Gregoire Michaud|little by little, life becomes sweeter…

I was saddened to learn the recent loss of Michel Montignac, founder and creator of the Montignac diet method, based on the low G.I. of food. Being greatly skeptikal about any food diet as a Chef, it was no different when I first heard about the Montignac method. But being convinced by a friend, I had a go at reading one of his book, describing his method as a whole in regards of the glycemic index of food, pancreas, insulin and so on… It made some sort of sense and I was ready to give it a try. Yet, his method has been highly critisized as he is questioning a whole lobbyied industry segment which is mainly based on calories theories. If his method would be recognize as the key to weight control, many large corporations would go bankrupt!

And so I have tried it and indeed, I’ve lost 26 lbs in 2.5 months. Mind you, I didn’t starve myself, and I ate large quantities of foods, but it was just a different selection of food. This method brought back to the table ingredients that were not common in my meals, and all of this at the G.I. average of 30. Bringing back health and diversity to the table!

Today, I still think about it when planning my meals and my weight is very stable. No sign of the usual mega-increase commonly seen after regular diets. Thank you Mr. Montignac and farewell.

Ok, I usually don’t take part into political issues and related matters. Actually I very seldom buy magazines like TIME with their exaggerated capitalistic views, but this issue was about the organic trend. An article that deserve a post on its own as I believe Mr. Kluger has a very “journalistic” approach of the matter and obviously is not looking at it as a chef, but wrote about it as a purely analytical report of facts taken here and there, building his own biased views on the organic movement. (…)

Anyway, what pushed me to write this quick entry this Sunday morning is that I was simply appalled by the way Mr. Abdoolcarim related of the events that took place in the hostage shoot out in Manila (Philippines) on page 7 of the current issue of TIME magazine.

Mr. Abdoolcarim has obviously not much idea of life in Hong Kong when he states “Hong Kong’s residents do not possess the sense of physical danger that many people elsewhere do. That feeling of security was shattered in Manila (…)” I won’t take part in the debate of who was wrong and whatever happened, it’s just tragic for everyone, in both countries.

So, according to Mr. Abdoolcarim, perhaps, if the bus was loaded with Columbian in Bogota, where violence is common, then it would have been ok? How can someone criticize the security feeling of a nation “because” they’ve got taken in an hostage situation and shot at blank point? Wouldn’t you, Mr. Abdoolcarim, feel insecure too if a desperate man point a loaded M-16 on your head? I would… If I may suggest, try to be more sensitive to people’s livelihood when judging a nation.

Hong Kong is a safe city and it’s very good for all of us. Nevertheless, events have happened here that are no different than the rest of the world.

This was my first time in Taiwan. And it was a great trip!

Of course, as we mainly stayed in the city, we had to do the “been there, done that” of Taipei. But I’ll skip the tourist part and come straight to food matter, apart from the rental bicycle and a few other matters.  We were told that these rental bicycles were made heavy and ugly so that no one would steal them… makes sense when you think about it. The crossing path on busy road was also interesting with a time frame when people are allowed to cross in diagonal. And of course we had to test the fastest elevator in the world at Taipei 101… that was… nothing, really.

Beside that, we were lucky to have a friend living in Taipei that tiped us in what to do for a day trip. And so we were off to the Yangmingshan National Park. There we spent a few hours soaking ourselves in volcanic heated spring water. It was utterly hot water for me, but it felt great… (once you get used to the sulfur smell )

We were then recommended having lunch at a small place fairly lost in the middle of nowhere in the park, where they raised their own chickens and cultivated their own vegetables and fruits. We arrived at the place to discover what was the inner part of an extinct volcano with plants and trees full of life everywhere. In the back we could notice a column of steam coming from a boiling lake.

The table setting was of disposable chopsticks and paper bowls. Nevermind and spot on, that’s what I love! Real quality ingredients, without fuss, straight forward and WOW it was good. We had a few dishes and notably a surprising steamed fresh bamboo. It was the season, so the restaurant recommended it, and they where amazing. A little sweet, juicy and with an extraordinary texture and flavor. We had a few other dishes of vegetables such as young cabbage or yam’s leaves and of course, the famous chicken which was indeed very nice! The table next to us had a bunch of ladies picking vegetables and longan for the restaurant. The atmosphere and the ambiance within the open air restaurant was simply magic! I would go back to Taiwan just for that restaurant.

