Masterchef Progress Fires Up

Everything that can go wrong happens sooner than one can brag on a blog when the stove decides to take John's side. The demi glace emulsifies while Noodle Cook watches in horror. The stove's thermostat jams on high, no doubt the result of John's "fix" to the lose oven door during the previous week. It looks like simmering for 24 hours out of question, not to mention COOKING the audition dish on a stove that no longer works. But nothing stops a determined electronic Masterchef with Olympics size vision, not even when dishes suffer the dreaded "fusion curse", a hangover from Noodle Cook's fusion style cooking. Driving 35 km to another kitchen makes no difference, not much at all, when you think about being closer to some of the better, cheaper produce in town.


Noodle Cook rushes out for more marrow bones, onion, parsnip, celery....

Noodle: Well, these are the produce that will give me my 2 minute of national TV fame on Masterchef cooking programme.

Sue at IGA: Really?

Noodle: There are a lot of talented chefs out there. I am just a home cook.

Sue at IGA: Good Luck.

Noodle: Thank you!

Whew! Hopefully Sue fails to notice the marked down goodies from the reject trolley during the conversation. A Masterchef in the making has to start somewhere, and a humble beginning is just as a good place to start as any.

Veal Glace
2.5 kg mini marrow bones
1 parsnip
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
2 onions
4 tablespoon olive oil
1 t peppercorns
2 L boiling water
1 tablespoon whole Australian bush tomatoes

1. Roast the marrow bones at 200 degrees celsius for 1 hour until golden brown. Discard the oil.
2. Cut the vegetables into 5 cm pieces. Place in a large stock pot and caramelize vegetables in the olive oil.
3. Add the roasted bones, peppercorn and water.
4. Simmer, at 1 bubble per second, overnight or around 24 hours.
5. Defat and then strain the stock.
6. Reduce the stock until thick and syrupy.
7. Add the bush tomatoes in the last 30 minutes of cooking to impart a caramelized sun dried tomato taste.
8. Retrieve the bush tomatoes for future use, such as on a cheese board or in a salad.
9. Refrigerate or freeze the demi glace until required.

There is no brown roux thickener, wine or European herbs in this version of demi glace so as to make it versatile for a range of dishes including oriental. Appropriate wine, herbs and spices are added at the time of making the sauces or soup. This sauce base is particularly suitable for adding a savoury character to fruit based gastrique, such as in oriental-style sweet and sour dishes.

Noodle Cook, being the 2-minute expert, uses baby food thickener as the instant fix to runny sauces.

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A Secret Confession

With an obsession for cast iron cookware, Noodle Cook falls in love with Jamie Oliver At Home. The beautiful 26 cm lime green tegame comes from Kitchen Discounts. At $89.95, it is 55% off RRP.

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Masterchef Audition Preparation

While John the villain in this blog keeps no secret on how bad everybody else's cooking tastes, judge John Torode from Masterchef UK has this to say: "Have fun. Oh, and a little tip. The shopping and reading and sourcing and eating is 95 per cent of food and the cooking is just five per cent. Love all the other stuff and the cooking will be a breeze."

In contrast to John Torode's opinion, Noodle Cook spends 95% of the time DESIGNING using principles of design, as used in visual art. In food, the artistry goes beyond visual, with taste adding a extra dimension, and ambiance, such as temperature, lighting and sound, contributing to the overall success of a dish.

Reading and drooling over the mind blowing creations from 3 hat chefs seem like fun. As an inexperience suburban home cook, Noodle Cook, who plays second fiddle to the executive chef in the home kitchen, has no chance of achieving those dishes in less than 5 days. Suddenly, the two Paper Chef hats which bring Noodle Cook from suburban obscurity to international limelight, on the computer screen, amount to nothing in comparison to real life 3 hat chefs.

Peter Gilmore - Quay
Shannon Bennett - Vue de Monde
Mark Best - Marque
Chui Lee Luk - Claude's
Guillaume Brahimi - Guillaume At Bennelong
Greg Doyle - Pier
Peter Doyle - Est.
Neil Perry - Rockpool
Tetsuya Wakuda - Tetsuya's
Justin North - Becasse
Armando Percuoco - Buon Ricordo

Of admiration are Chefs Neil Perry, Tetsuya Wakuda and Chui Lee Luk who demonstrate exceptional talents in their mastery of oriental ingredients.

