Chips without salt? Low sodium ham? We need it and I for one love it and I don’t care if it sends me to the grave a day and a half early. (Oops, not supposed to say that on CNY) So let’s talk about salting. A very strange fashion for under-salting has been creeping into the profession in Malaysia and the excuse for it is and always has been: They can add salt if they want more. Better not to have the three people complain who love bread to taste metallic (yes, that’s where that taste comes from: Lack of salt), steak to be dull and fish to be bland and to leave the rest of us true eaters desperately over-salting the outer layers of our food in a vain attempt to impart any notion of flavour.

For here’s the rub: If you haven’t salted before (and during) cooking, it just won’t taste the same. Trust me, I’m a cook. Salt on top of fried meat is just that: Salt on top. It does NOT penetrate into the meat and you will most probably be eating more of it, because of that. So advice: A nice, even sprinkling of salt on both sides of the steak a minute or two before it goes into the pan, oven, grill… And what about the claims that salting too long before cooking will dry out the meat?? Nonsense, I’m afraid. And for once, you don’t have to take it from me, check Harold McGee’s most eminent, empirically reliable book.

There is one exception to my early salting advice and that concerns the skin side of fish. Salt the meat side first, then turn your fish skin side up and let it wait until the oil in your pan starts to smoke. Now blot the skin dry and then salt about twice as much as you salted the meat (careful here, consider the thickness of the fish, don’t overdo it). Skin side down into the pan until you can see the sides turn brown. Might be a good idea to lift the fish up about halfway through, to let more oil under the thing. Result: Crisp, very tasty skin. Turn fish around and just lightly brown the meat side. It’s the residual heat that should finish the cooking, if you want the fish to be moist. So undercook and then rest a minute or two before serving.

Next up: Vegetables! Even just saying: “Boiled Vegetables” might send you fleeing from the kitchen, but that does not have to be so. Here’s the secret to great looking, great tasting vegetables (sounds a bit like an American ad). Your boiling water needs to be as salty as the sea. Unless you’ve recently swallow a gulp of seawater you will probably get this wrong: The sea is VERY salty. Every litre has on average 35g of salt in it. That, my friends, is a hell of a lot. Go try mix up a batch and you’ll see. And this exactly is what I want you to cook your vegetables in. BUT…and this is a great big mid-western but: Only if you intend to ice water bathe them after cooking (and you really, truly, absolutely should).

Recipe: Prepare a very large batch of seawater and bring it to the boil. Have your veg ready to take the plunge and drop them in when the boil is roiling. Have an ice bath with lots of ice ready on the side. Your veg should be freely flying around in the water. Don’t crowd them in a tiny pot. As soon as they are at the doneness you want them to be, fish them out of the brine and drop them into the ice. Stir them around in there until they are cold to the core. Take out and reserve. When needed toss in butter or oil or whatever else you may fancy, or serve them cold. In fact if you cook asparagus in this way, your friends will ask you why theirs never taste  as nice as these. And the secret was: SALT.

It is really quite difficult to write a headline for anything that contains the word chorizo and not make it look like a rather crude double-entendre. I mean I’m writing about food here, so smell, taste and all words related are obvious choices, but related to the word chorizo, they’re just too obvious… I guess I could have gone with an old Marx brothers line like: It smells like chorizo, it tastes like chorizo, but don’t let that fool you! It really is chorizo. Except that’s too long. Be all that as it may, let’s get to the heart of the wurst:

I’ve been wanting to make chorizo for a while now and I’ve been putting it off, contemplating how to achieve the right result. The problem is not so much the sausage itself, but the fat. Actually, the real problem is the pig. Well, the absence of it. I can of course pig out as much as I want in the privacy of my own home, but for restaurant I need a substitute that will bring the right fat content to the party. Not only does the meat need fat, it needs fat that will stay in a solid state and not turn to grease that leaks out, for that is the real beauty of the fatty part of our household oink: The green fat that no other animal has in quite the same manner. Except…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Oh, well, shall I just tell you then? The duck, my friends! You see, I think this obsession with using chicken or beef to make sausages is completely misguided while ducks roam the pond of this our fair city. Chicken is of course a complete disaster as a sausage. Chicken sausage (oxymoronic as that may be) always needs all kinds of weird chemical help to make it resemble the real thing in any way at all and beef normally adds a kind of springy stringiness to it that a proper sausage just doesn’t have. The duck, my friends, holds the answer to all your sausage worries! It’s got enough fat to keep your sausage moist (see what I mean about the double-ents?), enough taste to go around and a fair part of the fat in a form that doesn’t melt away at the slightest rise in temperature. In short, sausage perfection.

