piracer

Thanks for the comments so far! So i'm actually not in singapore (status needs an update) but am in eastern Washington State. Its getting cold so its not the heat but i guess all the other comments are right - heat killed the yeast. The thing is that before i made the dough the starter itself had bubbles and smelled sour which made me think it was ok. The starter was also sitting out for about 4 days. But it looks like i need to start over. And not put plastic in the oven But no suggestions for what to do with the dough?

So i tried making this Laura Hart's sourdough recipe which involves making a starter dough with a 1:1 ratio of 'strong' plain flour and water. Im not sure what she meant by strong so i just used half and half of bread flour and AP. Now i basically messed some part up involving me putting the starter inside the oven set onto warm and it warping the plastic container i placed it in accidentally (stupid i know, i didnt even need to put it inside the oven i dont know why i did that), so i tried scooping out what i could but now the ratio of flour to water had been messed up. I tried adjusting it by feeding it with another 1:1 ratio of flour and water and waited to see what would happen. Anyway i carried on with the recipe but in half and forgot to half the amount of salt put in also. The dough i felt didn't really rise during the supposedly rising process but i carried on and also did the whole kneading thing. OK so i FEEL like i might have overworked my dough (i just kept on kneading it every now and then hoping something would happen)and its been sitting there for the last 24 hrs or so. I decided to cut a chunk off to make a mini-roll of sort, baking it at the same temp (less time) and the results was what i was expecting: heavy tough bread. It had some holes in it so im guessing part of it did rise but so im wondering whether: 1.) Did i over work it? 2.) My amount of flour + water to starter was way off (not enough starter) 3.) too much salt (but i think thats for flavor) Ideas? Also anyone have any suggestions on what to do with over worked sour dough? I tried kneading it down to make a sorta pizza thing but again, its just tough dough which didnt do to well to rolling out thin. If not i was thinking just bake it off and turn it into bread crumbs