Noodle Cook's version of confit salmon result from ideas gleaned from Chef Tetsuya's confit ocean trout.

With no chance of affording a Rockpool "session", Noodle Cook successfully slow roasted at home using Chef Neil's cookbook instructions for slow roast rib of beef.

John Torode's five per cent cooking sounds good until the preparation time is taken into account. Noodle Cook needs a good stock to make demi glace, which takes 24-48 hours. There is no time at all to lose as Noodle Cook rushes to the local IGA shops for marrow bones which costs around $2.90 per pack.

With a non-existent budget for fresh restaurant grade produce, Noodle Cook seeks out local shops with a high turnover, noting the "market" days when the shop replenishes supplies. Seasonal produce usually cost less, and amazingly, the full flavour, mature produce in the reject trolley cost even less!

The budget groceries from oriental shops gives a cheap skase like Noodle Cook plenty of inspirations. However, a slight problem arises when Noodle Cook's rudimentary language skills cause miscommunication in both directions. How does one use an unfamiliar product with an unpronounceable name???

With confidence dropping lower by the minute, Noodle Cook starts on the demi glace while searching inspirations for a dish that impresses the judges. There's still that essence in Noodle Cook, a burning desire to succeed, to bring alive a passion for good food in a real restaurant. Masterchef gives the opportunity to follow through the electronic dream lived out in this blog....

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Masterchef Rivalry

Noodle: I'm selected to audition for Masterchef! What do you reckon I cook?

John: Masterchef??? You??? You've got no experience unlike me! I fed 2 ravenous boys. I should be the one selected! I am THE master chef. Your food is BEAUTIFUL, but INEDIBLE. Why don't you just stick to dumplings.

Noodle Cook's attempts to prove otherwise at breakfast with buttered mushroom, cooked to golden perfection...

John: The smells make me puke!

No one can possible goof up on boiled egg...

John: Don't do me a boiled egg. It's always too hard!

Scrambled egg with cheese, perhaps...

John: Is this egg?? What is this???

Noodle Cook's confidence starts to sink like the Titanic as villainous John remembers and reminds of the "United Hearts" debacle, an overambitious attempt at French cooking to be like top Chef, Chui Lee Luk of Claude's.

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Masterchef Inspiration

The call from Masterchef Australia appears genuine. So, with less than 8 days, Noodle Cook rushes to cookbooks by top chefs for inspiration, like Neil Perry's "The Food I Love, Beautiful, Simple Food to Cook at Home".

BEAUTIFUL plays some importance, but it appears success lies in the word SIMPLE, after the lessons learnt in the artistic "United Heart" (同心) creation, a French style dish which utilizes Australian desert limes and Chinese ingredients like dried oysters, onion hearts, and Chinese celery. The flavours prove too complex for the tasters. In particular John, the villain in this blog,  proclaims the dish inedible (sob, sob, sob) after the other tasters try not to grimace.


Australian Desert Lime jelly and oyster avocado mousse, fused together as united hearts, garnished with onion hearts (flowering stalks with buds) twisted in a knot. A chilled appetizer or cheese course served with a beet root fruit sauce and an oyster flavoured cream.

The dish that Noodle Cook creates must be simple, beautiful AND withstand summer heat. With so many ideas running through the head, Noodle Cook's cool, level head, starts to puff up like a Michelin Chef, and then deflates, as stage fright takes over: the chill goes down the spine and the feet suddenly feel cold. There's no time to perfect "beautiful, simple food" like Chef Neil in 8 days!

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Masterchef Dreaming

The mobile phone rings at midday while Noodle Cook, the self proclaimed electronically qualified "Masterchef", with geologist boots on instead of chef hat, looks down a microscope for evidence of the next diamond mine.

"Congratulations, you have won one of 100 places out of 6000 applications to audition for Masterchef!"

Stunned, Noodle Cook tongue twists into a knot while the brain races excitedly. Maybe it's no more running a restaurant electronically through a blog: Pinocchio getting a chance to become real???

"You need to impress the judges with a dish on 16 January. Please bring 2 plates. There's no refrigeration..... You'll get an email shortly with details."

