’Tis the Season

December 1, 2017 / by Jon Braun

Image above: Rhoda

Frites

At all Frites locations on December 24 and 25, dig into a hearty menu with corn chowder mussels, Turkey ballotine or 1855 USDA black angus roast beef, as well as Christmas brioche pudding. For an additional charge, enjoy two hours of unlimited draught beers, prosecco, house wine and other drinks. Kids also get a Christmas gift and candies from Santa!

All locations including G/F, Oxford House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay; +852 2250 5188 (frites.hk)

The Garage Bar

Enjoy a heart-warming Christmas at the Cordis, Hong Kong with barbecue buffets at the hotel’s outdoor “food truck bar” on December 24 and 25. Among the offerings are rib-eye steak, charcoal-grilled lamb chops, fresh oysters, Canadian snow crab, turkey burgers and more – and the feast isn’t complete without a dessert of baked Alaska and craft beer stout ice cream.

4/F, 555 Shanghai St, Mong Kok; +852 3552 3028 (cordishotels.com)

Pierre’s Picks

December 1, 2017 / by Philippe Dova

Potato Croquettes with Black Truffles and Pine Nuts

Potato mixture:

500g potatoes

180g of the truffle base

50g egg

Pine nuts

• Wash the potatoes and place them on some coarse salt. 
• Place in a 180°C oven. 
• When the potatoes are cooked, put them through a sieve. 
• Heat the water, butter and minced truffle. 
• Add the flour and cook, stirring constantly. 
• Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. 
• Use the flat beater of an electric mixer to mix the truffle base and the sieved potato.
• Add the eggs, then adjust the seasoning. 
• Form this mixture into balls of equal size and roll them in pine nuts. 
• Chill in the freezer until firm. 
• Fry the potato balls in oil heated to 180°C.
• Drain and sprinkle lightly with salt. 

Best of Both Worlds

December 1, 2017 / by Kitty Go

In 2016, Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants named Margarita Forés Asia’s Best Female Chef. This came as no surprise to the many fans of her culinary skills and the followers of her road to restaurant success in the Philippines. Royalty from Prince Andrew to the King and Queen of Spain have enjoyed her cooking, and Forés has represented her country at prestigious culinary events in Berlin, Torino and Madrid. Descended from a Basque family that came to the Philippines during the Spanish colonial period, Forés honed her cooking skills in Italy, but credits early-’80s Hong Kong as the place where she began her appreciation of food “regardless of cuisine”. 

Her restaurant Cibo is named for the Italian word for “food”, but the idea was more than that, Forés explains. “I wanted something basic and it sounded like chi-bog – local Filipino slang that means ‘to eat’.” The chef observed an emerging working middle-class in Manila who could be open to more sophisticated Italian cuisine beyond the “American-style sweet spaghetti.” Aiming for casual, reasonably priced and authentic Italian cuisine, Cibo simply took off. 

The restaurant proved so successful that in 2000, a group of local Chinese businessmen approached her to open a branch in Shanghai’s Xintiandi. Although she has no regrets and still remains cautious about expanding outside the Philippines, Forés recalls: “At that time, China was not in my sphere of things. Now, I realise if we did it, we would have had our foot in the door early.” 

Of course, Forés is a woman who’s always been a bit of a visionary – and her refusal to compromise or settle for second-best has reaped all sorts of rewards in a competitive, challenging industry. With Cibo, she refused to
substitute ingredients or flavours to suit local tastes (in fact, there was a sign indicating exactly that on every table) as she aimed to educate the market on real Italian cuisine. 

Her tart-flavoured pasta and the organic squash soup, both using local ingredients, have become two of Cibo’s iconic dishes. “I had to fight for this with my family and partners, because it drove the food costs up,” she recalls, on the restaurant’s 20th anniversary this year. “One really needs to take a position. Not everything on the bottom line can be measured with money.”

Economic progress in the Philippines has been relatively slow compared to many other Asian economies. But instead of mourning the country’s lack of industrialisation, Forés celebrates it. “Slow food and the farm-to-table trend caught up with us!” she exclaims with a smile. “We hardly industrialised and were so behind that way, but now we are ahead because we were behind.” 

Agriculturally, the country now produces a variety of tomatoes in the south (which has a similar terroir to Italy), local cheeses, healthy rice substitutes such as Job’s tears (adlay), and heirloom rice in an array of colours from black to red. Souring agents and vinegars are created from local citrus fruits, pineapple, palm leaves and cane sugar. Wood sorrel, popularised by the globally lauded Copenhagen restaurant Noma, is a weed that literally grows “like a weed” in the Philippines. 

