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Interview with a chef

Interview with Chef Jonnie Boer at Hub UK:

I see from your book that you use some unusual ingredients such as perch, eel and gurnard. How popular are these types of dishes with your customers compared to more commonly eaten foods? Do you charge a lower price for the unusual items?

The perch is the dish that has given me fame. It was born because we didn't have a lot of money to buy exclusive products. Now a lot of guests come and visit us for that type of dish, but we do use exclusive products as well but everybody likes to taste dishes with products from this region. We don't charge a lower price because our local lamb is almost as expensive as from France. The best thing about that is I can select it myself and give my guest more information - because I know everything about the lamb.

What was the most unusual item on your menu last year and what was the reaction from your guests?

Dover sole prepared in smoked butter with sweet and sour leeks stuffed with an oyster and a sauce of lemongrass. This is a dish that we are going to keep, everybody went crazy with the flavors.

Describe your cookbook - Puurder (more pure) . . .

Puurder is my follow up from Pure my first book, which was printed only in Dutch. The reason why I made Puurder (which is available in both Dutch and English) is because we have progressed - with our guests, our suppliers, our food - it's more pure now. The name reflects our steps forward. The next one will be called Purest.

Whose idea was it to insert the wine booklet into the front cover?

It was both of us (Jonnie and Thérèse). It's nice to have a book all about food but wine gives balance and can really give a dish that extra character. Wine can also destroy the concept of a dish. In the book you will find some simple wine ideas and how to handle it. It's written by my wife and is very easy to read, nothing difficult.

How well suited is the Dutch climate to the production of wine? What wine would Thérèse suggest compliments your cooking?

We do have a chateau in Holland, it's called the APOSTELHOEVE but that's really the only one. The reason we do not produce much wine is because in Holland we have too much rain, winters are cold and the summers do not offer enough sunlight. But 2000 was a good year for Dutch wines. Thérèse feels the wines which best compliment my style are red Spanish wines as they are full bodied and creamy and white Bourgognes with a bit of wood but not too much.

Pastery galore

At the Grand Hyatt we are blessed with a great store of pastries, wine, and chocolate.

Classic Ceviche

 
The Washington Post, April 1, 2009

• Cuisine: Central/South American
• Course: Appetizer, Breakfast
• Features: Fast

Summary:

Seaweed and slices of red chili pepper accompany this gorgeous and easy ceviche served at La Mar, a cevicheria in San Francisco.

Peruvian corn (with large kernels) is available at Latin markets. For this recipe, steam a whole cob of corn for 15 minutes and then let cool and separate the kernels, discarding the cob.

4 to 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 to 3 small red chili peppers (hot), stemmed, seeded and minced (3 teaspoons), plus 1/2 pepper for rubbing the bowl
• 1 1/3 pounds skinless Atlantic or black sea bass fillet (bones removed), cut into 3/4-inch pieces
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 5 to 6 stems cilantro leaves, chopped (about 3 tablespoons)
• Juice of 2 pounds key limes (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 4 ice cubes
• 1/2 large red onion, cut into thin slices (about 1 cup)
• Lettuce leaves, for garnish
• 8 ounces cooked sweet potato, peeled, cooled and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch slices, for garnish
• 3/4 cup cooked Peruvian corn kernels (cancha), for garnish (optional; see headnote)

Directions:

Chill individual serving plates.

Rub the inside of a large stainless-steel mixing bowl with the red chili pepper half, then place the sea bass pieces in the bowl. Season with salt, chopped red chili pepper and cilantro, tossing to mix well. Sprinkle with the key lime juice. Top with the ice cubes and sliced red onions; toss to incorporate. Let sit for no more than 10 minutes.

When ready to serve, remove the ice cubes, then divide the mixture among individual plates garnished with lettuce leaves, slices of cooked sweet potato and large Peruvian corn kernels, if desired.

Recipe Source:

Adapted from a recipe by chef Gaston Acurio.

Ceviche Culture

 

From yesterday's Washington Post, a good article about the worlds best food:

It's easy for Peruvians to be particular about their seafood. Fed by the icy, nutrient-rich Humboldt Current, the waters off the Peruvian coast are the most bountiful fishing grounds in the world. Which is why, seven days a week, starting at 4 a.m., fishermen at the Villa Maria market in Lima hawk Dover sole for ceviche, plus red snapper, tuna, scallops, squid and octopus just hours out of the sea.