Noodle Cook, the dreamer, starts visualizing the dishes created for Paper Chef challenges. The euphoria of winning the Paper Chef's hat for the month with Bush Tucker Lamb starts coming back. The winning dish features Australian bush herbs and spice in a beautiful green marbled lamb parfait with orange basil seed champagne jelly.



By the time the caller says good-bye, Noodle Cook has forgotten to ask for the name of the caller, the time to show up, and the location of the audition, or in this instance, the place where dreams potentially become real....

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Dumplings

Basic Dumpling Mince
Makes approx 1 kg for 4 batches of dumplings. Dumpling packs usually come in 24-30 skins.

700g pork
150g prawn meat
1 red chilli
4 garlic cloves
4 dried shiitake mushroom
1/2 cup dried chives
Marinade:
2T wine or stock (acid)
1T soy sauce (enzyme)
1T olive oil
1T cornstarch
1T sugar

Water Dumplings (Sui Gow)
Makes approx 24
Boil in stock

250 g dumpling mince
1/2 c slivered bamboo shoots
1c chopped cloud ear fungus (soaked)
2T chopped coriander
2T chopped spring onions
2T dried squid, soaked
1 green chilli chopped
1T soy sauce, to taste
1T cornstarch

Cabbage Gyoza, Jiaozi or Gow Gee
Makes 30
Pan fry and steam

250 g dumpling mince
1 T minced ginger
100 g spring onions or 1/4 c dried chives
250 g Chinese cabbage, shredded & de-watered with 1 T salt for 30 minutes, rinsed, dried - yields 1 cup
1 t sesame oil
1 T cornstarch
2 t soya sauce to taste

Vegetable dumpling
Makes 30
Steam

250 g dumpling mince or 1 c mashed firm tofu, chopped fried tofu, mushroom or bean thread noodles
1/2 c shredded carrot
1/2 c chestnut, diced
1/2 c shredded bamboo shoots
1/4 c chopped chives
1/4 c chopped coriander
1 T soy sauce to taste
1 T potato starch
1 t sesame oil

Wontons
Makes 30
Deep fry

250 g dumpling mince
1/4 c water chestnut, finely diced
1/4 c bamboo shoot, finely diced
4 dried mushroom, soaked & slivered
1 T soy sauce

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Pasta with Confit Turkey, Garlic and Onion in a Caramelised Semidried Tomato Sauce

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Abalone

Export quality green lip abalone from Australia sells for $175 per kilogram. Most oriental dishes with abalone require braising or boiling for several hours to achieve the tender melt in the mouth texture. Canned abalone is often recommended in recipes.

Fresh abalone needs scrubbing to remove the green and/or black coating. When cleaned, the abalone looks creamy white. Before cooking, tenderizing with a mallet is recommended.

Thin slices of fresh abalone needs only a few seconds in a hot pan to cook. Should the abalone turn rubbery on over cooking, convert the dish into a soup or continue with braising.

Abalone is easy to confit in a flavoured oil. Chef Neil Perry's recipe cooks at 60 degrees Celsius for 2 to 2.5 hours, while Chef Stephanie Alexander's "Cooks Companion" indicates 125 degrees Celsius for 3-4 hours. The abalone texture at the end should be "soft as butter".

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Paper Chef 31 - Another Fish Tale

Paper Chef 31 : walnut, chickpea, oregano and fish steak.

At "An Electronic Restaurant", where there is unlimited drama, the script continues...

The entry is just about done as Noodle Cook recalls some walnut oil, chickpea flour and oregano in the pantry. Just a dash to the shop for a piece of swordfish, and behold the Paper Chef entry??? URRrrgh, Noodle Cook opens the pantry and discovers stale walnut oil, chickpea flour in a falafel mix, and oregano, DRIED, which doesn't qualify or taste right with the spices in the falafel mix. Dial 000 for John to save the day evening. The swordfish ends up beautifully grilled and served with steamed beans and caramelized yam bean slices. A Paper Chef entry not to be.

Kudos: Owen (Tomatilla!) the inventor, Ilva (Lucullian Delights) the successor, Hank (Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook) July 2008 judge.

For all the monthly fun with a Paper Chef challenge where you star in your own kitchen stadium like an Iron Chef, check out the details in the Paper Chef Blog. This month's roundup can be found here. Read about the winner here.

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