Pichet Ong

Do you work with sugar and chocolate to make showpiece types of pieces? I feel silly asking you that, it's just that I don't know O.k. so your on Iron Chef, which Iron Chef do you compete against? What's your ideal secret ingredient, that you know you can out handle your competitor with? What would you prepare (keeping in mind that you've got a time limit to accomplish everything in)? ← I have never made large sugar or chocolate showpieces. I'm not sure what I would do or what my style would be like. A lot of it is artful, and in terms of that, I like abstract expressionism. Anyone of them would be interesting. I don't know what would be a fun ingredient but the original Iron Chef all had very extravagantly expensive or uncommon ingredients that made the show even more exciting.

So would Iron Chef appeal to you? Or do any of the FoodTV series like the Cupcake competition or the Sugar showpiece competitions interest you? I don't know, are you into decorative aspects too? For example, I always look forward to seeing the results from the Ny City Chocolate Show. Martin Howards' designs always make me smile! I think that's the ultimate play ground..............food and fun....... So then the National and International pastry Championship contests don't appeal to you? I'm a little confused, when you mention Italian concept you are talking about sweets, right? So is it the cheeses, custards, cookies and liqours that attract you to Italian baking? ← Iron Chef definitely appeals to me. I watched Martin Howard on the Cupcake competition the other day and that looked fun. He is a great showman and yes his designs makes me smile too. Those big pastry championships fascinate me. I attended the last one in Las Vegas and that looked really intense. I'm not sure if I have the patience for that but it is an incredible opportunity for a pastry chef to showcase his or her talents. I mean work on a dessert menu for an Italian restaurant. Everything from the classics sabayon and gelati to cookies and liquors. I have never made a tiramisu yet! What is the secret recipe is to a great tiramisu?

I hire people straight out of culinary school from time to time. There is no favorite school, but being in New York, I get a lot of applicants and externs from French Culinary Institute and Institute of Culinary Education. I never attended culinary school myself so I value gastronomic education differently. However, over the years, I have had many graduates from Culinary Institute of America who have done very well with their culinary endeavors and careers. I think there is so much to do in our profession. There is no one set direction for anyone. I focus on something for a certain time, like line cooking experience, breadmaking, cheeses, and the Asian theme thing. I love competitions, but only if it's mostly about entertainment, judged on speed (under and hour) and taste focused. I have thought about working with an Italian concept menu as the flavors are some of my most favorites. I would love to visit Shanghai as I have not been since the new revolution. There is a lot of new additions to the dessert dining scene. I may visit my PC friend Jason Licker there next year. The current focus for me is how to turn what I know in pastry making industry into a business. That seems like a natural step for me.

Chef Ong, you've got many pastry chefs reading you here. Can you shed more light onto this topic. I think many of us have the interest in savory and crossing over in ingredient uses........but I think we run into on the job problems that hinder us from doing more savory work. Then you add into the mix the public's perception of what they expect a dessert to consist of.........how can the average pastry chef conquer this? ← I don't believe there is an answer to this. But I can tell you about my past experiences. Savory ingredients in desserts, to my understanding, go way back in history, as long as dessert technique applied to savory dishes. Salting caramel and dairy based products, spices and herbs, even using meats in desserts which is common in some cuisines. "Savory" ingredients like curry, lard, ginger, bay leaf, avocado, miso, and even foie gras (which I love) have been in my dessert pantry for a long time. I don't think of them as being ingredients that are weird, except they are flavors which I like and I think would enhance the overall experience of a dish. In using them for dessert, I think it is important to use them, just as you would with sugar, in moderation. A delicious dish, sweet or savory, is a balance of both (and sour, bitter if you want to round out the mix). Caramel sauce spiked with soy sauce has to have just enough soy to taste it but not too much. And remember that too many savory ingredients used in a single dish is not good. If white pepper is intended to be the savory highlight of the dish, for instance, then it should be the only savory spice. But i can see how this could be a tough sell in a restaurant, due to public perception of what a dessert should be. There is no clearcut remedy to this. But from what I have seen, context helps. If eucalyptus appears on the appetizer menu, it is not an unsafe bet that it will sell in a chocolate dessert. Sometimes, one can also leave out the "secret" ingredient and not mention it on the printed menu, like sea salt, which scares a lot of people. The type of clientele the restaurant caters to is another issue a chef has to consider. Keep the variety varied and have something for everyone on the menu. As the last course, the portions small so there is room for an encore. Recently, the media is widely labelling savory ingredients used in dessert making as being provocative or daring. While i am not sure if they are an accurate label, the public is being made aware of what is out there. Perhaps over more time, Bacon Ice Cream will not be a tough sell after all. History tells us that food is an evolution and that people are generally a progressive culture. Perhaps this is not a conquest. But small steps towards a goal.

