Eating Take Away Food with Style

It's Friday night again and My Little Restaurant is closed for the evening, and so are the shops. There is nothing in the fridge to eat. Looks like it's take away again.

The local Chinese take away offers to cook your family's dinner in 15 minutes for AUD$16.50. From a popular, high turnover place, this is possibly the freshest cooked meal available. Unfortunately, the plastic trays and paper bag make the food look like dog feed.



To prove the point, the contents of the plastic trays and paper bag are removed and arranged on hotel grade crockery made and/or distributed by Australian Fine China. Without adding anything else the transformation is quite startling.

Salt and pepper squid with fresh cut green chillies:



Beancurd wrapped pork rolls with Italian cucumber served with sweet chilli dipping sauce:



Pork, egg and seafood on noodles served in prawn sauce with fresh cut chillies and lemon:



What started out like a soggy mess can now pass as restaurant meals easily costing a lot more than AUD$16.50.

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A Dose of Medicine

Pork hocks and ribs receive a dose of medicine in this herbal pork rillette creation which dervies its aroma from "Bak-Kut-Teh" herbs and spices.



Herbal pork rillette is offered to the modern diner as the healthier equivalent of the very rich, savoury bouquet garni flavoured French pork and rabbit rillette. Cooked just like traditional rillette which is stewed at low temperature in fat with minimal water, this herbal pork rillette relies on the resulting aspic jelly for setting more than the fat itself.

The suggestion for main course is to serve the herbal pork rillette with rice, shiitake mushroom, wolfberries and wilted greens.



For an entrée use the rillette as a spread with tapioca crackling and poached red dates.



According to "Experience Asia Through the Eyes of a Traveler", accessed 15/06/05, "Bak-Kut-Teh" originated in China:

"While first commercialized in Klang which is in Malaysia, Bak Kut Teh was apparently invented by a gentleman from Quanzhou of the Fujian province in China. The recipe was passed to a friend who later emigrated to Malaysia and became the first person to commercialise the dish. That's why Klang is generally known as the home of Bak Kut Teh."

"Bak-Kut-Teh" herbs and spices are used in pork bone soup or stew, often eaten with rice, deep fried dough crullers or bean curd with a chilli and soy sauce dip. Typical accompaniments include preserved vegetables, pickles and Chinese tea to aid digestion of the fat.

For convenience "Bak-Kut-Teh" herbs and spices come in a variety of combinations in disposable paper or muslim infusion bags.



The main flavours come from star anise, cinnamon, peppercorn, garlic, and angelica sinesis, better known as dong quai. Dong quai holds claims to many health benefits including improving vitality. Dong quai is very pungent and for most it imparts a medicinal taste not acceptable in the home meal. Dong quai can be omitted in favour of a more general recipe of cinnamon, star anise, peppercorn, garlic, and soya bean, typical of Chinese cookery.

One of the other commonly used ingredients is the wolfberry or Fructus Lycii, a non-aromatic red berry which gives a slight sweetness, just like carrots. Wolfberries contains high vitamin A and C. These berries adds a colourful finish to the herbal pork rillete.

The feedback received so far suggests that herbal pork rillette tastes too medicinal to succeed as a menu item for an Australian style cuisine. Only time will tell.

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2-minute Tip No. 2

For some making pork crackling is an impossible task. For others, health concerns preclude the consumption of such a delicacy. Of course the vegan who gets invited to a roast pork dinner is going feel left out.

Here is a tip which can save the day. Crackling is made easy through the use of tapioca starch. This very fail-proof crackling is just a simple slurry of tapioca starch and water poured into an electric snack maker. Depending on the dish, add seasoning, herbs and spices to suit. Within minutes, the crackling develops blister bubbles and becomes nicely golden brown and crispy just like the real thing, although without the flavouring of oil.

In the example below, Chinese five spice, and garlic, and perhaps some pork stock, are added to imitate the roast belly pork seen in Chinese barbeque shops.



These guilt-free crackling makes a perfect accompanient to Noodle Cook's herbal pork rillette.



For the die-hards who enjoy the taste of oil, then tapioca crackling is not always an alternative. However there is Neil Perry's suggestion on how to make the perfect crackling:

"If you have any trouble getting the crackling to work you can get a saucepan of hot, almost smoking oil on the stove and pour the hot oil gently over the pork skin to complete the crackling when you remove it from the oven; you will see the skin bubble up."