Back to Taipei, we crossed a few food stalls on the street and tried a few local delicacies, but we had to try the famed Taiwanese beef noodles and their version of Xia Long Bao. Both were very good and as a dessert oriented person, I asked my friend what to try in Taiwan. He said “Mango shaved ice”. So we were off to try the famous ice and as I was quite skeptical about having a mountain of ice as dessert, I’ve got quite a surprise. The amount of mangoes used on a dish is as equal as the amount of ice and it is topped by a mongo sorbet and condensed milk. The mangoes are locally grown and were very nice, ripe, sweet and juicy with sublime aromas. The whole dish became nicely balanced and for sure, it’s the ultimate refreshment in such hot wheather (35 Celsius and clear sky!)

Judge for yourself with the below few photos…

Janet happened to read my regular column on WOM guide, and in relation with my product quality philosophy, she sent me a note and eventually ended up sending me samples of pure palm sugar from Indonesia.

The precious palm sugar (image courtesy of Masarang Palm Sugar)

Although I have been in Asia for a mere 12 years now, I shamefully never bothered to try much other sugar than brown, red, or… perhaps I glanced over palm sugar once or twice and associated it with fully hydrogenated palm oil (which bothers me not for health reasons, but for the whole biofuel controversy…). With that, I learned that the trees used for palm sugar where not cut and forest was not destroyed, but harvested and maintained, generating a sustainable culture and providing jobs to entire communities. On top of that, that palm sugar has a glycemic index below 30 which makes it an ‘healthy’ type of sugar. In the end, curiosity towards that sugar proved me right…

That palm sugar is made of different shades of brown color, darker and lighter, with the texture and moisture similar to Demerara sugar, but I personally found the taste of it rounder than brown sugar, with pleasant notes of caramel. I also enjoyed the long lasting flavors it features, compared to its cousin, where the flavor vanishes too promptly to my taste.

waiting to be filled

So I gave it a try with some fabulous poached William pears, golden raisins, fresh orange zest and packed all the palm sugar I could into a crumble, with a little extra touch of rolled oats and a good pinch of salt. In the preparation and the baking, I noticed that palm sugar don’t dissolve in dough as easily as other sugar, so the browning of the dough was not as much as it would normally be and the texture of the raw crumble was even more sandy than usual. Nevermind; the crumble came out of the oven piping hot and the smell of that crumble was to die for. I shot a few pictures as quick as I could so that I could give it a try, and it was really good. But I mean really good as in awesomely good! I am not talking about some new hydrocolloid discoveries here, but just simple good food. You’ve got to try this, and yes, here is the recipe I tried:

baking...

Ingredients

Pears

4 Fresh pears (medium sized William pear if possible)

20 gm Palm sugar

1 tbsp Butter

Cinnamon, nutmeg

½ orange zests

50 ml apple juice

1 tsp corn starch

A handful of golden raisins

Crumble

100 gm Plain white flour

50 gm Palm sugar (I used Masarang Arenga Palm Sugar)

60 gm cold butter

2 tbsp rolled oats

A good pinch of salt

Method

Preparing the fruits

1. Wash and peal the pears. Cut them into large chunks.
2. In a cooking pot, melt the palm sugar and add the butter.
3. Add the pears, the cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Leave it to cook for about 3 minutes.
5. Dissolve the cornstarch in the apple juice and pour it in.
6. Cook until the cornstarch thickens.
7. Fill your dishes with the cooked pear to ¾ of the height.

Preparing the crumble and finishing the dessert

1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients into crumbles.
2. Add a layer of about 1 cm on top of the fruits.
3. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200°C for about 20 minutes.
4. Serve warm with vanilla custard sauce or ice cream (Lemon zest ice cream, if you’d ask me!)

(Get Janet’s palm sugar and more information here: http://www.sugarpalmtree.com)

Selena is the engine of  l’Atelier du Gout. She prepared everything and more for the class we held last Saturday. And yesterday I’ve got a suprise on my desk from Selena, a CD full of great shots from the class. Here are a few handpicked ones that I really like!