This is a common topic amongst us pastry chefs when we get together for our "pastry chefs night out." One thing I've noticed in restaurants as a customer, in particular if I go anonymously, that if a waitstaff likes the pastry chef as a person, he or she tends to make a greater effort to sell the dessert, if not also promote the pastry chef. When I was last at Sona restaurant in Los Angeles, the waiter would not stop talking about how wonderful Michelle Myers is. He did this with a tables of deuce around us and they ended up ordering 3 desserts. I try to cultivate the same relationship with the staff of the restaurants I work at. Beginning with a pre-meal discussion of the desserts, sometimes featuring the special. With the usually high turnover of staffing, the challenge of dessert sales is decreased when the staff gets to taste the desserts often. As the creator of the dish you know how best to describe your dishes using keywords (refreshing, yummy, light, words a customer wants to hear), which you could add to your menu descriptions to be handed out. It is useful to also establish a two-way communication with the waitstaff where they inform you of customers' response to the menu. I have to admit, some of the items at Spice Market have been easy sell as they have appeared somewhere in a newspaper or magazine. I shamelessly encourage the staff to capitalize on that, "as featured in The New York Times." In the same token, a pastry chef can help the waitstaff by giving them selling points like "peaches are so wonderful at this time of the year," or "the chocolate is our pastry chef's favorite creation." While they don't have to like the desserts, remind them that they are essentially salespeople and just them the tools to get by when they're selling your desserts on the floor. In short, a pastry chef must also think of himself or herself as a top ranked manager, which means, not just training the staff to get to know the products but also familiarizing them with who you are as a person. If he or she is a person they look up to, greater effort will naturally be made. And always treat the staff with respect. Remember that this is the business of hospitality and chances of success are definitely greater out there when good hospitality begins at home.

What percentage of the covers typically order dessert? Thanks ← About 60% of covers order dessert at Spice Market.

I am an avid reader of anything food related. I subscribe to practically every major national magazine and newspaper. The purpose of reading them, however, is not so much for inspiration but to keep abreast of what is out there. And because I enjoy eating out and travelling a lot, I always check out magazines with restaurant coverage. For recipe-oriented cookbooks, I sometimes refer to the Fanny Farmer cookbook or Cooks Illustrated's Best Recipes. The biblical collection of Beranbaum, the King Arthur Flour books, and Pierre Herme's books on dessert and chocolates are pertinent for any pastry chef. Recently, I enjoyed looking at the Duby's Wild Sweets and Gordon Ramsey's Just Desserts. The Secrets of Baking by Sherry Yard is simultaneously good looking and good reading, with many excellent tips on baking.

