Soul Food In Nowa Sol, Poland

Me (left), Zaneta (Middle) and Anjali (Right) outside ABFoods, Poland
Anjali Pathak and i were asked by the guys in HR at our outpost in Poland, to come over for their summer festival. Allsorts of things kicked off over the weekend including music concerts, funfairs, food and other Polish frolics. Anjali and i were demonstrating our specialist cuisines, Indian and Oriental respectively, and we made quite an impact! People on both days jumped onto the stage to help us prepare our dishes - the enthusiam to learn new recipes was inspirational and with the help of Zaneta (our ABFooodsPolska fixer) we made a real impact over the two days.

The stage upon which we 'performed'!
It was quite intimidating standing up in front of the people of Nowa Sol and having to have everything translated by a translator. I cooked a selection of dishes from a variety of cuisines including a Chinese Sichuan-style stir fry, Japanese Teriyaki Salmon and Thai Chicken Satay, using Blue Dragon products. Everything went without a hitch thanks to the great handymen on site, Zaneta and my 'assistante' Anjali!

Hopefully we will be invited back next year to demonstrate some more exciting and exotic Oriental and Indian dishes...

Happy Cooking!

HJ

Nielsen-Massey Goodies

Rum & Raisin Brownies

Macademia Cookies

This month i have taken on the responsibility of looking after the Nielsen-Massey brand of Vanilla Extract, for which i'm really excited! It's meant i've been able to get in the kitchen and practise various recipes for our PR company, including Macademia Cookies, Fruit and Nut Muffins, Vanilla Cookies and Rum and Rasin Brownies.

Crisp Vanilla Cookies

Fruit & Nut Muffins

I also got into the cupcake fever and cooked some Oreo Cupcakes for the ABWF charity bake sale - i am pleased to announce that they all went within two minutes! Must be the superior quality of the Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Extract i was using...! ;)

Oreo Cupcakes

Makes 6

100g plain flour

20g cocoa powder

140g caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

40g unsalted butter, at room temperature

100ml semi-skimmed milk

1 egg

1 tsp Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 170/325/gas3. Mix the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter until a sandytexture is formed. Whisk the milk, egg and Nielsen-Massey together in a jug, then slowly pour about half in with the dry ingredients. Mix until combined and with no lumps. Pour in the remaining liquid, scarape down the sides of the bowl and ensure everything is smooth and well combined.

Line a muffin tin with 6 muffin cases (preferably brown which can be bought from ASDA and most good baking shops). Spoon the mixture into the cases until 2/3 full. Place in the oven for 20-25mins until firm. Check if they are cooked, by placing a skewer in the centre of a cupcake and ensuring that it pulls out cleanly. If not replace for another 5 minutes.

Top with a cream cheese icing made from 300g icing sugar, 50g unsalted butter, 1tsp Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Extract creamed together - it should be of a light and fluffy dropping consistancy. Pipe onto the cupcakes with a meringue nozzle (to create the wide fluted shape) and top with a mini oreo cookie

I *heart* baking!

Happy cooking!

HJ

Undercover at the Dusit Thani

Front enterance of the Hotel
Amazingly Tim Beard had managed to squeeze me into the legendary Dusit Thani hotel in Bangkok for my last day in Asia, and i worked both lunch and evening services. There was so much that I could have learnt there, but the political situation (and subsequently the closing of all but three of their restaurants) prevented me from achieving it.

Making Nam Prik Om
However, the one day that I did spend in the kitchens was great. I started off with an introduction with Chef Erwin and his deputy Phillipe. I was then given the grand tour of the restaurants and kitchens - only three were open and one was prepping – and then was invited to join the head chefs for their daily briefing.

Stuffed Prawn, pork and crab claws

I then was invited to join the Thai restaurant, Benjarong, to learn how to prepare some of their dishes, including Stuffed Crabs and Crab Claws, Nam Prik Num, Nam Prik Rua, Gaeng Som Pla Chen, Pork Satay, Sweet Pork and Pomelo salad. Chef Siriwat was a great help and talked me through all the recipes and methods, even demonstrating some of them too me including the Nam Prik ong, Stuffed crabs and Pomelo salad. I stayed with them for three hours or so.

Ingredients for Nam Prik Rua
Then in the evening, at 6pm I joined the Vietnamese restaurant, Thien Duong. Again, they were more than hospitable. Even though they had no customers whilst I was there, they demonstrated to me (and got me making) their version of summer rolls, Deep fried Summer Rolls, Vietnamese Ravioli and Prawn on Sugar cane sticks. They also talked me through the different dipping sauces used with each dish.

Nam Prik Om - stir fried until dry
From there I went to The Pavilion kitchen, which is the main buffet area for evening dinner and breakfast. I was in the kitchen and was taught how to make Thai Green and Red curries as well as Pad Thai.

All in all this was a fantastic experience and I just wish more restaurants had been open (Chinese, Thai, French, Italian, Steakhouse) so that I could have spent more time in each of them, learning the ropes.

Happy Cooking!

HJ

Dim-Sum - Hong Kong's Breakfast

The great thing about dim-sum is that there is always something for everyone – be it steamed, fried, baked or wokked.

Traditionally served as breakfast for Hong Kong natives, it sprang up in the southern Cantonese area of China as an accompaniment to drinking tea or 'yum cha'. Dim sum literally means 'to touch your heart' and given the fondness people have for these little snacks across the whole world, it is a very fitting translation!

As is the tradition, we enjoyed our dim-sum at lunchtime (as to eat it in the evening is not traditional and slightly frowned upon - much like drinking a cappuccino at breakfast in Italy)! We were presented with a dim-sum banquet that consisted of cold drunken chicken (so called because it is cooking in shaoxing wine), followed by multitudinous varieties of dumplings and buns, rounded off traditionally with a noodle dish served for the whole table.

Drunken Chicken with dipping sauces

Steamed buns - Left Char Siu Bau, Right Sweet Custard

Deep-fried Chinese chive dumplings

Shu Mai - pork and prawn

Shu mai - crab and pork, b/g noodles

Cheong Fun - Square rice noodles rolled around bbq pork

Special Stir-fried Egg Noodles

Happy Cooking!

HJ

The Food of Mon

I felt I should briefly write about Mon-style food that I ate when I visited the island of Ko (or Pak) Kret in Nonthaburi, Bangkok. Puwadol took me and as we were dropped on the island I realised it was a very small place. We were greeted by a temple (wat) and what looked like the Thai version of a Moroccan souk. It was here that I was treated (!?) to Mon-style food.

The Mon originated in the Mon kingdom, located near Burma and Thailand to the West of Thailand. Their country was invaded over various centuries by both Thailand and Burma and their kingdom was swallowed up as a result of the skirmishes. The Mon were used by the Thais as labourers/ slaves and were moved to various areas of Thailand. When they received their freedom, they set up small communities and Ko Kret was one of the places they settled.

Mon Food
After weaving our way through covered walkways resplendent with food and knick-knack shops, we found ourselves at a vendor who served the traditional food of the Mon people. It consisted of a small bowl of rice in iced water called Khao Chae, served with various accompanying dishes including shredded candied pork, fish and preserved vegetables. All the accompaniments were overwhelmingly sweet. The iced water is jasmine scented and is imparted with the smoke from candles (rendering it with – I thought – a rather an unpleasant taste of paraffin)! This is traditionally eaten, much like the Japanese and their cold soba noodles, as a cooling dish for the summer months. An unusual lunch…!

Happy Cooking!

HJ