Just went to Quay, and overall impressions; not impressed. There were a couple of things that they did really well, like many places, the amuse was excellent and so was the 2nd course. First course was good, but the main course i think was a miss. Desserts were definitely interesting, although we all felt that they were too sweet. Wine paring was acceptable though the wine service itself was good. However, overall service felt cold, if not arrogant or jaded, and one of the managers (he was wearing a suit) seemed like he gave us a sneer when serving our mains. Anyway on to what I ate. Sorry for the shitty photos, i was using an iphone 3GS.. Our Amuse: Really delicious, white carrot puree at the bottom with smoked eel jelly and rye bread crumbs. Smooth cream puree offset by the smoky eel jelly with a little hint of that smoked fishnyess went really well with the textural portion of the breadcrumbs which gave it a good crunch. Nice flavors and texture. This was seafood jewels, from right to left, spheres of blue fin tuna, scallops, octopus and mud crab. The tuna was delicious, wrapped inside was a daishi stock that provided a savory saltiness to the tuna. It was garnished with what felt like an extremely peppery leaf, something i think meant to mimic wasabi. Next was scallops with a yuzu creme fraiche inside. Really sweet scallops with the yuzu providing a nice refreshment, also really good. Then came the octopus tentacles which i think was binded with beads of egg white. I just couldn't taste the octopus nor did it have any texture aside from the egg white. Lastly was the mud crab which had tapioca pearls around it. The crab could have been sweeter and really wasn't enough. Texture wise was a bit strange, almost like mini pearls you get in bubble tea. So 2 outstanding and 2 medicore ones. This was a 'salad' of jamon bellota with black winter truffles and hazelnuts. I can't remember what else was in this dish but it had a vegetable akin to asparagus and a biscuity component. The salad had really nice flavors, rich and indulgent from both ham and truffles with a very strong nuttiness. The biggest problem was texture; it felt like the chef really enjoys using a lot of crunch in his dishes, with the biscuit and hazlenut proving to be a bit tiring from over crunch. A beetroot salad with kohlrabi also had this affliction towards crunch. However being a semi raw salad of root vegetables, i felt it was acceptable and i do not remember what exactly flavored the salad, i remember it being very delicious, a salad that i would happily eat again. This with the tuna and scallops were the best parts of our first course. Our 2nd courses started with green lipped abalone, pork belly in a consome heavily flavored with mushrooms and i think what was a sweet tiny pearl onion. Like i mentioned, the 2nd courses were the stars of the show and flavors hit all the high umami notes here. The abalone was sweet, pork spoon tender and that consomme was just so tasty. I really wish i had a bigger portion of this. Thankfully this didnt suffer from the crunch affliction. This was lobster with squid noodles, again really umami packed from a very intense seafood pairing. Lobster was sweet with the squid 'noodles' providing a slippery firm texture that was boderline 'crunchy'. The base bisque tied everything together, another dish which i wish we had more off. I cant remember what this whiting dish was paired with, but the fish itself was extremely tender and cooked perfectly. Maincourses then came along. This was a 9 point score wagyu tenderloin with black pudding puree, an oxtail consomme with some bread thing and morels. The most disappointing thing on the night. Perhaps it was pure expectations of an entirely different dish, but the tenderloin, whilst a very good peice of meat, was poached and i think in that technique lacked the flavor of the caramalization when pan-roasting or grilling which was supposed to be offset by an ezickle breadcrumb. The breadcrumb they claimed was taken from the old testament. Whilst the black pudding puree was essentially the sauce moistened by the oxtail consomme, i felt almost cheated that there were no visible chunks of morels or oxtail which i rather eat then tenderloin, a cut of meat which im never really impressed about. Even though this was a 9 score marbling wagyu, the tenderloin could have come from a 0 score i think, i mean, after all, that cut has zero fat in it. Oh yea, Captain crunch was at the scene again with this whole bread crumb thing. Berkshire jowl with an almond armangace flavored puree something and prunes i think had a good concept to it. However when im eating cheek, i look forward most to the gelatinous workings of the cheeks like you get in braised beef cheeks. The jowl was wrapped in some kind of tuile, almost as if they made one without sugar, and yes, it brought capt crunch along to the party. The jowl itself was mildly flavored, oh and the man in the suit told us to "enjoy the aroma of the almond" in a rather arrogant manner which kinda put us off. The prunes added a sweet component perhaps to offset the richness of the dish but i think just made it more 'sticky'. Grouper that was pan fried, and i forgot what the accompaniments were. There was another creamy puree sauce like thing that went with the perfectly cooked fish. Just translucent and bordering raw which is how i like my fish. A good dish that didnt break any boundaries or offend with capt crunch hiding in the exterior of the fish. Out of the main courses, this was the one that didnt disappoint the most. Dessert came along and the 7 texture chocolate cake is dramatic to say the lease in presentation though i dont know if you can see it in the picture. I couldnt taste 7 distinct textures in my mouth but it is perhaps the most complex chocolate cake ive ever had. The portion however, was too much and too rich although the flavor was quite pure in the sense that it was really all chocolate. Jackfruit egg i feel is one of the most interesting desserts ive had in a long time. Besides eating it dried, fresh or in an ice cream, ive never had jackfruit in any other way before so this was a nice change. The fruit itself was in a form of a granita which was quite subtle although sweetness played a problem with being to cloy. The egg itself was almost a deconstruction with a caramelized tuile of sort being the shell (CRUNCH!), the meringue as the whites and a very yolky ice cream in the centre. Great idea, though why they chose jackfruit is a mystery. I think something that had a little acidity would have been a better choice although still, a very thought provoking dish. Lastly was a cherry compote that had a coconut component on one side and a chocolate component on the other. Yeah, both of these components were crunchy again. This also felt a little cloying with the sugar levels and the lack of fruit i think was the mistake in the dish. The flavors worked however so if they only reduced the sugar, this could have been much better. Petit fours weren't remarkable, 2 types of chocolate both which had chocolate pearls on the outside and the other which had a hazlenut on the inside providing what seemed to be the theme of the dinner to an end. Which was crunch. The service like i said seemed a bit cold in lacking some smiles and an air of arrogance which wasn't needed. Booking was a pain even though i sent an email they said they were full but a friend managed to get me the booking. Surprisingly as such, there were 2 empty tables right next to us the entire night. Wines were fine, i think the best pairing though was actually the dessert. For the jackfruit they gave us a sparkling moscato from piedmont which also went well with the chocolate cake providing much needed acid and refreshment. I was drinking a hendricks gin martini with the seafood jewels and a sip in between each component also cleansed the palate quite nicely. Another quirk i felt was that with the main courses they served a mesculen salad dressed simply with balsamic. Too met if this was meant to provide something light, it should be on the plate as part of another component and was pointless. The petit fours and tea we had was also something we had to pay extra for, a component of a meal which i feel in this type of restaurant should be complimentary. Perhaps im being unreasonable, but i've never seen this done before. So overall, im not exactly impressed. There were a couple of dishes that really stood out, but the majority of them suffered from an overzealous urge to give us too many hard textures. Service was a bit of a miss and the way they handled their booking system wasn't great either. I've yet to go to any of the other 3 hat restaurants such as Tets, or Marque, but for this to be the 26th best restaurant in the world, i feel their position needs to be looked at again. Would i go back? No.

