International lunch menu on Wednesday

We made b.b.Q Beef Stewed with Grape juice. (We don't use wine in Brunei). I was not happy with the quality of this sparkling grape juice. I had to add extra pure Grape juice and had it reduced. The Beef cubes was then marinade for one day.

No, It's NOT Red Wine. Bought it at Hua Ho. :)

Guess what, We didn't have a name for this dish. In the end, we just called it UBD Beef Stew with Asparagus Specials. hahaha
Morrocan Chicken Tagine. This dish is just great. I envy how the morrocan like to add fruits to thier dish. This dish has it's fruity flavour extract from an apricot. I also could add prunes or dates. This dish wouldn't be the winning dish if i had chicken korma next to it. It just has less fats as it's seared then stewed on a very low heat with no creams or any fattening agent to it. I used chicken fats of it's own.

Yesterday was so hot. There came the devil in me. Chef Mujib made some yoghurt the day before. I coudn't resist it that i had one of the waiter to get me come cup and filled it with ice. I had 3 tables spoon of sugar syrup, fresh yoghurt, sqeezed lemon. What do you think I had?

FRESH HOME MADE LASSI! Love it..

We went Italian last Tuesday...

It was my 1st pasta in Brunei. I haven't done it in a while. It was so exciting, dusting, kneading and rolling. I just like watching the pasta sheets as it comes out of the pasta machine.
We had Ravioli of minced chicken, spinach and basil. As much as I love to put Ricotta or any kind of cheese, I also got to considered my fellow Malay Asian Palate. That's why I decided to just use minced chicken straight forward.

Stuffed Ravioli. It's juat another way of saying Italian Dumpling or Pasta with fillings.

To finish the dish, I served simple arrabiatta sauce. Quite spicy tomatoey sauce.
Chicken Supreme pomodoro. Pomodoro means Tomato. That's it and nothing fancy.

I hope they enjoyed it.

Anyone Can cook....

A Rat in a 5 star restaurant making soup...

FilmEgde.net

Cooking is fun. yea yea...

what we've been cooking...

This is Stuffed Chicken of minced Lamb caponata. This dish was specially made for the Lubru games held at Ubd sports complex.
We did Chicken kebab for lunch yesterday.
and i had to do fish pie. It's more of a kid's meal.
Banana Fritters with Chocolate Ganache.
This is truly Bruneian. Deep fried Tamarind Fish (Rumahan)

so it's Friday

Im still at home just relaxing and compiling my pictures. Busy day towards the weekend. There are some new dish added to our menu.

'Pulut otak-otak' (Stuffed Glutinous rice with minced fish). The word otak otak comes from one of many singapore malay delicacies. A minced Fish marinated with spices and coconut milk where it is then filled in coconut leaves. To cook this is to Chargrilled it. I would be lying if I told you we did the whole traditional whole process. We baked the fish instead, still it has depth in flavour but missing the Char Aroma.

We made Beef pattie yesterday. Quite hard work to mould and then pan fry to seal it then finish it on a flaming grill. One thing that ive got to say, you can't beat a homemade burgers. Since i started making them, I hardly buy any frozen manufactured burgers for myself. For sure homemade is 100% Meat and no extra excess fats or ofal being minced into it because you are the ones who minced it haha. So you are what you eat.

This was the day when i was having my day off in London. I came across a caribbean restaurant and it's halal. I had always wanted to try Jerk chicken. Often we heard the word 'YOU JERK' especially when a guy didnt treat thier girlfriend right. I guess we guys are jerk for Chicken. I tell you, sooooo nyaman and so Jerky. It's basically marinated tangy bbq-like sauce on a barbe' (bbq).

The way to enjoy your jerk chicken is to use you fingers and lick it good! Scrumptious and what Chef cooper like to say "ORgasmic!"

I'm Looking forward to this event. Our Company is providing the food. It will be an exciting day for me and the brigade. i'm honoured to cook for this people and what makes it great is that a good friend of mine will be joining my team to prepare 8 course dishes. More on that later...

Enjoy Friday

Pol'

Mini competition

When to local fish market last week. I was organising little competition among my chefs. So I did some shopping for local ingredients.

I decided to use Local seabream "Kerisi Bali" as one of the main course.

Beautiful local Seabream = 'kerisi Bali'

This is one of the dish Ive managed to take. It was not the winning dish though. I just like the presentation. On that note, Seabream has very delicate meat. It's easy to break and go mushy if your knife is blunt. One thing that caught my attention is that when the fish was cook, the texture becomes firm and not too flaky. This dish was pan seared. I'm thinking of poaching it in coconut juice and see what happens. Interesting fish and quite expensive too.

Missing in action

Hello guys, I have been away for a while. No particular reason. I finally got my 1st commercial oven. Cheap oven from china, the thermometer is not accurate. Heat is not sufficient. Being a chef is to know how to use things surround you, whether you like it or not, you've got to find ways how to make it work. I'll see how long this oven can keep up with me.

My 1st test drive was baking some crusty loaf bread. My new Oven haha.

It was a good feeling kneading the dough. Too bad im just not a pastry chef.

My cousin who is a bakery chef, help me trying out the new oven.
Results was good. Nicely baked. My 1st Crusty Loaf made in my kitchen.
Bread rolls. The smell was fantastic. The sugar, yeast, bread smell really seduced me. I guess I just love watching bread in the oven gets baked.