Eating ceviche, the South American country's best-known dish, is a must in Lima. But there's so much more: tiraditos, a Peruvian take on sashimi; Chinese stir-fries spiked with Peruvian chili peppers; and sushi rolls filled with scallop and Parmesan cheese, a favorite combination in Lima.

"Right now, people want to discover new flavors," says Peru's most famous chef, Gaston Acurio, who owns 29 restaurants around the world. If the Japanese could persuade the world to embrace raw fish and seaweed, he reasons, "why can't we dream of doing the same with Peruvian food?"

Peru's campaign is well underway. In 2006, Acurio, 41, reportedly wowed the crowd at the prestigious Madrid Fusion culinary conference, which anointed Lima "the gastronomic capital of Latin America." More recently, chefs such as Todd English and food magazines have declared it the next big thing, praising the diverse ingredients and creative combinations of flavors. (Indeed, Peruvian cuisine might finally be the thing to redeem "fusion," which has been a dirty word in culinary circles ever since the 1990s brought us sesame-crusted everything.)

Hundreds of years of immigration have created a natural fusion of Spanish, Italian, Chinese and Japanese influences. A wave of Chinese arrived in the 1850s to help build the railroads, bringing with them ingredients such as soy sauce and wok-cooking techniques. The Japanese came in the early 20th century to work on sugar and cotton plantations, and, according to the indispensable food guide "Eat Smart in Peru" (Ginkgo Press, 2006), they were instrumental in transforming ceviche from home cooking to restaurant fare. Asian influences are especially pronounced in Lima.

What is good for you. . .

Salon Interview with Michael Pollan, author of  "The Omnivore's Dilemma":

In your book's introduction you write that "The Omnivore's Dilemma" probably isn't for people who are perfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain. What do you mean by that?

Well, there are a lot of people who are happy to eat at McDonald's a couple times a day. They don't see it as a problem, and I'm not expecting to turn everybody around. Those of us who are concerned about food issues often make the mistake of preaching too much. But when it comes to food, doing the right thing is often the more pleasurable thing. That's why I like the Slow Food approach. When McDonald's came to Rome, they didn't drive a tractor through the plate glass the way José Bové did in France. They set up a table outside and had Italian grandmothers cook their favorite traditional dishes as a way of saying, "Isn't this better? Isn't there more pleasure at this table than at that one?" It's a better strategy to invite someone to a better table than to turn over the table they are at.

Was access much of problem in writing this?

Yes, it's amazing that it should have become so hard. I wasn't able to get into the factories where corn is turned into high-fructose corn syrup, which you wouldn't think would be so controversial, and I wasn't able to get onto the kill floor of a large meat plant. They allowed me to see everything but the knocker who actually administers the fatal blow. It's become more difficult since Sept. 11. The food industry has a new argument, which is partly sincere. They've recognized that with such a centralized food supply, somebody dropping a vial of bacterium into a vat of hamburger could reach tens of thousands of people. But it has also become an excuse to keep the prying eyes of journalists away from how our food is made, which is unfortunate because we would be better off if we had more transparency in our food system. If there was a right of access to meat slaughterhouses, they wouldn't be slaughtering 400 beefs an hour, allowing manure to be smeared on carcasses, and going so fast that live animals get cut open. The best we could do for the safety of our food supply, for the beauty of our landscape and for the quality of our water would be to decentralize meat and agriculture.

So why don't we see more pressure to change the regulations?

The food industry takes advantage of the fact that we're really out of touch. I mean, some people would be shocked to learn that you can't get a steak without killing a cow. And for some reason food policy is treated as a parochial issue in this country. It's a debate between the senator from Nebraska and the senator from Iowa. The senators from New York and California don't think they have a dog in that fight, which is an enormous error, because these are the rules of the game in which we all play as eaters. And we're giving the right to set these rules to a very small number of interested parties. Maybe we need to start calling it a food bill instead of an agriculture bill. Maybe then people in New York and California would pay more attention. I know as a writer I've learned that you can't pitch a story on agriculture to an editor in New York, but if you call it a story about food, suddenly people are interested. And the same goes for the politics of it. I mean, why are we essentially subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup when we have an epidemic of obesity? These connections don't get made. But I'm hoping that in this next farm bill, since the obesity crisis has come to the public's attention recently, that we'll figure out a way to make public health a consideration.