Thank you Selena!

Pot-de-crème au chocolat

If there is one pot-de-crème au chocolat that is well balanced and deliciously chocolate, then that’s the one. Add a few caramelized hazelnuts and bitter chocolate sauce as toppings and you’ve got your next dessert ready! I also like to serve it with fresh strawberries and balsamic vinegar. Classic combination that works well all along.

The chocolate is the key ingredient. It has to have enough cocoa content to be able to bring its flavor through the cream. I am adding real vanilla and salt to support the flavor of the chocolate and to give it the extra kick.

It was one of the item I will be sharing with listeners of an upcoming weekly radio show (details coming soon) and once the recording was done, I seriously had the urge to share them on the blog. The above photo was just before I finished it… they’re really good!

The only bad thing about food blogs is that the smell of food can’t come out of the screen!

Ingredients

250 ml cream

30 ml milk

25 gm white sugar

1 pc vanilla stick

40 gm dark chocolate (about 70% cocoa content gives a nice flavor)

1 pc egg yolk

A good pinch of salt

Method

1. Boil once the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla stick cut lengthwise.
2. Out of heat, add the chocolate in small pieces and melt together.
3. Pour some of the hot liquid on the egg yolk and mix.
4. Pour back the egg yolk mixture into the hot cream and mix well.
5. Pass the liquid through a fine sieve and fill your ramequin molds.
6. Fill a tray with water and place your ramequin to simmer.
7. Bake at 170°C for about 20 minutes, until the cream are set.
8. Allow to cool and store in the fridge for about 1 hour.

As my friend Arno said in one of his latest interview, us, hotel Pastry Chefs are often left in the unknown of whether we are on the right track or not. We surely get some feedback form our bosses and from some customers, but overall, our interaction with customers is far less than when we were stationed in a single restaurant or boutique, handling a single menus and a few birthday cakes. Obviously when we serve 1000′s of covers daily throughout our massive operations, we which we could get more feedback and interaction.

Tony's shop (photo courtesy of openrice.com)

One talented Pastry Chef, lately dared leaving the comfortable and safe cocoon that are hotel operations.  My friend Tony Wong opened his patisserie not too long ago, and what a good thing he did!

The box (courtesy of openrice.com)

Tastes, design, concept is a personal thing; you either like it or you don’t, that’s up to you, really. I have to say that I like what Tony is doing: It’s simple, clean and tastes good. No pretentious crazy creations, just good patisserie like there should be more around!

But more than the actual pastries, I admire Tony for his endeavors in business. It shows the example to many other equally talented Pastry Chef in town, aspiring to have their very own boutique one day. Tony shows them it’s possible and he’s doing it very well!

Bravo!

http://www.patisserietonywong.com

Just baked!

My new article on WOM guide is live. This time, I thought interesting to address the meaning of organic in today’s commercial world. Too often taken as an easy selling point, the mark of trust that is the organic label if often misused and the end-consumer (us) can’t do anything about it. Read the full article here and have a slice of frangipane strawberry tart!

Strawberry frangipane tart

On my way to l’Atelier du Gout this morning, I would have never guessed the quality of fruits I was about to find there. Beautiful ripe apricots, raspberries, but real raspberries like there is in my Mom’s garden, so fragile that the slightest touch will damage them. (not like some Dri…. brand I will not cite here ) Both of these fruits where flown in from France where they are in full season and the cherries were from Washington State (WA) where the weather was more clement than in France who suffered from massive rains and floods resulting in lower quantities available. As well, we had a lot of fresh herbs such as thyme, basil and chervil… I had also arranged a whole bunch of Carambar, the very popular toffees that every kids who grew up in any French speaking European countries will know. I had a few too many when I was young and I still love them!

It all starts with quality ingredients

We had a really great crowd (with many familiar faces ) today and I really enjoyed the class! We were half an hour over the time limit, but who cares when it’s for good food!

Thank you every one!

The only great shot I could do was after the class is below… it’s all that was left from the cherries! I’m waiting for student’s and l’Atelier’s photos which I think will be far better than mine Keep posted!

Where are they?