And so… The picture above shows me holding my first chorizo (hmmm…) and getting there was pretty painless: I hickory smoked five duck breasts without cooking them too much, then chilled them, diced them and added another six raw and unsmoked breasts with a generous flap of fat still on them and spiced the whole thing up. I’ve bought ready-made chorizo spice before and that was a huge mistake. The stuff tastes nothing like a chorizo and if you think the taste will develop while you fry your salami, you’re mistaken. If your spicy mix does not taste like chorizo right from the word go, then it never will. But never fear, Chris is here and so’s the deal: Paprika, cayenne (or better still espelette) pepper in more or less equal proportions by volume, then half of that in coriander powder. Voilà!

Salt, friends, pickling, brining, curing salt and the usual NaCl in a mix that tickles the tastebuds. Personally, I think a good chorizo absolutely needs to taste a little over-salted, so you low sodium freaks will just have to sit this one out. Marinate for as long as you like, but no less than three hours and grind, grind, grind. Once only, and not too fine either. And then the fun starts…

A proper Spanish chorizo is dried, not boiled (though, possibly raw and fried, but that’s a different sausage story) and there’s the rub: How do you dry a sausage in the tropics? First you have to find a very permeable, but not perishable casing. A traditional casing will slow the drying process in this humidity, so I decided to use gauze. About three layers of thin gauze will just hold the stuff and still not prevent evaporation. Now I’ve hung up my chorizo (see picture) and am waiting. It smells so good the kitchen staff are drooling, but it’s only just been a day and the thing is still… well…, yes…, flaccid. It’s hanging in our dry store and the air-con creates a gently breeze of dry air. You can see the smoked, cured duck breast next to it, which dries very successfully into very tasty prosciutto, so I’m hoping the chorizo will dry faster than it rots.

Sounds bad, doesn’t it? But we can’t mince words in the world of sausage production, where corruption of the flesh is a constant danger, to be fought with salt and dry air. And here, my story kind of fizzles out, while the sausage hangs. I’ll just have to keep you posted periodically. I’m guessing that it will take a month to dry, but it could of course be much longer.

Another year is over and I guess it’s time for retrospection. As far as I’m concerned, the milestones of the year were obvious: A black guy became president of the United States of America and an unemployed housewife became a megastar. The rest of the year was, one might be forgiven for saying, incidental.

The beginning of the absolute end of any hope for white supremacy in the US was, if you remember, heralded in by Mr Obama’s keynote address to the democratic convention in 2004. If you heard the speech, you will definitely remember it. It was an electrifying moment. But here’s a curious thing: I just re-read the speech and seeing it on paper (on screen, really) in the cold light of day, it didn’t at all make the same impression on me as when I heard it delivered by this tall, slim, definitely foreign looking gentleman with the odd name (and we didn’t even know about the ‘Hussein’). There is no denying that he is a great orator, a man who can move a nation. When I heard Obama speak that July, it left no doubt in my mind that the man was heading for the top job.

Another defining moment, though of a rather different nature, was the Youtube morning we all watched Susan Boyle strut out in front of the cameras to sing ‘I dreamed a dream’ for the judges of Britain’s Got Talent (or whatever it’s called). This slightly dishevelled, frumpy hausfrau, complete with cat, who dared to dream she could sing like Elaine Page had heads shaking, eyes rolling and England expecting the most thunderous failure of the year. Then she opened her mouth and out came a sound that was at least a decade younger than her face, a voice rang out strong,  true and clear and told the world there was hope for everyone.

The question is: Where do you go from there? It’s like starting the evening with fireworks and slowly working your way down. By the end of the night the guests leave feeling strangely cheated, despite your best efforts. Mr. Obama’s approval ratings are at an all time low and how can it be otherwise, when after the fireworks he’s dishing out the hors d’oeuvres? The similarities with Ms. Boyle are uncanny! She’s effectively started her career with the performance of her life and no matter what she’s going to do, she can never repeat it. No other performance of hers is going to be able to inspire the stunned awe of that very first one.

So both the president and the singer suffer the same fate. They delivered too much too early, raised expectations they could never meet and thus were destined to disappoint. So remember as the year runs on: The less people expect of you, the easier it will be to pleasantly surprise them.

The New Year is nigh and with it, party time is inevitably upon us, so I thought I’d write a little paragraph about what to look out for when organising your own shindig. I was going to be serious about it, divide it into chapters and publish it in instalments. Very Dickensian, appropriate to the time of year, but too much bother, so here’s the whole thing in one rather long blog. To avert disaster, one must first know what disasters one might face. We shall start with the most disastrous of all disasters, but first I would like to state the obvious:

A party should be a time of fun for everyone.

I used to do parties, where I would be cooking for days (literally) and when the last dish was eaten I would invariably be so exhausted that I would excuse myself to go and take a shower from which I never again returned. Well, not on the same night anyway. I have grown up since and dispensed with all the culinary mayhem. Now I want to enjoy my own parties, so the food is simple and whoever does not like it, can go and stuff their own mushrooms. So first advice: Relax. Stop worrying whether the guests will like the food, the candles, the punch, the cocktails, your partner… and face the awful truth: You’re feeding them, you’re plying them with drink and you’re not charging them at the end, so they’d better eat and drink what they’re given and be grateful.

