Dinner Theater

It started innocently enough – Madame’s good friend Cathy announced that she wanted to do a dinner event for a group of high powered women. Madame thought it might be fun to do it at our house – after all we could surely do something at least as good as most restaurants – and for a lot less in a much more intimate surrounding. She can be VERY persuasive. I immediately enlisted help from Dave and sought input from Cathy. Cathy was no help! She gave us completely free reign, “You guys are the experts in the kitchen, surprise and delight me.” We took the admonition to heart and concocted a menu based around a few key ingredients and effects. The key ingredients were those Asian staples, Coconut and Kaffir Lime. We don’t have a coconut tree, but we have an elegant and much loved Kaffir Lime tree in the garden. He gives up his leaves for good causes whenever called upon. He was going to be in great demand. As for the effects, we wanted to make sure that the guests would have full, rich mouth experiences by varying textures, tastes, and temperatures.

We started with a cocktail of Kaffir Lime infused vodka, coconut water, simple syrup and vodka – an intensely chilled concoction full of flavor to offset the first, appetizer, course – Chiang Mai sausage.

Chiang Mai sausages are small, potent, delicious pork sausages served all over Thailand. They make great appetizers because they are easy to eat while balancing a cocktail, have enough flavor to work with strong drinks and they set your palate up for delights to come. However, there are a few challenges. The first is the pork. For these to work there has to be a significant amount of fat. Most pork we buy is too lean, but I discovered a cut that works perfectly. It is a ham. Now don’t be thinking cured and smoked and all of that – think a raw piece of ham, complete with fat cap. If you choose well, you end up with just the right amount of fat. In this case the piece of meat weighed about 2 ½ lbs and the fat about ½ lb. Also the fat is nice and firm – it grinds well without going pasty and nasty.

Recipe for Chiang Mai Sausage:

2.5 lbs. Pork,½ lb. Pork Fat,8 Kaffir Lime Leaves, Chiffinade,16 White Pepper Corns (whole, ground in mortar and pestle),16 Whole Coriander Seeds (ground in mortar and pestle),1 yellow onion (small diced), 8 cloves garlic, minced, 1 oz. Fish Sauce

On to the flavoring.

Red curry paste was a must – we need some of that heat. But the canned versions are a bit one dimensional. So we added Kaffir Lime leaves, salt (not fish sauce, but salt!), garlic cloves, white pepper, ground coriander, and onion to the mix. That brought it nicely into balance.

I have the most wonderful neighbors – and we share equipment that isn’t used every day. They have a meat grinder, I don’t. The rule is simple – I borrow the grinder, they get some of the resultant product.  All’s fair in the kitchen.

After removing the fat from the pork, and removing any skin from the fat, I ground the pork (twice) on the coarsest grind setting. The first grind was just the pork meat. None of the fat cap. No spicing either at that stage. For the second grind I added the minced Kaffir Lime leaves, the white pepper, coriander and onion interspersed with the meat. Helping to blend the spices into the meat. Then the fat. Mix the ingredients together – with a small can of red curry paste. It looked fabulous. Break a small piece off and fry immediately to check the seasoning. A little added salt, a final mix and it is ready for shaping. I had done the easy stuff. Now it was Dave’s turn – actually forming the sausage.

Cling wrap and skill to the rescue. Dave formed these beauties by rolling the meat tightly in the cling wrap – making sausages about 10 inches long and an inch in diameter. 5 of them! One of course had to go to the neighbor along with the return of the grinder. The sausages are poached in plain water (still in their plastic wrap) so that they partially cook through. Then to the fridge to rest and let the flavors blend.

All that was left was to bring them out of the fridge an hour or so before they were wanted and sear then gently on the flat top until they had some color and were warmed all through. It’s nice that these are served, like much Thai food, at room temperature. It’s important, of course, that they be thoroughly cooked. But they don’t need to be piping hot.

