Duck is one of my favorite proteins to eat, but I usually don't ever order it when I go out to eat. Too many people just don't give it enough time in the pan to render out the skin and fat so the results are usually chewy and unappetizing. Also, scoring the skin is very important because you want to expose as much surface area as possible so that the fat renders out quickly and you end up with perfectly crispy duck skin.

It's been a busy summer, then the awaited/dreaded foliage season. I haven't posted anything in a while so I thought I would put some pictures up. Hopefully I will have more time during the winter months to document my dishes more often. Anyway here are a few that I managed to capture.

Summertime

Playing with a photo tent.

Here are a couple of shots that I took with the photo tent I bought from ebay. I'm still quite a noob when it comes to photography, I need to take some sort of a class on this subject. But I think the pictures came out pretty decent still.

Sticky Rice

I'm sure that many of you out there know what sticky rice is, but do know how it is prepared?? To many, the sticky rice that you know is probably the sushi rice correct? Well the sticky rice that I grew up with in Thailand is a whole different breed. The sticky rice that the Thais eat is a medium grain rice that to the untrained eyes looks just like any regular rice. But the method of preparation is quite different. The traditional way of cooking sticky rice is to first soak the rice in water over night, then you drain it and put it into what looks like it could be an upside down woven bamboo hat. The "hat" is then put on top of a metal vase-like pot with boiling water inside to create the necessary steam needed for the cooking of the rice. The length of time needed for the rice to cook is not really known, you just have to keep checking and testing the rice for doneness.

Update

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. I've been pretty busy and when it's busy, it's hard to try and take pictures of the food as they are going out the door. I am waiting for some slow nights where I can take my time and catch a few cool shots of the food again. One productive thing that I did was purchasing a table top photo tent, it was around $30 on ebay. Nothing fancy really, just a simple collapsable 20"X20" photo tent. But hopefully it'll help enhance the quality of the pictures that I take. Anyway summer is here so I am excited for this years crops and new dishes/ideas so I will definitely try to get more pictures up on the blog. Cheers Narin

Simply Roasted Cornish Hen

It's amazing how many people out there have a hard time roasting a chicken. It's straight forward, simple, and delicious. Maybe people are just intimidated but the fact that it's a whole chicken.

Wild Edibles

I recently went on a day hike at a local mountain 10 minutes from where I live. During my hike I was very happy to have stumbled upon a nice patch of ramps and wild mint that grew pretty much along the whole trail. When I picked a mint leaf and crushed it between my fingers I was quite surprised at how mild the mint aroma was when compared to the store bought mint. In the end I decided not to pick any of the mint but came home with a good handful of ramps. While driving back home, I was wondering what to do with the ramps and also what to do for dinner. I really wanted to keep it pretty simple, a few ingredients and let the natural flavors come through. Now I guess I could have just sauteed the ramps and eat it along side of something and that would have been delicious, but I wanted pizza for dinner. So the end result was: Grilled flatbread with bacon and wild ramps, homemade ricotta, garlic oil. The ramps mellowed out nicely and the sweetness really came through.

Froze and Thawed Tomato Consomme

So one day at work we thawed probably a 20 quart cambro full of local tomatoes that were harvested at the peak of their season and to our surprise, we ended up with the most clear and flavorful tomato water we've ever tasted. So I immediately felt like I needed to put that on the menu for the next night, which was perfect since we have tasmanian sweet crab written down as a protein for the first course. So...

-pick ripe tomatoes that were in season.
-freeze the tomatoes for use in the off season.
-thaw tomatoes for marinara.
-discover a large amount of tomato water from the thawing process.
-create a dish that involves this wonderful discovery.
-make asparagus chawanmushi.
-asparagus + crab = classic combo.
-result: chilled asparagus custard with tasmanian crab, tomato water and oven dried tomato, ivory lentils, and baby herbs.

Alkaline/Ramen Noodles.

Finding good Asian restaurants is hard enough when you live in a small town in Vermont. But finding a good ramen shop is pretty much impossible, unless i drive to New York City. So what a person to do when he is craving the chewy and firm texture of ramen and the unique flavor that italian pasta can't match??? Well if you've got some time you could make your own ramen noodles, or alkaline noodles as some call it. "Kansui", an essential part of making ramen, is a type of mineral water that contains sodium carbonate, and usually potassium carbonate as well. kansui is pretty hard to get where I live, so after a little bit of searching on the internet, I found a solution. I found a recipe that only calls for calcium bicarbonate on the New York Times web site. The recipe was simple enough, flour, water, and baking soda that's been baked in the oven for an hour @ 250 degrees Fahrenheit. So after gathering the few ingredients, I tried the recipe and whammy!!! I have alkaline noodles. And I must say that it is not perfect, but it definitely satisfied my craving..... for now.

The recipe is at the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/dining/15curiousrex.html?_r=2

"Old School"

Chicken Rillettes with foie gras fat added for a more bold flavor and richness. This was a great way for me to use up some left over braised chicken meat. The accompaniments are house made quince mostarda, pickled peppers, local carrot, and zucchini.

Death Comes to All

Ok, fair warning. The pictures to follow are pretty graphic, if you have a weak stomach, don’t like the sight of blood or have no interest in seeing the slaughter of an animal….go away, this isn’t for you…

Now, a little back story. When I first moved to Bhutan, I inherited 2 little piglets from the former Chef. He had planned to raise them for a Barbeque party but they weren’t nearly big enough to slaughter by the time he left so I was stuck with them. Due to business levels and a lot of procrastination on my part the piglets turned into massive beasts that eventually were too big for their pig pen.

Not the most comfortable living conditions I admit

Dangerous Beauty

A cactus in the different stages of flowering, is incredibly beautiful. Some times its nice to take time to stop and notice things like this. Just don't touch it....shit hurts.

Compressed

Well I tried out the Thermal Circulator the other day by cooking my chicken thigh-forcemeat-thigh concoction. The result was quite good and both the forcemeat and the thigh meat were cooked to perfection and retained moistness. But I did have one problem, I seared the pressed meat to crisp up the skin on both sides, the skin shrunk quite a bit. So unfortunately I ended up with the crispy skin being half the size it was and only cover the center portion of the block. I think perhaps next time I will remove all the skin completely, crisp up the skin separately and served in small shards on the finished plate. Learning though doing, in most cases, is the best way to learn.