But back to the question:

What is the worst thing that can happen at a party?

Short of the building burning to the ground, but not very short of it, is the (hopefully remote) possibility of the host running out of drinks. Now that is a completely unforgivable sin and you should cast whatever friend has subjected you to such abject suffering to oblivion. There are few excuses for running out of booze and none of them are acceptable before four in the morning. I remember a well stocked party which was drunk virtually dry by three in the morning. Completely unfazed, the resourceful host mixed up a batch of cocktails based on Southern Comfort, Angostura bitters, lemon and soda, the only four items left in the bar, and the party continued. So rule number one: STOCK UP!

Let me say it again: Stock up, Up and UPPER!!!

Even if you’re guests are light drinkers, you asked them to dinner and expect them to stay no later than ten thirty and you know they will each bring a bottle, I would still recommend that you have at least one bottle of wine per person ready to be uncorked! You may think this excessive, but remember that unless you open them, the bottles are not likely to go off in a hurry. Just add them to your stash for the next party. You will be glad to find some left over bottles in your cupboard the next time you’re expected to bring a bottle and forgot to buy one.

I remember a ghastly party (I have a feeling this sentence is going to come up again) at which the hosts had firmly banked on us (me & partner) bringing a bottle of wine, but we had seen an interesting hard cover book, which we thought would make a much more interesting present. When the hosts saw the shape of the wrapped thing, their faces dropped, sweat started pouring from their brow and they divided the single resident beer carefully among five thimbles to be enjoyed ‘en aperitif’. Hemlock, I believe would have been a better idea: Drunk by the foolish couple at the precise moment they realised their shortcomings as hosts, it would have left the remaining three of us to share the only bottle of wine, thereby saving the evening at least halfway.

Contemplating this cautionary tale, you will realise that as a host, you must never ever leave yourself at the mercy of your guest’s offerings. I mean, even IF everyone brings a bottle, they might ALL be bottles of Carlo Rossi and then where would that leave you?? So one bottle per person!

This, I hasten to say, is the absolute minimum and really only appropriate provisioning for as sedate little dinner. A true, all-out night of prandial excess requires more than a few bottles of Riesling. Something that looks like a full bar is more what you (and most certainly your guests) are after, so don’t chicken out and go for broke. You do not need to buy every bottle on the shelf, but have whiskey, gin, vodka, rum and tequila if you want to impress. It does not need to be the best money can buy, in fact, I would advocate the monetary middle ground here. Something that does not send your guests into the bushes for a Technicolor yawn the moment it passes their lips would be good, but two dozen bottles of Patron tequila will make everyone think you’re a poncy wanker. What you’re aiming for is not top quality, but top quantity!

If you’re strapped for cash, or if you’re just pathologically stingy, have two different types of hard liquor (I love that word!) on hand and boldly ask: “Gin ‘n Tonic or Whiskey Soda?” and if anyone dares to say: “You wouldn’t have a Rum and Bitters?”, simply reply: “Not if you didn’t bring one!”. I might, in fact advocate a smaller bar, because in my experience, the more choices you give your guests, the more they dither and delay and you really DO want to get them drunk as soon as possible.

As for the wine, stick to something simple, not too dry, not too fruity and most importantly – Properly Chilled:

The Importance of ICE:

I am not referring to the deliveries made by a shady member of the underworld, but to the humble cube of frozen water. I am sick to the teeth (and sometimes through them) of wine served ‘at room temperature’. Sipping red at a temperature where you can see the alcohol evaporating before your eyes is not my idea of a pleasant, so for God’s (and his favourite creature’s) sake, get ice and get mountains of it and please, please remember that the more wine you chill, the longer it will take and the more ice you will need.

And here’s how you do it: Don’t bother to buy eskies, you will need many more than you will want to spend money on, so get these large Styrofoam boxes fish suppliers use (preferably before they’ve used them, though), stand all your bottles up in them and pour large bags of ice over the bottles about three hours before your party begins. Do NOT add water, close the lid and step away and at the time you will need it, all you bottles will be swimming in a large ice bucket, floating in perfectly chilled bliss.

Keep more ice at hand in case you need it. And you will. How much ice will you need? One little bag per person is probably about right. If the day’s very hot and you’re entertaining in the pm, you’ll probably need more and one thing that is for certain… you can never have too much ice if you want your guests to chill (bad one), which leads us not so neatly to the next point:

Down With The Pre-Poured Drink!