Served on Chinese soup spoons with a garnish of Thai basil, galangal and lemon grass they looked and tasted wonderful. Such a great start to a wonderful meal. Especially good with the robust cocktail. The evening was off to a wonderful start.

SOUP COURSE:

The ladies didn’t require much encouragement to come to the table where we served the remaining courses. The soup was a simple roasted eggplant/garlic/onion soup thickened with milk & splash of cream, and enveloping a sous vide chicken egg. This course was about mouth feel and aroma. It was silky smooth and by serving it in a double bowl – the inner bowl having the soup, the outer bowl had boiling water and rosemary delivering a rosemary perfume without actually adding rosemary flavor. The lushness of the soup was accented through the wine pairing of a Gewurtztraminer from Trimbach in Alsace.

Then on to the scallop course. For this course we made a taro root puree. Using small while taro roots, peeled, boiled and then pureed with some cream and finished with a little butter. An interesting flavor reminiscent of potato, but a little more musky/funky. Also a tamarind sauce – made simply by heating a tamarind block with enough water to break it down and straining the result to give a thick, sour tasting, fruity sauce to offset the butteryness of the scallop. A little grape tomato/Thai basil salsa, a blanched, seared baby bok choy leaf and a beautiful dish. Secrets to cooking scallops are A) make sure they are completely dry, B) season with salt and a little pepper, C) cook on a hot flat bottomed surface – not non-stick. In this case a cast iron flat griddle with butter and grape seed oil. Finally of course, don’t overcook them. These were big, “dry” packed scallops from Rex’s in Dallas.

During the menu planning, we had decided to do BEEF COURSE, which was a flank roulade with a green curry paste filling and served with shaved frozen foie gras over parsnips. That’s about as far as the planning had gone. Of course the plate needed more than that. But I am getting ahead of myself. I had a whole (almost 2 lbs) of foie gras in my freezer. So obviously I needed to somehow turn it into a torchon. Now foie gras isn’t the easiest substance to work with. It has deep embedded veins that must be removed. It has occasional little blood pockets that need to be removed. It also gets soft and mushy – like working with thick hand cream very quickly. Anyhow, I prepared the foie with a sake/Kaffir lime marinade, wrapped it in cheesecloth as tightly as I could and set it in the fridge on an upside down egg carton so it would hold its shape. When the time came to cook it, we poached it in the immersion circulator at 44C for about 15 minutes, allowed it to cool, and froze it. A lot of work, but so worth it.

I had been given a copy of Chef McDang’s wonderful book on Thai cuisine and set about making a green curry paste. I am simply glad that I am not a Thai grandma. The work required pounding the ingredients in a pestle and mortar would drive me nuts if I had to do it often. Still, it was well worth it. Simple ingredients – toasted whole coriander and cumin, a couple of chili varieties (green of course), galangal, lemon grass, shrimp paste, salt, white pepper. It all came together nicely and was ready for the beef.

Getting flank steak tender enough to make a roulade is an exercise in meat beating. It is a pretty tough cut and required a lot of pounding. Finally we had it thin enough. Coat with the green curry (thinned with a little oil to make it spread evenly) and rolled up, tied with butchers twine and refrigerated until its time in the bath tub.

Meanwhile, the parsnips were bagged and cooked sous vide with a little butter and lemon grass. After an hour in the water bath at 85C they were almost cooked. Finished in the oven to drive off some of the water and concentrate the flavor and they were ready to go.

Red rice was cooked, cooled and then pan fried with a little onion, finished with cilantro completed the ingredients. The dish was served on a paan leaf – the leaf much beloved in the Indian subcontinent for wrapping a chewing mixture.  The final presentation has curls of grated, frozen foie gras all served on a white rectangular plate. This was a dish for the eyes as well as the palate.

And then the piece de resistance. The guests had been quite lively and animated all evening. We decided to build up the dessert with some theater. As we cleared the plates from the beef course, we placed small round plates next to each diner. The dessert itself was to be served inside halved coconuts.

