Tarun Kapoor is executive chef at Doha’s Horizon Manor Hotel. Send your feedback to:
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Thai cuisine
Thai cuisine is one of the most liked cuisines from Southeast Asia. Chili hot or comparatively bland, harmony is the guiding principle behind each dish in Thai cuisine. This is the reason you can easily notice two or more distinct flavours in each Thai dish.
Mainly, Thai cuisine is influenced by Chinese and Indian cuisines in its preparation style to cooking style and the ingredients. Thai cuisine has five taste elements — sweet, sour, bitter, salty and spicy. Thai chefs and cooks have taken influences from foreign cuisines and have transformed them into their own unique cuisine.
Today Thai cuisine is a continued exploration of new and old, with chefs innovating fusion foods with the continual import of foreign ingredients and arrival of foreign chefs in Thai kitchens.
A lot of emphasis is given to fresh ingredients like vegetables and herbs in Thai cuisine. A proper Thai meal should consist of a soup, a curry dish with condiments, and a dip with accompanying fish and vegetables. The soup can be spicy, but the curry should be replaced by a non-spicy item. Basically there should be harmony of taste and texture within individual dishes and the entire meal.
Thai Chicken Curry
Serves 2
Ingredients
Chicken breast 600 gm
Shallots 5-6 no
Lemon grass 1 stalk
Galangal 1 inch cube
Thai red curry paste 3-4 tsp
Vegetable oil 1 tbsp
Brown sugar 1 tsp
Kaffir lime leaves 4-5 no
Basil leaves few no
Coconut milk 400 ml
Coriander leaves 30 gm
Method
Peel and thinly slice shallots, fine chop the lemon grass and galangal and keep aside.
Heat oil in a wok and fry the shallots until soft, add galangal and stir in curry paste and cook for a minute, stirring all the time.
Add the diced chicken pieces and stir fry for 3-5 minutes; add lemon grass, sugar, kafir lime leaves and coconut milk.
Bring slowly to boil and reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.
Adjust the seasoning and add roughly chopped coriander leaves and basil leaves.
Serve hot with Thai jasmine rice or steamed basmati rice.
Mille Feuille
Mille Feuille is the undoubted king of French pastries. This pastry consists of many layers separated with fillings. There are some other alternate names for this dessert like Custard Slice, Cream Slice, Vanilla Slice or Napoleon in the USA.
In French, Mille Feuille is translated as thousands leaves. This refers to the numerous layers that come together to form the dessert. Most cakes of this sort have two to five layers of pastry depending on the chef.
Traditional Mille Feuille has three layers of pastry and two layers of icing. The top is covered with a white icing. Stripes of chocolate icing are then layered on top and combed into the distinctive design commonly associated with this treat.
The cake can be made in rectangular or oval shape some variations also include jam, whipped cream, nut paste, purees or preserved fruits also. Different countries name their Mille Feuille differently — like in England it is called Bavarian Slice and raspberry is used as filling. Finland and Sweden versions use currant jelly and the Napoleon of France variant uses almond paste.
Sometimes Mille Feuille is also used as an appetizer. These feature a filling made of cheese or spinach. This savoury version of pastry is served warm as opposed to the classic dessert which is served cold.
Strawberry Mille Feuille
Ingredients
Puff pastry 250 gm
Icing sugar 120 gm
Strawberries 200 gm
For sweetened cream
Whipping cream 170 ml
Icing sugar 25 gm
Vanilla extracts few drops
Lemon zest 1 no lemon
Icing sugar for dusting
Method
Roll the puff pastry into thin sheet dusting with icing sugar.
Cut out rectangles about 9cm X 5cm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Bake in preheated oven at 200 degree Celsius until the pastry turns golden brown, remove from oven and allow it to cool down.
Whip the cream in a bowl with icing sugar, vanilla extracts and lemon zest.
Add the whipped cream into the piping bag with 1 cm straight nozzle.
Place one of the pastry rectangles in the serving plate, pipe blobs of cream over the pastry and place strawberries between the cream and then put another pastry thin on top and repeat with another layer.
Sprinkle top with more icing sugar and repeat until the pastry and cream is used up.
Serve cold.