The above suggestion is offered after the following advice:

"Make sure you buy good-quality young pork and remove the pork from the refrigerator about 3 hours before cooking. Using a very sharp knife make cuts in the skin of the pork from the top to the bottom, running in the same direction as the bones, about 3 mm apart. Cut just through the skin but don't go too deep into the flesh. Using your fingers, rub some good quality red wine vinegar into the pork skin. Next, using a massaging action, rub some sea salt into the skin. Set the pork roast aside to dry. It is also possible to just cook crackling without it being attached to the flesh. A good relationship with your local butcher means you can ask for some extra pork skin for your roast."

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Tale of An Ukrainian Perogy King

During the 2003 Perogy Fest at the Ukrainian Loft restaurant in Canmore in the Canadian Rockies, Edmonton lawyer, Zac was crowned "Perogy King" after eating 43 perogies in one sitting.

What is a perogy and is it the same as a pierogy?

The Ukraine Today website (accessed 14/06/05) quoted Dr. Myron Hlynka:

Varenyky (or pyrohy or perogies) are dough pockets filled with potato, or potato and cheddar cheese,or kapusta (sauerkraut), or cottage cheese, or blueberries, or cherries, or ... Ukrainian varenyky are boiled and resemble to various degrees Polish pierogi, Russian pilmeni, Italian ravioli,Jewish kreplach, or Chinese wonton. Varenyky are very are often served with onions and sour cream. Mmmmm. The word "varenyky" is used throughout Ukraine.The singular form of "varenyky" is "varenyk." Betcha' can't have just one! The word "pyrohy" is used by Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian descendents of pre World War I settlers from Western Ukraine. The singular form of "pyrohy" is "pyrih." The word "perogies" is a Canadianization/Americanization of "pyrohy."

The Ukraine Today website contains links to perogy recipes. The typical perogy contains a lot of cream in the dough and filling, as can be expected of grandma's food from Northern Europe because of the cold weather.

Lower fat versions can easily be made in the home. Here is a suggestion, of savoury sweet potato perogies with chunky apple sauce and caramelized onions drizzled with balsamic vinegar.



It is an amazing feat to eat 43 perogies in one sitting. Although, one suspects the last couple were eaten standing up. Zac, considered royalty in the perogy world, still proudly holds the record today.

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Becoming an Electronic Masterchef

A question was once asked of one of Australia’s leading and most influential chefs, Neil Perry:

Q: I am doing a project on you and was wondering what your qualifications are and where you got your training?

A: Don't have any professional qualifications. I worked with some of the best chefs around in Sydney for a year, then became the head chef at Barrenjoey House. Check out my profile and read the introductions to my cookbooks to find some more in depth information.

Neil Perry went on to answer questions how one qualifies in Australia:

"Contact your local TAFE institute. They offer plenty of courses in hospitality, in both the "back of house" (i.e. kitchen), "front of house" (floor staff) and management. Other than that I would recommend learning as much as you can about hospitality in you local area as well as around Australia and overseas. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading cookbook, magazines and other material about hospitality. Publications such as Australian Gourmet Traveller and delicious magazine are great for finding out about the industry as well as food trends, what's in season etc. It is also important to educate you palate, eating out is a great way to learn what is out their and determine what kind of food you might want in your own restaurant."

For the mature age would-be restaurant owner, Neil Perry has this to say:

"Raymond Thuilier, one of the greatest chefs from France was born before the turn of the century and at the ripe age of fifty one decided to become a restaurateur and chef. He had no formal training other than watching his mother cook when he was growing up. After twenty years as an insurance company salesman (and eventually director) he was inspired to start a restaurant in the ruins of Les Baux in France. Let me quote some of his story from a book of mine "Great Chef's of France" by Anthony Blake and Quentin Crewe:

"As a young boy Raymond watched his mother working in the kitchen. She was an excellent cook and, he maintains, really his only teacher. In his youth he promised her that he would one day revert to the admired profession of her family (that of hospitality) his life was a preparation for the fulfilment of his pledge to his mother. Wherever he was working, whether in Lyon or Paris, he cultivated the company of chefs and spent as much time as possible in the best restaurants. He cooked all the time for his friends. Within two years he had earned his first Michelin star. In eight years he had achieved the summit of three stars."

Closer to home there are plenty of people who started a bit later. Janni Kyritis had his first restaurant, MG Garage, at 50. Formally trained as an electrician, he read and practised cooking at home from recipe books which turned into an obsession. Following a suggestion he should take it seriously and become a cook he applied to work at Stephanie's (Stephanie Alexander's restaurant). He was about 30 at the time and started by working one day a week and keeping his real job, later becoming fully committed.

So as you can see it is not too late to start studying to be a chef. Get in touch with your local TAFE and enquire about doing a Certificate in Commercial Cookery Non-Trade. This gives you the essential skills in cooking but without having to do an apprenticeship. Get cooking at home; be inspired by other great restaurants in Sydney; read books on various cuisine and astronomy. With passion and commitment there is no reason why you cannot follow the path of becoming a chef."