Yes the Asian Puff Pastry recipe will be in the book. The recipe will be used with a peanut and maltose filling. Maltose is a thick Chinese syrup commonly used in to sweeten sweet and savory dishes. Imagine a golden syrup that hardens at room temperature. Have you ever had candied walnuts served in a Chinese restaurant alongside maybe prawns doused in mayonaisse made with condensed milk? They are yummy. The book is actually intended to chronicle the past 4 years of my work focusing on Asian ingredients and technique that can be applied to American dessert making. Many "asianized" American classics will be covered, including one of my all time favorite dessert: Banana Cream Pie (made with rice flour pie dough for that extra crunch) as well as more esoteric or unusual recipes such as taro Dough and Asian Puff Pastry. By the way, the same dough is also used to make Dan Taht, the classic egg custard tarts served in many dim sum restaurants and Chinese bake shops. ← When seeking out jobs, while it is imperative to choose to work in well known career building restaurants, one must also remember consider the kind of food they like and the kind of chef they admire. For me, I always believe that good cooking start of with good ingredients. Hence my first step was to choose restaurants that are ingredient driven. For me, it was also a second career (or third if i were to include my short lived career in acting as a child, but we won't go there now) and hence, i sought out to work with (or associate with) chefs who had similar background and experiences. Similarly, if you seek out these like-minded chefs, your resume will stand out. I myself am aware that I respond to resumes that reflect past experiences in other fields. Having to work with a lot of esoteric or unusual ingredients, I also respond to workers who is interested in alternative sugars and other seasonings. Perhaps that's why I get a lot of resumes from Natural Gourmet Cooking School. I also highly recommend trailing for a full work day. A lot can be discovered between newly met people in 8 hours, most importantly, concerning communication. I think you can get more out of a job from a chef who you can communicate clearly with and relate to. And remember, this takes time. That's how a job becomes career building.

The dough that i call Asian puff pastry here is similar to one that you would find in mediterranean cooking. The name of it escapes me at the moment. These days, the concept of using pastry to encase a filling is what a samosa is. Different chefs use different types of wrapping pastry. The outside dough of my recipe which is flour mixed with oil and water is similar in concept to that of traditional dough. At Spice Market, for the chicken samosa, brick pastry is used. While a baked banana chocolate samosa I once did I used a butter based pastry. ← I think the name of the pastry I have in mind that is similar in Mediterranean cooking is Seskoulopita.

Yes, the same recipe, one can also make Scallion Pan Cakes by using scallion oil and brushing the layers with more scallion oil.

Yes the Asian Puff Pastry recipe will be in the book. The recipe will be used with a peanut and maltose filling. Maltose is a thick Chinese syrup commonly used in to sweeten sweet and savory dishes. Imagine a golden syrup that hardens at room temperature. Have you ever had candied walnuts served in a Chinese restaurant alongside maybe prawns doused in mayonaisse made with condensed milk? They are yummy. The book is actually intended to chronicle the past 4 years of my work focusing on Asian ingredients and technique that can be applied to American dessert making. Many "asianized" American classics will be covered, including one of my all time favorite dessert: Banana Cream Pie (made with rice flour pie dough for that extra crunch) as well as more esoteric or unusual recipes such as taro Dough and Asian Puff Pastry. By the way, the same dough is also used to make Dan Taht, the classic egg custard tarts served in many dim sum restaurants and Chinese bake shops.

I admire all three tremendously as well. One particular common thread among them is that they all make desserts with a great personal sense of style. They work with ideas or concepts that are very personal. I think in doing that, not only does it makes it easier to explain your craft but also your work become honest executions, clean and clearcut. In creating my own desserts, I apply this same principle. The smell of onions can't be as bad garlic. Caramelized shallots is actually used in many Asian sweet snack recipes.

The butter based one is basically a pate brisee recipe that is enriched with custard powder that enables the samosa to hold up its shape after baked. It is also softer in texture and works well with chocolate and banana as it is less messy when broken into. The brik pastry that they use for savory application is fried and i think that works good because it is served in a vinegar based dipping sauce. ← So that's what the custard powder is used for? For stability? I thought maybe taste might be be a factor. Sometimes I goose , say, a waflle batter with custard powder because I find I get an almost doughnutty taste from it. My imagination? ← Yes no doubt the custard powder also adds an enriched flavor to the dough. But as additional dry ingredient, it also enables the samosa to hold it shape without flattening when baking.

I have to admit, to a gourmand like me, yes using commercially available curry powder is a shortcut. However, it is commonly (and authentically) used all over Southeast Asia, just as much as soy sauce is, especially in a case like this when it is used to accent a recipe. In Thailand, one would find many spice shops selling wonderful house blends of curry powder, indefinitely better than the Madras version I use. However, my focus of the demo was on the pastry. Hence less time (and money) was spent on the spices.

The butter based one is basically a pate brisee recipe that is enriched with custard powder that enables the samosa to hold up its shape after baked. It is also softer in texture and works well with chocolate and banana as it is less messy when broken into. The brik pastry that they use for savory application is fried and i think that works good because it is served in a vinegar based dipping sauce.

