Sense of perfection
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006Perfection, to my own defination. Imposible. The act of making something perfect; the state of being without a flaw or defect.
Perfect is something for one to achive. Once its achived, its never perfect again. You would try harder and harder to get the perfection this time and the next. But not every would be perfect. Human are greedy. Very greedy. Given an inch, they would want a foot!
So i am also a human, a human that cooks for other humans with love. Looking for the perfect ingredients making the perfect good to make the others of man kind happy.
Cherry would say; Kwei is a perfect boyfriend. Next, he have another guy (lets name him james) James is a perfect boyfriend. Then, she would say; Alan is a perfect boyfriend.
Kwei has only done A,B and C. James has done more, A, B, C, D. and Alan has done even more! A, B, C, D, E….. So this is how human define perfection.
Now, i have hit one of the million perfections and i am gonna share it. On my big day(i call it big cos it costs me $100!!!), comprehensive re-exam.
25 June
3pm. Getting a note book to work deciding what is to be done during the comprehensive and creating a list of what would definately be avaliable. So, smoked food(salmon, duck, etc), potato, spagetii, fresh herbs, mushrooms, peppers…
4pm. Punch-in for work and have decided to do this. Mash 1 potato, add cream, egg yolk, salt and nut meg. Burnoise 80g of smoked salmon or duck breast, combine it with the mashed potatoes, rim it in a cookie cutter, topped with charred red peppers, sliced button mushrooms tossed in olive oil and gratinated with Parmigiano Riegiano and Mozarella. Spiced balsamico reduction.
26 June.
Shit! Late already! Woke up at 9 am which i am supposed to report to school at 10.30. Packing up my chinese no.2 clever, 5 star chef knife and vege knife, a wisk, wooden spoon and a pair of fork and spoon. Kitchen whites, kitchen cloth and apron. Rushing out of the house getting a cab which cost me alomost $20. Getting into my kitchen whites, apron and realised that i was still early. Got a drink and thought what stef told me via sms. Colour, consitency and appearance. Simplicity is also essential due to the time limit of 3.5 hours. Making 2 identical apptizer and 2 main courses.
11am. Was told to get into the kitchen to get my briefing and have went thru the ingredients. So, alright. Fruits. Apple(crunchieness), pear(tartness) and mango(flavour). Watercress(purple in colour) is also avaliable. So, Trio of fruits wrapped in smoked duck topped on spiced balsamico and raspberry cream. Went to write my recipe with the exact like 10g of salt, 2g of sugar, etc. Finished it in 10 minutes, went to the mama shop to get some ciggaretes, made cake in the bowl and when i was smoking half way, someone told us you may start already. So wallah! wack out my knives to hone, putting on the chopping board and equipments. Ran to the ‘pasar malam’(which is a long table with lots of ingredients) and found out shit! No green vegetables! How to make colour in my food? okay. Forget it. Think more also no use. So grabbed my ingredients, wash and chill, ready for cooking. Getting the stock pot, 5 ladles of chicken stock, debone my chicken, adding all the bones and trimmings into it and reducing it. Freezing the plates for apptizer, baking the plates in the oven for the main course. Thin slicing the duck breast in olive oil to keep it moist, not dry. 2.30pm! Get your apptizers into the hygine room! Alright man! Just on time. Boiled some water and added 120g of dried spagetii into the salted brine, looking for chilli flakes for alio aglio which i am best at. Shit! No chilli! So alright. Calm down. Pesto! Ah!! So i have toasted some bread crumbs with chives and seasoning. Chive crusted spagetii pesto!(Which i invented haha). Getting my shitake mushrooms quartered, carrots turned and chicken marinated. Smoking time! Went to the smoking area and enjoy a stick before i return to stress again. Getting my charred pepper and tomato roughly cut, boiled and blended. It gave me a very nice orange colour but did not have the shine and consitency. Shit! I hate this part means? Make roux! Waste my time. So after adding roux and finishing it off with butter, I realised that there is not enough colour! Golden brown for chicken, orange for carrot, black for mushrooms, pale yellow with blackish dots for my pasta. Die! So i added some burnoise capsicans stolen from my neighbour(till now he still dont know haha) and a spring of rosemary. So here it is!(on my display pic)
Apptizer
Trio of fruits wrapped in smoked duck topped on Spiced balsamico reduction and raspberry cream.
Main course
Pan fried chicken breast rested on chive crusted spagetii pesto, authum vegetables and charred capsican-tomato voloute.