From Neil Perry Chef Website, accessed 12/06/2005.

People from the UK may be interested in this link for equivalent training information: BBC Training Website.

Where does that leave Noodle Cook who wants to run an electronic restaurant? The answer was found at the BBC's Masterchef website. In two long gruelling hours, compared to electronic reality where things happen in milliseconds, Noodle Cook completes the Masterchef e-certificate at the BBC Masterchef Website.

For the certificate, Noodle Cook endures difficult quizzes on:

• Food hygiene


• Food deliveries and stock rotation


• Knife handling and safety


• Food purchasing and budgeting


• Patisserie and presentation techniques

So what makes one a masterchef? The answer according to the BBC website is: "If you're over 18, have no formal chef training, and think you've got the culinary potential and determination to be the next Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver".

Noodle Cook is finally a completely qualified electronic Masterchef, armed with confidence, passion for food, determination to succeed, and hopefully matching cooking skills to run an electronic restaurant. For the latter, Noodle Cook lacks no imagination to fill the holes, and has gotten out of deeper holes, creatively, using 2-minute tips.

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The Judging Panel Introduced

Introducing the Judging panel,the world's harshest critics, comprising the team inherited from tripleN (the romanized nuclear trefoil, often abbreviated as 3N), where the judging panel created a world war zone in the home kitchen. The judges are asked to response to this simple question:

What makes a successful electronic restaurant?

The junior judges:

Princess - NO peanuts, NO capsicum, NO tomato, NO green bits. Simple - it's gotta be cheese pizza!
Ninja Nath - NO peanuts and only if served with tomato sauce. It's the basics! You don't need maths and computer to work out that pizza oughta get on the menu!
Chubby Chup - only if there's plenty of it like pizza!
Tiny Tom - only if it makes you smart like pizza!
Cathy RoadRunner - only if it's fast like Cathy Freeman! I love olives and parmesan like in pizza!

The senior judges:

Nutri Jan - only if healthy, low fat, low salt, taste and look like salad. Although boiling and steaming are OK
Jetset Nan - only if it's traditional Chinese and eaten with chop sticks
Super K - only when grace goes with the meal
Big Tom - only if the meals cost more than $100 per head, and served to fine dining standards, using brand name produce
Oz Grunt - only if it's Australian and eaten with a fork!
Action Man - action speaks louder than words, but I say profit, profit, profit
Chairman - concur with all above, so long as there is strategic management in place, and re-engineering to evolving specifications, employing innovative marketing to direct targets, using quality management principles to evoke a total solution, and in collobration with the workforce, and need I add more.

The responses are to be expected. Most judges believe that the key to success lies in good food that appeals to a large cross-section of diners, together with a high standard of service. The judges also noted good management, marketing, and a focus on profit as important factors.

Noodle Cook takes advice seriously and sets about improving "My Little Restaurant".

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Noodle Cook attempts Paper Chef #7

There was not really any time to enter the Paper Chef #7 competition due to short time My Little Restaurant was established on-line. The competition was already closed when the details were worked out.

The first attempt started at breakfast, when it was discovered a breakfast of honey poached date and apple oat-bran porridge with skim milk, an egg and a cup of tea with skim milk pretty much covered the four ingredients (buttermilk, date, egg and honey) for the competition. On checking the other entries, this breakfast would be the most boring and unimaginative entry since the inception of the competition!

The next attempt was at dinner with a main course and dessert:

• Slow cooked rolled rib beef with wilted greens, house-made parsley garlic buttermilk spatzle (German egg noodle), semi-dried tomato, honey glazed baked apples, poached red dates, apple salsa, soya sauce, balsamic and red wine vinegar reduction.
  
  
  
• Honey glazed baked apples and dates on crispy tapioca buttermilk tuile, to be served with ice-cream.
  
  
  
  The approximate steps were:

1. Lightly brush honey over thinly sliced pink apple and bake in a moderate oven. Glaze with more honey when cooked.
   
   
   
2. Make spatzle using egg, plain flour and buttermilk. Season with parsley, garlic, and pepper. Cook in boiling water.
   
   
   
3. Make the tuile by pouring a slurry of tapioca starch, egg white and buttermilk into an electric waffle iron.
   
   
   
4. Poach the dried red dates. Reserve the water for the sauce reduction.
   
   
   
5. For the apple salsa and reduction, firstly sear the beef and remove. Then add fruit juice to deglaze the frying pan. Add finely diced apple, soya sauce, balsamic, red wine vinegar. Removed the cooked apple. Add fennel seeds, more fruit juice, vinegars, soya sauce and date poaching water for the sauce.
   