It was a variant on chendol – that sweet coconut based dessert or drink known as Lorchong Singapore in Thai. Usually it is made with green bean paste noodles, soaked in a sweetened coconut cream – sometimes with some fruit added. We chose to use tapioca based ingredients, noodles, pearls and strips. The intent of this dish was to have a wide variety of different textures in the mouth and a stunning presentation. For fruit we used rambutans (“hairy” in Malay). Each coconut base is filled with a little crushed ice and a piece of rambutan. Some of the tapioca noodles, pearls and strips added, a teaspoon of a syrup made from palm sugar and pandanas leaves (screw-pine) poured over.

Meanwhile the alchemist – Chef David was foaming coconut cream into liquid nitrogen. This left a very cold, intensely flavored ice cream. The coconuts were served with their lids on, the guests invited to remove the lids and some frozen, vapor surrounded frozen cream placed into the lids. The room went completely quiet as the theater unfolded. Guests hurried for cameras to capture their own photographs of the high art. A spectacular end to the formal dining.

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Chef McDang and Chef David Gilbert Cook for High Profile Event in Los Angeles

Los Angles, California,  once a city that I called home, but in recent years has become a stopover on my way to the far East, however the most recent trip had a different agenda—one with a complete culinary focus.  This trip to L.A. did not need a connecting flight to Asia because Asia “the far East” came west.   I was honored when invited to join “The Escoffier” of Thai Cuisine, Chef McDang, for a high profile event for the Los Angeles Thai Consulate at the private residence of the Consulate General.  If you’re not in the loop of “Who is Chef McDang?” Then perhaps you should take a look at the Bangkok episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations for a reminder of who this globally known chef is! Time was precious and with a tight turn around from an intense week of countless hours of cooking demonstrations and a 200 person charity event I had to make my 5:30am cross country flight.  Like a stubborn oyster I had to pry myself from my bed with little shut-eye.  The four hour flight and time change allotted me the opportunity to finally catch up on well needed sleep and review the detailed menu and itinerary for the long weekend.

My arrival to “The City of Angles” was immediately jam packed with calls like the morning L.A. traffic on the 405.  I felt the chaos of  Bangkok, just without mopeds squeezing between the stand-still cars.  Before I met with McDang I went to see some old childhood friends for lunch at one of their favorite restaurants in the San Fernando Valley.  Yes, I said THE VALLEY- but surprisingly it has come a long way since I left Los Angles in 2005.  We enjoyed a simple lunch at a local deli and after catching up I wished my friends well because it was time to jump into the boiling pot of Tom Ka with McDang .

Chef McDang had previously sent me the entire weekend mapped out, from transport times, food preparation schedule, off site dinners, staffing, and events.  We were on a tight schedule, but the bonus was that Som, (one of McDang’s chefs) was there from Bangkok.  Som not very familiar with the Western ordering system (or culture) came back with 25 lbs. of trout filets– filled with pin bones. Instead of wasting time I just took over and informed Som that in America you can actually get these ordered without the pin bones.  She was embarrassed, but the message was delivered with a bit of sarcasm (often missed by eastern cultures) seemed to be lost in translation.  Picking pin bones reminded me of my time in Amsterdam in Chef Kat’s Michelin Star kitchen.  Som took the pan of iced pin bone-free fish and went in the back to the second kitchen to prepare the TOD MUN PLA.  I know she felt bad and fulfilled my request for some homemade  SOM TOM, a true Thai treasure. Thankfully, with Som in Los Angeles she took care of the nuts and bolts (minus surgical removal of the pin bones) while we added the finishes and helped direct traffic.  

Som Tum Video- What great memories this dish can bring….

How to make a green papaya salad from Beyond the Kitchen on Vimeo.

Chef McDang not only showcased his authentic Thai dishes but also introduced some of his new style- which he called -Modern Thai Cuisine.  These dishes maintained the integrity of the essential fundamentals of Thai food.  Great weekend cooking and playing in the kitchen with my friends, Som & Chef McDang.