Resist the temptation to pre-pour glasses of beer, wine or anything at all and have it schlepped around on trays. Caterers love to do that, because it makes their life easy, but unless your guests really do arrive all at the same time and the trays are refreshed often, with the warmed up drinks being poured away (oh, the depravity!), your guests are just going to end up with lukewarm booze.

And so, on to my last piece of advice for the day:

The Glamour of the Cocktail Party:

Your guests milling around sexy cocktail glass in hand, sparkling with wit, the ladies glamorously attired, jewellery flashing, the men suave and nonchalant and you, a debonair half smile playing under your dashing moustache, everyone admiring the insouciance you display with a cocktail shaker… That’s the dream. The reality however is that you’ll have created a list of eight cocktails, all of which only you know how to make and your twenty guests all order something different, so you’ll have to make each order separately, everyone will be waiting impatiently for their drink, you’ll be sweating like a ballerina at an outdoor lunchtime performance in Trinidad and when you think you’ve served everyone, they’ll be wanting seconds, which will be the exact moment you’ll notice that the ice is starting to run low and the evening’s just begun and death will seem more attractive than another hour with a cocktail shaker stuck to your hand with Triple Sec.

My advice? Don’t do it! Unless you can afford a couple of decent mixologists (who the hell came up with that nonsense of a word), don’t even go there. Alright, if you absolutely have to, try your hand at a single pre-dinner cocktail first and see how you like it. If that doesn’t put you off the idea, at least limit yourself to two simple cocktails that do not require muddling, producing foam or balancing the shaker on your nose like a trained seal. A Martini, a Manhattan, or maybe a Daiquiri with the lime squeezed in advance could be an option. And please train the help to produce a halfway decent version, because what was fun at seven thirty will start to be slightly wearing at ten and feel like hell on earth at midnight, so do yourself a favour and have a backup.

The next thing you want to remember is that cocktails are a hell of a lot more potent than wine and your guests are likely to be very drunk very fast and very sick very likely, so make sure there’s enough shrubbery around. I have seen scenes I would rather not have and distantly remember disgracing myself all over the Russian Chargé d’Affaires. I was young and foolish and also never invited again…

The Christmas eve cooking madness is over, so now it’s prep for New Year’s we will be working on. We had a more than full house yesterday and that means 75 people all eating 6 course dinner, bringing the total plates sent out to 450. Starting at about 8pm and ending at a rather late 11:30, that means sending out just over 2 plates every minute and with a total of 28 components for the whole dinner, someone had to put something on a plate every one and a quarter second.

And that’s not all. Take the main course, for example: The beef needs six minutes on the grill, but the Yorkshire pudding needs twenty-five to bake, so while doing his other duties, the guy at the oven needs to keep an eye on several different batches of Yorkshire pudding and he needs to fire each batch of steaks exactly six minutes before his pudding is done. At the same time, the goose breast needs to be roasted, rested, sliced and the foie poached, the pie top baked, fresh batter whisked up, the lobster battered and deep fried, the bacon rendered, the mushrooms fried while the fish is floured the sorbet scooped, the oysters shucked the jelly scratched, the foam shaken up, the caviar spooned and the pudding plated.

Unless you have worked in a busy kitchen before, you don’t realise the speed and coordination needed to make it all happen.  I’m quite proud of my team, because they go through this kind of thing like a train at full steam, producing high quality food with complete insouciance. They chat and crack jokes, but they never slacken off and keep checking on each other to make sure it all arrives on the plate at the same time, again and again and again. Apart from a major mistake (such as dropping a pan full of just fried fish – and NO, it does not get dusted off and plated!!), no one ever stops moving. From the front of the pass (that’s where the finished plates are waiting to be picked up) it all looks like an intricate, well choreographed modern ballet, and I know all will be well. Unless…

Here’s the thing that will throw a major spanner into the works: A request for something that is not on the menu. Now, we know that some people just can’t eat some things, so we are prepared. We actually have a replacement for every one of the six courses, even though we don’t advertise it as an option (we don’t want to make our lives more miserable than is absolutely necessary). The problem starts when someone asks: Can I just have some steamed vegetables? Answer: NO.

Now, unless you realise what is going on in the kitchen, you might think we’re just being haughty, but steamed veg (or stir fried, or whichever way) means one person washing, peeling, cutting, steaming, plating for about ten minutes. Not long, but long enough to stop 20 dishes from going out on time, delaying everything that follows and making the kitchen grind to a temporary halt. And a halt, believe me, is something you don’t want at all, because chances are, the guys will never be able to get back to the same momentum. It’s like taking a break on a long run and then trying to muster the energy start up again and finish – not easy!

I don’t think much of chefs or kitchens that try and show their ‘power’ by refusing a reasonable request (really quite pathetic) and believe me, if we can, we will, but sometimes (and just sometimes) it just simply isn’t possible.

A Merry Old Christmas to you all and may all your dishes come true.