Friday, February 22, 2013

Thai Menu February 26+27


Thailand

Everyone: I've revised the portions and some other information on the tracking schedule! 
Make sure to review this and be prepared as directed HERE. The tracking schedule may not be accurate. 
For Day 10- pay attention to scaling down to feed only family meal quantities described below:

Sous Chefs-

Plating: Street food similar to VN menu, sauce in the center is mentioned below. Curries are served separately, each in 12" rimmed bowl with Jasmine Rice. Pad Thai is stir fried in batches, as needed, and served from the steam table in a deep bowl, garnishes are roasted peanuts and a lime wedge.

Hot and sour soup for Day 10- watch demo on how to cook shrimp in broth, make soup in a wok, hot hold. Scale to 1 gallon on Day 10.  Day 11 is Coconut Chicken soup, make 1 full recipe , just follow the recipe and taste for fish sauce and lime with me when it's done.
Salad - Green papaya, watch demo on papaya fabrication - 1/2 recipe on Day 10 and 1 full recipe on Day 11
Jasmine rice - 8 cups Day 10, 16 cups Day 11 - Talk to me about using the Western Steamer or a Rice cooker, at the moment I'm not sure if we will have a rice cooker.

Set up Street food station - similar to Vietnamese set-up, chaffing dish on Station 5 with 1/3 pans for hot food, cool food, plates, sweet chili sauce, etc. should all be set up near the chaffing dish. Draw a complete diagram of how the station will be set up with all components and items labeled in diagram. Sweet Thai Chili sauce comes from store room - bottles labeled "Mai Ploy". This goes in ramekins in center of plate. Peanut sauce for Satay DOES NOT go in a ramekin - hold it in a small plastic cup on the side and put a dab on top of each satay as it goes out. On Day 10 we only need enough sauce for 15 people. Day 11 - enough to serve about 65.

The Steam table will need to be used to hold the curries, the pad thai, stir fried squid and the jasmine rice. Put each curry in separate, deep 1/3 pans, same with the squid.  Pad Thai should be in a deep 1/2 hotel pan, and the Jasmine rice in a full hotel pan. Draw a diagram of the line set up and make it complete. Plates: Currys in a 12" shallow bowl with Jasmine rice, Pad Thai in a deep noodle bowl with roasted peanuts and a lime wedge on top of each. Stir fried Squid in deep 1/2 pan, the squid itself is served in a round casserole dish sitting on an ovel platter with jasmine rice sitting on the side - similar to presentation of steamed fish from Japanese menu.

Station #2 -

Chicken Rice - Scale recipe to use 2 whole chickens on Day 10 and 4 whole Chickens on Day 1. This dish is served room temp in summer, or prepared and then reheated in a wok steamer across from Table #2 in the cooler months, so it's cold- set up the wok steamer. Entire plate is picked up from your station. You need to make your own rice, make it pilaf style and use rendered duck fat to parch the rice. Pandan leaf is usually available - order it on supplemental if you don't see it on the invoice in the morning. For Service you will need:
- Chaffing dish to hold rice
- Shallow "gratin" dishes to hold chicken and sauce, gratin dish sits on large oval plate with rice and cucumber/tomato/cilantro garnish (this is like and undressed salad tossed together).
- Service utensils to plate. Draw a complete diagram of how the station will be set up with all components and items labeled in diagram.

Yellow Shrimp Curry - 1/2 Recipe on Day 10 and 1.5x recipe on Day 11 -  Use the curry paste to make the yellow curry sauce. Make the sauce completely, except for the shrimp, and cool it. Just prior to service, heat the sauce and gently poach the shrimp in 1/3 batches in 1/3 of the sauce as needed to stay just ahead of service without over cooking the shrimp- this keeps them from over-cooking on the steam table.

Station 3-
Make sure you find the satay grills and charcoal before the supplemental goes in. I'll show you how to set it up, but it must be done early, you'll need to fire up charcoal and keep feeding the grill with more charcoal as it burns down.

The Beef Satay - 1/2 recipe for Day 10 and 1.5x recipe for Day 11. Trim off external fat and collagen from Flank steak and let me show you how to cut it for satay. You will trim and cut the meat, then put it on skewers, THEN marinate it. Talk to me or one of the people from Station 5 Day 8+9 about how to set up the Satay grill,the Satay grill needs charcoal and it needs to be lit far enough ahead to be hot when needed but not so far ahead that it's run out of heat by the time you're ready to cook. Speak to chef about how to light coals, Be sure to feed fresh coals to the grill before you leave for family meal so you'll have a hot fire when you return. Also be sure to check that we have some charcoal when you place your supplemental order in the morning When service is over, place hot charcoal in a hotel pan of water before putting in the compost.