Understanding the Principles of Authentic Thai Cuisine

 My latest travels have brought me back to a place quickly becoming a second home, Thailand. I spent a significant amount of time in Bangkok with Chef Khun McDang, author of The Principals of Thai Cookery. McDang is Thailand’s leading food expert, chef, TV host, and writer. I had the opportunity to cook side by side with McDang as he schooled me in all things Thai.  Mesmerized and intrigued by just how simple authentic Thai cuisine really is, but how quickly it can become bastardized. McDang‘s book is purposely printed in English to expose the western world to the true Thai cookery and heritage of his countries native cuisine.   

“The most important thing about a country’s cooking is the ingredients.  The ingredients we use reflect the leading tastes in our food: saltiness, sweetness, and acidity.  From these three elements alone you can tell where the food comes from, or in other words, the country’s food profile.”    -Chef Khun McDang  

  

Thailand has a food culture that is like no other I have ever experienced. Thai’s casually eat eight times a day. During sit down “family style” meals there are typically a minimum of five dishes presented. Soup (typically clear), Fried Dish, a Stir fried, Dip with vegetables, Curry dish, and khao (rice) the only component served individually.   

Thailand’s terrain and proximity to the equator make it perfect for year round agriculture.  Thailand also boasts 3,219 kilometers of coast line, which makes the seafood industry a strong hold for the nation’s economy. Thai’s use seafood in numerous applications.  

  

Preserving, drying with salt and allowing the sun to naturally extract moisture.   

Steaming/Boiling, adding moisture and commonly used for larb preparations, dips, curries, and salads  

Grilling, Stir Frying, Deep Frying- Grilling (over charcoal) the most common in Thai culture, deep-frying (palm oil) was  later introduced to Thai Cookery. Deep fried foods are commonly accompanied by a dipping sauce (with chili) to cut the high fat content from the oil.  Green mango salad is commonly paired with fried seafood.  

 

  

   

 

The Thai’s have a phrase which says “gin len” or “play eating”. This references a quick bit or snack. Wherever you go in the streets you will always find food stalls. From dawn to dusk and in some areas, all night. By far the majority are mobile. At the end of their day they wheel their carts back home. Some are pushed and others have bicycles or motorcycles attached. However, an increasing number just leave their cart on the sidewalk and maybe just pull a sheet over it.   

   

This trip exposed me to the deeper layers of “What is Authentic Thai?”, thanks to my friend, Chef McDang. He took me deep into Bangkok immersing me in Thai Food from around the country. We feasted at true hidden gems, most tucked away off the main roads. These streets are referred to as a Soi.   

My favorite of all served E-San cuisine (North Eastern province), which is bold in flavor profiles. Each geographic region of Thailand carries a slightly different basket of staple ingredients. The rules of what defines authentic Thai cuisine will always be the same. SALTINESS, SWEETNESS, ACID (SOURNESS).   

On your next trip to Thailand don’t be shy, wonder down a Soi, stop into a local Thai restaurant and just enjoy! Who knows you may see us at the next table!   

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Travel Thailand. Eat Thailand. Cook Thailand. Ko Samaui, Thailand

You have to all realize that you never seem to know where you life or journey will take you unless you are so uptight and need to plan every minute-(We all know people like this!), but the reality is that you leave no time for yourself…

Food Shots- “Eating Local”

If I had a set plan of my travels I would have never had this experience- and again it just kind of happened.. so embrace it instead of say “it didn’t fit with the plan”. The “plan” is over rated, if you always stick with the plan you will be eating 3 meals a day and working 45 hours a week the rest of you life! (Borrrrring!)

Take a break and realize life is just about adventure, experiences, and you can’t control the energy that passes through you from time to time! We have all had wonderful feelings as well as the bad, purge the bad, embrace the good!