its funny and sad at the same time i guess, the bistro i currently work in definitely has some short cuts here and there. For example we use a little chicken stock to extend our onion soup and for a chicken dish with mini raviolis we buy them in frozen. I talked to the chef addressing this and i think for the most part, these are short cuts he also doesnt really like, but its out of necessity especially with a cliental asking for more but expecting to pay less. Make your own pasta? Noooo way. Make 4-5 different stocks? Not in that tiny kitchen. The food is still quality, the stew for example are made completely from scratch, and so are the terrines, confits and whatever else there is. Also, i think theres a bad rep with microwaves. For example we use it to reheat our braises such as a coq au vin which obviouslly cant be cooked to order, thats impossible. I mean, it is finished to order and what not but again, i dont think all short cuts are bad. All in all, quality food still comes out. Could it be improved, could the chefs work harder? Of course they could, but are they paid too do so, do they care this much? Nope.

oh their two different products? Opps maybe thats why everything went wrong...

so i was making a batch of macarons today using waitrose greaseproof paper and it was a disaster. the macarons were just totally destroyed and i think it wasnt the batter as on another tray i used a silicon pad which has always worked nicely. Usually i use the glad brand baking paper but im befuzzled as to why the waitrose brand gave me such bad results. Anyone have some sorta input? Just by touch i could feel that the two were different, i guess the glad felt more 'nonstick'

I've made a strawberry jam for my macarons twice and what i did was i hulled and roughly chopped in about a pound or so of fresh or frozen strawberries and cooked them in a can of beer with about 4 thbps of sugar. Cooked until it was relatively thick, tested the consistency by putting a small amount in the fridge until it was what i thought it should be. My criteria was was as long as the macs could stand vertically and the jam didint come out. Worked well. I also just tried the 1-2-3 swiss merignue butter cream, look it up on youtube, excellent ratio and recipie with easy access to flavoring.

holy crap, amazing work. I doubt i could ever make pasty that looks as good as that! Made my first head cheese - got a pigs head, oven braised it for 5 hrs with all the flavoring, shreded meat and bits of cartiledge. Sweated some finely diced onions and reduced all that gelatin from the braising liquid with some extra XO that was lying around. now its all in the fridge under weights, hopefully it'll turn out right!

wait a moment, whip them until 20-25C? That would be impossible since i dont have an air conditions kitchen, unless i bust out the hand mixer and do it over ice (which i dont think i can really be bothered). But NTUC does sell unsalted butter, just didnt have it in the kitchen at the time But i guess the lesson is i still have to cool it down as much as i can. perhaps a wet towel kept in the freezer...

I only put the butter cream into the freezer after i incorporated butter and everything - the mixture was very liquidy and i thought cooling it down would stiffen it up, which it did but also slowly made the entire thing seaperate. Since it just seperated into one giant mess, i left it in the fridge and just now there was a layer of relatively normal consistency butter cream which had a layer of froth from the air i think, but below it was liqiud coffee - my flavoring. So now i think what happened was perhaps way too much coffee liquid to butter cream ratio that the emulsification didnt hold up, as i didnt have any instant coffee powder i made regular coffee and reduced it, but i guess i didnt reduce it enough. When cooling down the eggs with the syrup though, how cool is it supposed to come to be? It was cool relative to in the sense that it wasnt hot, like anywhere from 40C or so (i live in the tropics). thoughts?