   
6. Assemble the dishes as shown above. Drizzle the reduction over the beef and spatzle. Add slivers of green apple peel for garnish.

Sadly, this entry did not make it to the competition....

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Food for thought...

"You create much more than a wonderful meal when you cook food slowly - you create a mood, an expectation, a longing for good company and good times. Every delicious roast you've ever eaten has fond memories that go with it, every simmered shank is savored like a special occasion. We're lucky to have inherited our love of this classic kind of food. Our eyes still light up when we recall grandma's meatloaf or our own mother's special stuffing. And now it's our turn to do our versions of their lamb roast and garlic prawns, and to create our own classics, the dishes we'll be remembered for - the Thai green chicken curry or trout baked in vine leaves. But, most importantly, everyone needs to know how to roast, what to simmer and how to make a gravy, sauce and stuffing. These are essential facts of cooking life - because good roasts, simmers, gravies, sauces and stuffings are what makes life such a wonder thing."

Donna Hay, Modern Classics 1, 2002.

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The Secret Reviewer Unveiled

While My Little Restaurant gets underway with the menu design, along comes the the secret reviewer. His face cannot be shown for obvious reasons. According to rumours, he has more than 20 years experience in family catering, in the role of executive chef.

John, the "stealth bomber" secretly left a comment about the menu in the guestbook: "I like the layout. How about some of the vegetable dishes which you are so good at". Previous comments include: "This dish lacks seasoning" and "where are the basics, like tomato sauce".

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Secret Ingredient No. 2

The next secret ingredient is truffle oil which does not really need introduction thanks to "My Restaurant Rules 2005" reality TV restaurants.

Three of the five restaurants use truffle (presumably the oil infusions) in their European style menu items, namely:

"Pink Salt risotto with green asparagus, snow peas, truffle & tomato coulis" from Pink Salt, New South Wales

"Truffled mashed potatoes" from Restaurant Louvre, Queensland

"Vincisgrassi Maceratesi, (18th Century recipe), cepe, proscuitto lasagna with white truffle oil" from the Greedy Goose, South Australia.

According to the local shops actual truffles are hard to get and are too expensive for day to day home cooking. So it's time to check the best authority on this matter, Stephanie Alexander's "Cooking and Travelling in South West France", 2002.

According to the book, truffles are AUD$1800 per kilo, two and a half times the French price, and Simon Johnson (gourmet food distributor) retails large 100 g can for AUD$275. Truffles are fungi, known for their potent flavour and intoxicating earthy perfume. Grown at the roots of certain tree species in France, the fungi are located by sniffer dogs and pigs.

Truffles are now cultivated in New Zealand, South Eastern Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. An electronic truffle finder called "E-nose" is being trialed. Truffle cultivation in Western Australian started in 1997, and in July 2003 The Wine and Truffle Co, Manjimup, Western Australia produced it's first crop of truffle. The following was reported in The Australian newspaper:

Temperamental little fungi
THE CURIOUS COOK
By Cherry Ripe
April 16, 2005

"The Wine and Truffle Company at Manjimup in Western Australia boasts what is claimed to be Australia's biggest plantation – 13,000 trees on 21ha. In the winter of 2003 it harvested its first truffle from under an oak tree planted in 1997. It weighed 160g, the size of a cricket ball. Last year it harvested 50 truffles (4kg in total), the largest of which weighed 480g – approaching the size of a rockmelon.

With barely enough to supply demand, the entire harvest went to local Perth restaurants (such as Frasers, The Loose Box and Jackson's) for $2000 per kilogram."

The questions are, how is truffle oil use and what does it taste like. Some health conscious diners indicate truffle oil is splashed too generously on top of the Greedy Goose's Vincisgrassi Maceratesi lasagna. Recipes often call for teaspoons to tablespoons of truffle oil for flavouring soups, salads, potatoes, eggs, pasta, roasts, and anything under the sun which is remotely French related. It goes back to earlier secret ingredient comment that if vegemite is to Australian, then truffle (and truffle oil) is to the French.

There is only way to find out about the taste and that is to test drive a few drops of white truffle oil in a Jamie Oliver inspired egg and bacon on toast breakfast. After many kilometres of driving around Perth, a 60 mL bottle of white truffle flavoured extra virgin olive oil for AUD$13.99 was located. Needless to say, the conclusion is that a few drops of the oil overpowered the flavour of the fresh egg!

Truffle oil is definitely not something suited to home cooked food and is best left to the snotty diners at French or derivative restaurants. From here the case is put to rest for truffle fans to rave and rant.

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