Back to civilisation...

It's good to be back home. Time flies so fast. Nothing so new about Brunei but a few brand new shophouses around Kiulap. I managed to surprise my mom, then that's it. The highlights of my touchdown in Brunei. I'm a bit sad, with so limited ingredients I just don't know how much i can do with. I'm pretty sure there will be an outcome with lots of experiments and commitment. At the moment I think it's best to take one step back and climatise myself and to start believing that I'm back for good (civilisation :P). Still feeling jetlag aiyooo.

Today was great, I visited our humble kitchen, saying hello to almost everyone and in fact I couldn't wait to start working again. I miss my daily life in the kitchen. So does anyone knows how to make chicken Kiev?

Here goes....

What is chicken kiev? Kiev is a place in Russia. It's quite similar to chicken Schnitzel but with butter fillings (parsley and garlic). To my fellow Bruneian food lover, don't get confuse with it's name. It's basically Chicken fillet with bread crumbs filled with seasoned butter. thats all. I certainly wouldn't call it Chicken Kiev on my menu. It has got to be something like Stuffed seasoned butter with Chicken coated with breadcrumbs. If thats too long, to make customers understand more you could call it Crispy chicken with garlic butter. So please do try this at home.

Firstly of course, You will need a chicken.

Then take the rolled seasoned butter and place it on the centre

sUse salt around the edge in order to let it stick together to prevent the butter to ozzz out. chicken has protein and it react with salt.

then you PANE Anglase. To coat the chicken with breadcrumbs and flour

You then Egg wash them and pane again for the final stages before you deep frying them.

You can always tap away the excess flour.

Thats ready to be fry.... yummyyyyyyyyy

And there you have chicken Keiv.

As you can see on the last picture, the probe registers at 87 degrees celcius. Well, thats just way too overcooked and you wouldn't want that, Cooking chicken should about 72 degrees celcius and off the heat. Once you cut the middle, you can smell and see that butter oozing out. Beautiful!

It's coming to an end... but not yet.

Whats organic? I don't really go into detail about organic food. After all you are what you eat. I've been using wild Alaskan Salmon these days. It's not for it's brand or lifestyle eating, but for it's lean texture. It's natural bright colour and texture almost like seabass seduced me. I think if I have to present a dish to a woman, this would be just perfect. Woman should be clean, not heavy, luminous and fresh. You don't end fishy foul mouth breath in the end.

Beautiful wild Alaskan Salmon

These days whenever i come with such exclusive fish, I always tend to use reduction method for it's companion. I came out with mango salsa reduction of white balsamic vinegar. Laid on a bed of spinach.

Seared pan-fried Wild Alaskan Salmon, Mango salsa reduction of White balsamic vinegar and spinach.

Missus was so stressed during her exam period and decided make some meringue. I just got to showed off her brilliant meringue. It's just so perfect as you can see.

Fresh meringue, no cornflour, no arabic gum, no stabilizer just egg whites and sugar and delicate hand work hehe. You are the Meringue CHEF! :P

Indulge...

Mr Amzar giving thumbs up on my flapjacks and Cocopops crunchy. haha good pose man... he is our future engineer!
Making pralines.
Close up.
This is not close up.... KING Strawberries from the states.
compare that with normal strawberries. Beautiful when dipped into chocolate sauce. Sweet, not so tangy, juicy! I dont believe it grows naturally. hehe American can do anything and its nice to food lover.

Spiced Indian lobster with tamarind juice, penshawari rice. From Laze.ez Signature Restaurant Birmingham. Trying out Fennel. It was first time using Fennel. I tell you what, It's certainly beautiful aniseedy fragrant. Once roasted you know it can't go wrong.
As a compliment for my trout dish. Simple, rustic nothing PONCEY! Pub style food which i think suits bruneian diners. That Manggo salsa tops it all. It gives sharpness to the dish. Love it!
My princess usual morning malay typical breakfast. Prawn egg fried rice with unsalted dried anchovies.
Since we had Fish curry head sauce leftover, I made some simple glass noodle rice with trims of trout, carrots, celery and scrambled egg. more rustic and such filling dish.

Done and dust it...

I finally completed my trainning. So much as wanting to become a chef. I look forward to introduce beautiful ingredients and cooking techniques to my family and friends. It has been great experience coming to France, well not quite but England :). Attending college itself won't give you that much knowledge as it is more technically done(unless you want to become what i call MANUFACTURED CHEFS then thats fine). I've ventured out in order to extract more food knowledge. I don't mind giving away recipes. I just wonder why is it such a big deal to give away simple recipes. It's funny especially in Brunei, most chefs think they have 'secret recipes'. What alot of rubbish!. As Marco Pierre white said, *You can't have secret recipes unless you have secret ingredients. By taking that into heart, I thought, so what if they have secret recipes, There are millions of dishes to offer. Thats one funny thing about food industry in Brunei. People hardly tells thier 'secret recipes'. Maybe the market is too tight hmm... could be the reason too.

I still believe with dedication and no "hot hot chicken shit" (malay proverb for a person who talks alot but no actions) I can turn my gardener into making good desserts or pastas. Being a chef is big commitment. So dear Bruneian young chefs, dont expect too much respect,dont expect too many breaks, dont expect short working hours. Keep it going and try to produce quality stuffs and that what matters. what I like about being a chef is that the more mistakes you made the more you get to learn. If you think you have been commis chef far too long, fight your way up and venture into another world. Let's show to our people that Bruneian chef are as good as other foreign Chefs! haha.

here are more pictures...

Im addicted to it. Whelks. A dash of cayenne pepper and tabasco sauce and malt vinegar. Orgasmic! Expert says it has hugh in iron. It has sea smell and can be quite rubbery.

Oeuf a'la neige.[OUFS ah lah nehzh]; it's poached meringue. Served with custard and toffee syrup.
Squid linguine with lamb

Marinated Salmon fillet with honey and grain mustard. Pomme puree and beet dressing.

Apfel Streusal. It's German.