Ok so i tried to make Thomas Keller's buttercream from his bouchon book and just for reference its about: 1.5 cups sugar 1 cup water 1 pound unsalted butter 4 large eggs flavoring First of all i halved the recipie, secondly i used salted butter (its what i had). I follow recpie as instructed (beat eggs, make syrup, combine, add butter etc) and what i noticed immediatelly that it was 4 whole eggs, not whites. So what eventually happened was that the mixture was incredibly wet at the end and upon cooling it down (in the freezer), it eventually became thicker. Then it started to seperated, butter chunks were forming. Clearly something was seperating and going wrong. Now im thinking that its because of my salted butter that somehow the salt extracted the water from everything and hence the seperation. As mentioned in some recipies, i tried mixing it further which just totally seperated the entire thing. So, is there an error with it being whole eggs and not whites? Or would it just simply be because of the salted butter? Thanks for any help.

I was working as a sommelier trainee in Les Amis, a restaurant in Singapore based on its wine list (78th best in the world in the top 100). We had 4 sommeliers working for a restaurant that usually sat about 40 or so on a busy night so yeah, we took it pretty seriously. Working hours wise, we pretty much did the same as kitchen crew (if that means anything to you). We had a really loose schedule where if you came in at 10am you would leave earlier than the guys that came in at 11am. So if you were staying for closing, i would normally get back home by 1am, earlier if it wasnt busy. So it was about 11am - 4pm, 6pm to closing (anywhere from 12am-1am). Obviously there were periods of time where we were extremely busy and everyone went home only at like 2.30am on that one particular night (it was a big ass party with 20 bottles (including magnums) or Petrus and DRCs.) From my experience, the hours were pretty much the same in the other restaurants i had worked in. Lifestyle is of course really up to you. I had colleagues that always went out during their 2 hour break to meet friends or get stuff done, sometimes i just slept in the restaurant cause your always tired. Our head sommelier who is now the director of wines for the entire company (like 10 restaurants, 1 of which is in Hong Kong) could pretty much come and go as he like since he was turning over his duties to the next head sommelier. I dont know if you can be happy with these hours. I knew what the hours were like since ive always worked in restaurants. I didnt particularly like it (missed a lot of outings with friends and family) but it was a short 3 month stint before going off to uni. Non of the sommeliers worked in France or Italy, although many of the sommeliers that worked for the company had opportunities to go to France and Italy to meet the wine makers, and of course we often had wine makers come down to the restaurant to do wine tastings and what not, usually during our breaks. So i hope my experience helps you a little bit. Best advice is to just find a working sommelier right now and ask him/her. If you want to work with wines and like interacting with people (which is always fun), i definitely recommend it. Unfortunately, i just came from working in the kitchen so sometimes it was annoying not being able to cook.

Oh jeez thats such a difficult question to answer. If i may suggest though, Maxwell Hawker Centre (which is near Chinatown) and Adam Road food centre. There's Tian Tian chicken rice stall in Maxwell which is arguably the most famous in Singapore and awesome mutton soup (doesnt sound much but its awesome) in the latter, plus a decent seafood BBQ stall (get the sambal stingray). AVOID at all costs, Newton Circus which is a rip off and has medicore food. Chinatown hawker centre also has good things but its big and i dont quite remember the stall names. I suggest you pick up the Makansutra guide (at any bookstore) for a good listing, eitherwise just be really firm in asking your hotel concierge for advice that you want some serious hawker stuff.

Ok, I used to work in the kitchen and my previous chef whom was a very considerate person always told me to also think of the front of house when plating, i.e a little crushed almonds below your quenelle of ice-cream so it doesnt run around. Im not working front of house as in this restaurant mainly because its got one of the best wine lists in Asia and I want to learn more about wine (besides also knowing what its like front of house). The current chef I feel is highly egotistical, knowing that he's cooking for one of the best restaurants in Singapore, if not the world (listed 78th on the worlds top 100 blah blah blah, its Les Amis if anyone wants to know). Now, i honestly dont think the food is all that much to shout about but there is a very popular dish of Asparagus with a truffled poach egg on top of 2 spears of asp. Its easy for the damn egg to stay there when your plating, but since we carry everything out on trays (i switch back and forth between being a runner and serving outside), the egg sometimes drops of and of course, who gets the blame and the shit but us front of house. Today for instance, the damn egg was sure as hell going to fall off so i asked the sous (who was plating) to kindly place it further into the centre, not that much work is it? But of course they instead retort and screw me for not being able to carry the tray properly even saying "What you wanna put a seatbelt on it?" Well, yea, i actually think you fucking should. So, to all you front of house staff out there working with egotistical chefs (and his sous), how do you deal with this kind of situation, also considering that im a very junior staff.