I'm sorry I do not have pictures of the products baked. However, it should look similar to the fried variety. I would brush the puffs lightly with oil and bake them at 375 degrees for about 12-15 minutes. Just make sure with any filling you put in there is thoroughly cooked if it is going to contain meat and that the filling is on the dry side.

The dough that i call Asian puff pastry here is similar to one that you would find in mediterranean cooking. The name of it escapes me at the moment. These days, the concept of using pastry to encase a filling is what a samosa is. Different chefs use different types of wrapping pastry. The outside dough of my recipe which is flour mixed with oil and water is similar in concept to that of traditional dough. At Spice Market, for the chicken samosa, brick pastry is used. While a baked banana chocolate samosa I once did I used a butter based pastry.

Wendy: thank you so much for your kind words about me and for including all the quotes from my article in Food Arts. The whole purpose of the article is to share information and experience with others. I hope to do just the same with eGullet, which is new, and very exciting, to me. I'd like to think that I have a clear cut plan for my career when I started out 15 years ago. However, introspect, I find that a lot of things that happen in my life also run on its own natural course. I discovered cooking as a career sort of by accident. I first volunteered for Project Open Hand while in between architectural jobs in San Francisco, which led to a full time position. After reading Harold McGee's book on food science, curiosity led me through various baking jobs in the bay area, and eventually landing at La Folie as pastry chef. Again out of curiosity, I spent 7 years as a line cook in many restaurants from California to Boston to New York. Recently, I met my partner in life and decided I had to take a "day job," preferably also one where I don't smell like fish after work. I then went back to my original passion in cooking, which is in dessert-making. So you see, circumstance has led me to the next step in my career. I have to say that I am very fortunate to be surrounded by friends and peers who are very supportive of me and my work. While awaiting for my first break, I knocked on many doors including Sam Mason and Vicki Wells, who let me trail in their kitchens. I spent a day with Johnny Iuzzini, then at Daniel, who ironically a few years later, taught me how to make fortune cookies when I started to develop them for the opening of 66. Recently at Spice Market, I had the opportunity to develop recipes for Jean Georges Vongerichten's and Mark Bittman's upcoming book on Asian recipes. It was there that I met Genevieve Ko (who worked with Mark on encyclopaedically phenomenal The Best Recipes in the World, just released this week) who tested recipes with me at the restaurant. Three dozen recipes later, we realized that there is a need for a book for "Asian theme" in American desserts, so we wrote up a proposal. Together with Pate Eng, photographer to many chefs' works in Art Culinaire, we took the proposal to agent Janis Donnaud who sold the book to Harper Collins in a very short time. I guess you could say the book came out of a natural circumstance too.

Yes I have moved on from Spice Market. I am in the process of setting up my own shop in the city. However, I continue to hold a position there as a consultant, working with the staff there to provide assistance with anything they need including seasonal menu changes and new items. This also extends to 66 restaurant, where the "asian puff pastry" is going to be featured on a new fall dessert. Originally, I had planned on opening a dessert emporium, with a dessert dining and retail shop that features desserts to go and sweets-related paraphernalia such as books, magazines, tools, and confections from around the world. However, after months of legal negotiations, I was advised to let the space go because the landlord will not budge on certain terms, in particular, a standing room area. She did not want customers hovering inside or outside the shop for fear that it would disturb the peace and quiet of the neighborhood. I have to admit that having crowds is exactly what I had in mind for the shop. Who wouldn't? Obviously, the chemistry of landlord-tenant isn't right. Hence I had to look at other spaces. But now I'm also thinking of maybe something small. Spice Market averages about 700 covers a day, with some days approaching 4-digit number of covers. That sounds like an awful lot. The way I set up the program is to keep the menu fairly small (8-9 items), have more work is done during daytime production, with simple quick pick-ups so that the desserts go out fast. Ice-creams and sherbets, for instance, which are very popular after an "asian" meal, are prepacked in Chinese take-out boxes and ready to go. Rice pudding, which is assembled twice a day, is kept near the tabletop oven, so the ambiant heat keeps it warm throughout service.