More

How to Cook Thai-StirFried Prawns and Snow Peas

From a Pakman Web Blog- Richard Burrows provides an easy to follow recipe for this Thai dish.

Hua Hin Meals

Vallejo Nocturno 2009 - Thai Meals

Do We Live for This?

Vallejo Nocturno 2009 - the reality of the shrimp

pisco sour

Vallejo Nocturno 2008 -drunken splendor

From The Cocktail Chronicles:

Sours are among the oldest class of cocktails, and as mixology goes, they’re pretty basic stuff: mix booze, lemon and sugar, then chill and serve. Nothing could be easier, and from this base simplicity comes the sour’s true charm — after all, it’s nothing more than that sentimental classic, lemonade, assuming you make your lemonade with hard stuff rather than water.

I’ve already covered the whiskey sour, the most common “pure” sour still in circulation (assuming for a moment that you discount the daiquiri, which you shouldn’t, but swap the lemon for the lime and it appears that naming the drink is open to all comers), but one sour that’s popping up all over the place is the pisco sour.

Not that the pisco sour is anything new — no, this little number has been around the block a few times, ever since pisco had a brief role as the rotgut of choice around San Francisco saloons way back around Gold Rush days, when getting whiskey or rum to California meant loading it onto a wagon train, or onto a ship for a treacherous trip around the Cape. No, during that time, pisco had it easy — native to South America (Chile and Peru are still battling it out about who’s responsible), this grape brandy had a clear shot at the gold fields, at least until the transcontinental railroad came along and blew away that market. Granted, I can’t attest to how many pisco sours were served during that time — according to David Wondrich, in an article he wrote for Slow Foods USA a couple of years back, pisco punch was the way to go for quality drinking — but it’s impressive to see this spirit, and this drink, showing up on bar menus once again. Hell, the next thing you know, you’ll be able to stroll into your local sports bar and order an arrack punch.

OK, maybe that’s wishful thinking. But still, hone in on a pisco sour. Like the rest of the sours, the pisco sour is defined by its simplicity: pisco, lemon, sugar. Done? Not quite. Sure, you could stop there and mix it as usual, and you’d have a fine drink, but a really alluring pisco sour requires a couple of extra steps. First, stick a raw egg white in there — no, really, all you squeamish types who are scratching this drink off the list, try this just once: Get a really fresh egg, rinse it off, then crack it and separate it (if you need that explained to you, go grab your Joy of Cooking) — introduce the white into your mixing glass (one white works well for two drinks), then, after you add all the other ingredients and your ice, shake extra hard, for about 10 seconds. This aerates the white — kind of like you’re making meringue in your cocktail shaker — and gives the drink extra body, the kind of hearty gumption it’s nice to see in a drink sometimes.

Then — and this is the pisco sour’s other unique attribute — after you’ve strained your drink into a glass, drip three or four drops of Angostura bitters on the foam. Why not mix it in? Easy — because, now that you have that nice foamy head the egg white gives you, the Angostura remains somewhat suspended at the top of the glass (some blossoms nicely in the drink, of course). As you raise the glass to take a sip, the first thing you experience is the aroma of the bitters, followed by the slight funkiness of the brandy and the sour of the citrus, all with a texture like liquid silk. Nice? Absolutely.

OK, before I give the recipe, there’s something that needs to be said: while Peru and Chile still wrestle over the origins of pisco, there is also a continuing debate over what’s most appropriate to use in a pisco sour: lemon or lime. The answer, of course, is whichever one you prefer, and to find out which is the case, you should try both. Tonight, however, start with lemon, for two basic reasons: lemons are the citrus of choice in the classic sour; and, today is Mixology Monday, hosted by Jonathan over at Jiggle the Handle, and Jonathan’s chosen topic is Lemon. Be sure to jog over there and check out all the other drinks that are coming up this week.

Pisco Sour

• 2 ounces pisco
• 1 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons simple syrup (or 1 teaspoon sugar)
  
• 1/2 of an egg white
• 3-4 drops Angostura bitters

Shake everything except bitters ferociously with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass (or, you can use a Champagne flute—I had one served this way once, and it made a pleasant impression). Drip the bitters on the foam topping the drink.