Thai Chicken Curry and the king of French pastries

Tarun Kapoor is executive chef at Doha’s Horizon Manor Hotel. Send your feedback to: exe.chef@horizonmanor.comThai 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 CurryServes 2IngredientsChicken breast  600 gmShallots  5-6 noLemon grass  1 stalkGalangal  1 inch cubeThai red curry paste 3-4 tspVegetable oil  1 tbspBrown sugar  1 tspKaffir lime leaves 4-5 noBasil leaves  few noCoconut milk  400 mlCoriander leaves 30 gmMethodPeel 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 FeuilleMille 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 FeuilleIngredientsPuff pastry  250 gmIcing sugar  120 gmStrawberries  200 gmFor sweetened creamWhipping cream 170 mlIcing sugar  25 gmVanilla extracts few dropsLemon zest  1 no lemonIcing sugar  for dustingMethodRoll 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.