Peanut Sauce - Should have been made on Day 9 - but if it was not, it will need to be made on Day 10, and used for both days. When cooled to use the following day, it needs to be reheated gently, and it may break - it's an emulsion. If it DOES break, fix it the same way you would fix a hollandaise or mayonnaise (and if you think I mean "use an egg", you need to do more research)

Station #4 -
Make 1x of the Massaman, Pork, and Jungle curry recipe for Day 10 and 2x for Day 11. It's important to start them early, so hustle. Use a small rondo or large sauce pot with a cover, remember to keep covered until the meat is tender to avoid drying out and burning by evaporation. Also remember that you can braise in the oven if the range gets crowded later in the morning, if you don't have room on top of the stove, you can finish in the oven. The braises should go to the steam table in deep 1/2 hotel pans - -covered.

Start the lamb broth by roasting the bones - that's all for Day 10 - just roast the lamb bones and the lamb shoulder, cool and store. On Day 11 you should start a stock with the roasted bones as soon as you arrive - no later than 7:15! The recipe for this is part of the Lamb Shorba recipe for Day 12

Station #5-

Duck Curry, the duck should have been marinated on Day 9, we'll use 1/4 of the marinated duck on Day 10 and the rest on Day 11 - recipe is pretty self explanatory. Pan Roast Duck, while duck is roasting, prepare sauce. When both duck and sauce are finished, hold both separately. Near service, gently heat sauce, add duck and gently heat duck in sauce. Ask for clarification on the blog if you need it. Served from a deep 1/2 hotel pan on the steam table. It's served in a 12" rimmed bowl with steamed rice. You must know the entire recipe for the seafood salad (yam) so that you can assist Station 6.


Fish cakes - We need to make 1# of fish on Day 10 (1/2 recipe) and double on Day 11. It's important that you have a VERY sharp knife to hand mince the fish. Also very important that the long beans are sliced into PAPER thin rounds, if you slice them thicker, the cakes fall apart. Please ask for a demo on slicing the beans before you start. Cakes should be fired in a 325F fryer in small batches as needed for service and put on the street food station in 1/3 pans. I will show you how to form them. They will be served on the street food plate - talk to the sous chefs ahead of service so they can direct you on where to put them when they are cooked, fry them as close to service as possible.


Station #6
Pad Thai- 1x recipe on Day 10 and 3x recipe on Day 11. This is a  Stir fried dish and will be cooked "ala minute" in batches for Day 11 service, divide MEP into 4 batches, it's ok to combine ingredients for sauce ahead. Make sure to have lime and peanuts for garnish. Served from 1/2 hotel pan in steam table into deep noodle bowls. Be sure NOT TO OVER SOAK THE NOODLES - about 5 minutes in very hot tap water(NOT BOILING WATER). The idea is for them to be pliable, not ready to eat. In the wok you will add more liquid and heat and they will become done at that point. I believe that the embedded video may not be exactly the same recipe as the one you have, if it looks different, the technique is the same. Remind me if it's different and we can shoot a new video.
Seafood "yam" is the seafood salad. Make 1x recipe for Day 10 and 1.5x for Day 11. It's easy to make, hold at room temp in a 1/3 or 1/6 pan for use on the street food station.
Pork Vindaloo - follow recipe for 1st stage of the paste - this is important to do on Day 10 and follow through on Day 11, DON'T forget to do it.

Questions?

4 comments:

  1. Chef,
    My team is on station 4 tomorrow. Your blog says to use a large sauce pot or small rondo for the curries. The method for the jungle curry says to cook it in a wok, is this suitable for this dish, or would you like that cooked on the stove as well? Also when fabricating the beef shoulder and pork butts for the different curries is it necessary to trim them of fat, or since these dishes are essentially braised do you want to keep the fat on. Thanks,
    Paul

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    Replies
    1. Paul - Good questions. All of the curries CAN and traditionally WOULD be made in woks, but, like any Braise /stew, they require long, "low and slow' simmering. For us, It's much easier to achieve that on a western range with rondo - the woks require a more attention and "baby-sitting". Also, consider quantities - we only have two sizes of woks, that limits the amount of surface area we have and surface area excellerates reduction and the potential scorching, you're much more likely to burn a curry in an over-sized wok. When possible, use sauce pots or rondos until you're in a place that has smaller woks or makes larger amounts of curry.
      Fat - South East Asian's don't get ENOUGH fat- Americans get too much. IN Thailand, the fat floating on top would be a good thing, here it's a turn -off. trim what you can without being crazy about it.

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  2. Hello chef,
    Im going to be on team five working with the duck curry and I was wondering at what temperature would you suggest par cooking the duck ion the oven after pan roasting.
    Thank you,
    Brianna

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's sometimes not necessary to finish in the oven at all, It depends on how "cooked" the pieces are after starting on the range top. If we need to finish in the oven, moderate - 175C - is best. I'll work with you to start them out and we can talk about the nuances tomorrow.

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