, I can't help but notice how interesting this shot looks. Does it look like something out of a magazine? I can't take my eyes off it!

Bringing you ishots from the restaurant, kitchen and pastry today

You get this if you order the baked seafood rice.

I'm making the Kaffir Lime Mayo...
 in case you choose this for your burger, remember I sweat blood and tears to bring this to you.
I tasted the BBQ sauce - if smoky-oaky is your kind of thing, go for this.

They put this up today on the wall. My locker room is close-by behind this wall. 

Remember people like me working real hard behind these walls so you can enjoy every bite.

The restaurant aims to build a community for families to hang out at its place over good food.

Tells the venue as well, this one.

I honestly hope you will like the food when you get to it.

And the pastry spying and spotting continues...

Speed-cooking in 8 hours

A new ingredient that caught my eye.

Another interesting day spent in the kitchen today on what feels like speed-cooking lessons. Every half an hour or so, the chef calls out, Come over, everybody! and gives a quick demo on a particular dish on the menu. We are all assigned our tasting spoons that we stuff into our apron pockets and whip it up every now and then to taste the different foods. We tried tomato paste, bolognaise, minestrone, baked seafood rice, burger patty, calamari, mushroom soup, and many more. The pace is hectic, everyone seems to be in everyone's way, and tension is high. All that without customers yet! 

A completely different environment from the culinary school kitchen which now seems so unreal. It was comfortable, peaceful and quiet back there, and there was always room and time for good photography. Now, either I don't have the time, the energy, the space, or my hands are full. Still, I managed a few shots with the iPhone today to share with you. Apologies for bad photography.

Pilaf rice - sautée garlic with butter, add bay leaves, then onions, then small diced celery and carrots,
add rice grains and sauté further, then pop into the combi oven to steam. I think! It was all too quick and rushed and I had to get back to my own station to do my stuff. Tasted rather buttery to me.

Popped my head in the pastry department every now and then.

Wish I could make these. Must try to get my hands on the recipe!

Someone got injured...

.. And so did I again today.

At 11am, we were told to stop all work as the directors of the company were going to give a speech. I thought, What fun to hear "management speak" from this side of the fence now. I sat down together with my chefs and 20 questions in my head.  It opened with a "We understand your pains" empathy line, followed quickly by "Now, understand ours" and ended clumsily with "Beware of consequences if you don't behave." It lasted 12 minutes, about the time I take to small-dice a few carrots. And we strolled back to the kitchen. No Q&A? 

I was curious to know what my fellow crew members thought and stayed tuned to any comments from them. You know, I didn't hear one single person talk about the meeting. It did not seem to strike any chord with them, nothing positive, negative, just nothing. Could that be worse than getting negative comments? Before the day ended, I too had completely forgotten all about the meeting. Perhaps that is totally acceptable, even expected, as a cook.

Click here to see more ishots of the restaurant.