I was rather worried and shocked to learn of the woes that is Canola (rapeseed) oil. I always thought that amongst the most widely used oils, being Peanut, Sunflower, Soybean, Corn, Coconut, Palm and Canola oil, it was one of the better ones in terms of health and cooking ability (smoke point, neutral flavour (well maybe not the peanut) etc). Since that isn't the case anymore, which is your oil of choice for 'heavy' cooking, meaning frying, sauting or deep frying etc?

thnks anyway, will checko ut the website. Im leaving on the 14th and looking forward to it all!

I'm going on a backpacking trip in 3 weeks time and was wondering if there are places i should go to for some good and preferbly cheap eats or places that i shouldnt miss. We'll be hitting up these stops Istanbul Konya Goreme (Cappadocia) Tarsus Antakya Aleppo Hama Homs Palmyra Damascus Amman Petra Aqaba Beersheva Jerusalem & the West Bank Any information for any of these places would really be appreciated (along with perhaps hostels and such if anyone knows)

The thing is, i'm not going to be heading over to London at all, but i was wondering whether there was any thing like St. John's? Thanks for the suggestions anyway!

It's funny, here in Singapore there are no lack of butchers at all, in fact its ridiculous the amount of "artisan" butchers that there are around since they all practically sell the same thing. But i guess its better then not having any. What i wish there were more off are proper fishmongers. Here in Singapore also, each time the government decides to renovate old hawker centres, the quality of food somehow will ALWAYS suffer upon reopening. Some things are also hard to find, all the old labor intensive food stuffs anyway. And too many chain places, urgh.

So ill be going there near Christmas, and are there anythings i really should take note off? An excellent pub or restaurant i should go too around that area? Thanks for any help.

Hey, a bit of an emergency thread, need a reccomendation for a pub of a sort for dinner, maybe a cafe or bistro or something for a birthday dinner, budget something for UNI students, anyone got any idea? We tried the Richmond Grand Hotel but they were booked up. Thanks for any help!

Hi thanks for the reply, I can't really seem to find any links towards Appalacian State University regarding their enology department. I did see the website on Niagara College, however i wonder is it worth it seeing that the wine industry in Canada is not as strong as that in the States? Although of course, North Carolina's wine industry itself really isn't all that developed , i think.

I was thinking since i've got a pretty big interest in wine, why not go and study wine making in College. So the question here is, anyone know of a good place for Viticulture and Enology studies? From what i know, UC Davis has a pretty good program, and also Cornell offers the program. Thanks for any help.

Hi again, was looking through the courses in Cornell, they have this sort of joint degree course thing with the CIA where you basically do sorta like half and half from each programs, seems pretty balance. Anyone know anybody whose done this?

Ok, well im sort of in the same deli ma and i want to add onto the thread some more. So a comparision: CIA vs FCI vs J&W vs Cornell Right, so it seems that these 4 schools are the top in culinary courses and hospitality (mainly Cornell for that). The problem is of course which to choose, in terms of both course and school. All 4 schools are pretty darn expensive, so lets forget price for the moment and start with CIA. CIA: Big, established and obviously so well known. Now ive heard TONS of stuff about it, both good and bad, but it seems like a pretty good place to go to if you just want a pure culinary course. FCI: Same as CIA really, except maybe smaller, but from what ive read, its reputation is well earned and the its quite highly respected. J&W: Seems to offer the most balanced as you can take culinary AND hospitality. Its also a university instead of just a pure cooking school/hotel management place. The issue of course, is it as good as the first two? Cornell: No culinary courses, but they do have an exchange with the CIA for that part. Also a university and not just a cooking school, but would it be too business like for me as i prefer cooking? These are my thoughts so far on the subject, and am having a very hard time too choose. Anyone else with any thoughts?