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.

Flavors

I am a huge fan of compound butters. Fat is a great carrier of flavors and I love making different flavors of compound butters for the pantry. It is something that is so simple to make, yet can add a lot of flavors and moisture to any type of protein out there. It is a great flavor enhancer to have in the fridge.

Nostalgia

This dish was inspired by what i used to eat for breakfast while I was growing up in Thailand. The original dish that I had in Thailand were consisted of a bowl of rice porridge, 3 minute egg, ground pork, scallion and some Maggie sauce. The dish was a staple while growing up since it was so cheap to buy, but it was very filling as well.

The picture above is a 64*C poached egg with soba groats in a shitake broth, scallion and crispy shitake. It was on one of my nightly tasting menus, very simple and very delicious.