French cooking with local ingredients

Attended a French cooking class conducted by a French chef, Mr Emmanuel Stroobant. A handsome Chef. What makes me decided to go for the class is more than the French cuisine but also the use of local ingredients and done it in the French way. 4 dishes in total:

- Prawns and Tomato;
- Risotto Rataouille;
- Braised chicken with mushroom and
- Lemon tart

The class of 8 participants was conducted in his apartment (nearby the Great World City complex) that has a very nice view of the neighborhood, a very well decorated and modern kitchen. I like the kitchen very much. Wine, coffee, rice crackers and some smoke salmon in between while the Chef demonstrated and explained the dishes. Mr Emmanuel Stroobant speaks well and is lively in his presentation.



We started with a visit to the Smith Street market to buy some of the ingredients for the day. Though I have been to market pretty regularly, I was still surprised to learn that the stall owners spoke good English. When we were back to the kitchen, Mr Emmanuel Stroobant played background music as he started to explain about how to prepare each dish as he was doing the actual cooking.


Participants are free to move nearer to see how he did it, to ask him questions along the way and to have some hands-on to prepare the food voluntarily. Mr Emmanuel Stroobant shared more than just the dishes but also talked about French cuisine, his restaurant, basic skills in handling some of the kitchenware etc. In fact, Mr Emmanuel Stroobant made some minor changes to some of the dishes to better suit the day. The food is served once done. The food presentation is good just like those served in a restaurant.



I have enjoyed the session and of course picked up some knowledge from the Chef himself.

A bit more about Mr Emmanuel Stroobant. He has been in Singapore for 10 years and owned at least one restaurant such as Saint Pierre. A very easy going and friendly Chef with much passion to share his love for food. If u are interested to learn more about their cooking class, pls feel free to contact Mr Gene Mok at gene@ Emmanuelstroobant.com or Tel: 64380887.

Next cooking class? Will try a new session organized by the Raffles Hotel. I prefer a smaller class else I should have already signed up for the class conducted by Sam Leong. 40 participants are just too big a class to share and interact with the Chef.

Chicken Rice

Though I work today (attended two events early in the morning), i still decided to cook chicken rice for dinner at home. Bought a kampong chicken from wet market yesterday for S$8.90, some ginger for the rice and cabbage to make the soup.

It is quite easy to cook chicken rice. Boil a container of water and put the whole chicken to cook it for 20 to 25 minutes. Then fried the rice in a hot pan with the ginger and some small onion before putting it into a rice cooker with the chicken stock + panda leaf + a bit of salt. Prepare some cabbage and carrot to brew it with the balance chicken stock. Cut the whole chicken into pieces nicely (remember to remove all chicken skin). Done and enjoy a nice meal :-)

After tasting the chicken meat and the rice, i am sure i can still do it much better, But i think i have improved a bit as compare to the last attempt. Today, i also tried using sushi wrap to roll into chicken rice sushi. Pretty interesting. I came across the chicken rice sushi a few years ago when i was attending a HR seminar. Impressed with its presentation and it tasted very nice.

Does my chicken rice sushi tasted as nice ? How about making a guess ? :-)

Simple and light in taste dish

I always enjoy eating simple and light in taste dishes. Not easy to find such dishes if eating out. The best option is to prepare these dishes at home. Luckily, i do enjoy prepare dishes at home at times and one of the dishes is cheese salad.

Ingredients:
- a single or 1.5 slice of cheese (non salted or light salted)
- one carrot
- one to two potatoes
- one small portion of broccoli

Skin all the carrot and potatoes. Then cut all the vegetables into cute size as shown in the photo below:



Soften the carrot and potatoes by boiling it separately and place it on a plate. Boil the broccoli for less than a minute and place it on the same plate. Heat up a frying pan without using any cooking oil. Add the boiled carrot, potatoes and broccoli into the frying pan and stir. When the pan is getting hotter, quickly add the slice of cheese into the pan and stop stirring. Off the fire when the cheese begins to melt. Stir fried it again briefly and put it into a serving plate. A simple and yet nutritional dish is done.

If u prefer it to be more crunchy, u may wish to mix some of your favourite corn flake with the vegetables. U can also add variety such as raisin, slice of tomatoes, apricot, slice of apple, strawberry etc to make it not only colourful but also improves its nutritional value. No bacon chips,please.

I used to eat the same boiled vegetables without any addressing but find it quite dry. Instead of using mayonnaise or thousand islands sauce as addressing, I try to melt non-salted cheese and mix it with the vegetables. It blended pretty well with good and creamy taste. :-)

Mixed vegetable soup

So far, I am more interested to learn cooking chinese dishes. No particular reasons, just my preference. Brewing/cooking soup is something i am more likely to try and do regularly. Besides learning how to brew soup from cookbooks, I also pay attention to the ingredients used when i eat out. Mixed vegetable soup (i name it) is one of the soups that i learned from a eating place.

The ingredients are very simple as follows:
- Carrot (qty: 2 - 3 units)
- Potato (qty: 4 units)
- Sweet corn (qty: 2 units)
- Green radish (qty: 1 unit)
- Soy beans (qty: about 35g)



Wash and peel all ingredients and cut all into cube size except the soy bean.

Steps:
(1) Soak the soy beans for about 30 minutes.
(2) Boil a container of water and put in the soy beans first to brew for about 10 to 15 minutes
(3) Add sweet corn and green radish to the soup and continue to brew for another 15 minutes
(4) Then add the remaining potatos and carrots into the soup for another 25 to 30 minutes

Dun need to add any salt. The soup is tasty naturally. Btw, I dun like to use salt when i cook. I like dishs of lighter taste and prefer letting the ingredients to do the wonders. Of course, it is healthier to consume less salt.

I will also use the soup as stock to cook porridge for my daughter. i will then smash some carrot and potatos into the porridge + sweet corn before feeding her. She loves it a lot :-)

The soup is halal and suitable for vegetarian.
Try to brew it one of these days on your own. :-)