“We have the first fusion cuisine,” claims Forés proudly, when asked why Filipino food has taken so long to be internationally accepted, “We have Chinese, Malay and Mexican cuisine via the Spanish galleon trade – then add to that 45 years of burgers and Coke. This diversity is hard to identify and put in a box. We have to realise this – and to single it out is a big mistake.” 

On Gourd

December 1, 2017 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

Acorn Squash with Bacon-Chive Crumbs

Ingredients

• 3 medium-sized acorn squash (peeled, cut into slices and deseeded)
• 5 cloves garlic
• 3 tsp fresh thyme
• 1 cup apple cider
• ½ cup chicken or vegetable broth
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 5 slices bacon
• ½ cup panko (Japanese-style breadcrumbs)
• ¼ cup fresh chives, snipped

Add the acorn squash slices, garlic and thyme in a slow cooker. Next, pour in the cider, broth and brown sugar. Leave on low-heat mode for 3 to 6 hours. Near the end of that process, fry the bacon in a skillet until crisp; drain the grease, then finely crumble it and set aside. Cook the panko in the same skillet until golden. Mix the crumbled bacon, panko and chives in a separate bowl. To serve, sprinkle the crumb mixture on top of the cooked acorn squash, which should be moved to a separate platter after cooking.

Butternut Squash Soup

Ingredients

• 1 medium-sized butternut squash (cubed, cut into slices and deseeded)
• 2 tbsp butter 
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 1 carrot, chopped 
• 2 potatoes, cubed 
• 2 red chillies, finely chopped
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• Salt and black pepper (to taste) 

Strange Bedfellows

December 1, 2017

Destination Cocoa

October 27, 2017 / by Albert Pommier

Although Indonesia is the world’s third-largest cocoa producer after the Ivory Coast and Ghana, its beans have not traditionally been known for their quality. Bali, which harvests some 5,000 tonnes a year (about 3% of Indonesia’s total production), was no exception – that is, until recently, when the Cuvée Bali chocolate by French brand Valrhona helped raise the bar. 

Far from the island’s idyllic beaches and tattooed surfers, the Jembrana region produces 50% of Bali’s cocoa. Until recently, the beans were sold raw, at low prices to middlemen working with agri-food and cosmetics industry giants. But five years ago, Agung Widiastuti, the chairwoman of non-governmental organisation Kalimajari, and the 500 cocoa farmers of the Kerta Semaya Samaniya (KSS) cooperative decided to take up the quality challenge. 

“When you talk about quality, you’re talking about the process of fermenting the beans,” says Widiastuti. “In 2012, I started helping the farmers of this cooperative to improve their production in order to find more upscale buyers.” At the time, Valrhona was looking to create an Asian chocolate to address growing demand from its clients in the region. The company entered into a partnership with the cooperative and in 2016 bought its first container-load of the fermented, sun-dried, hand-sorted beans, paying double the usual market price. Valrhona then shipped the beans to France – and Cuvée Bali was soon launched.

“With a 68% cocoa-content chocolate and a good chocolate-to-acid balance, it’s definitely going to appeal to lots of consumers and pastry chefs,” says Pierre Tabarié, chief representative and area manager for Valrhona Asia Pacific. 

Jean-Marc Gaucher, the executive pastry chef at The Mira Hong Kong, is also impressed – he makes it a point of principle to use quality local products such as organic honey from Hong Kong, and uses Cuvée Bali in a number of the desserts served at the hotel’s Café Gourmand afternoon coffee hour. “I’m not going to say it’s got this or it’s got that, or that I can sense the sea breeze when I bite into it – that’s not it,” he says. “But it really has a character and a sophistication that I like.” 

Count the Stars

October 27, 2017 / by Philippe Dova

Fun Guy

October 27, 2017 / by Pierre Godeau

What are the most popular types of mushrooms and what’s the best season to gather them? 

The most emblematic are porcini, chanterelle and morel. In France, morels start to grow in the spring, chanterelles from mid-June and porcini in the autumn. Depending on the country, the mushroom season ranges from spring until late autumn. In China, summer is porcini season, whereas in the Balkans you get them in late spring. 

Where do they grow best? 

You can never be sure. For mushrooms to grow, you need a humid climate with some temperature variation, you need woodlands or prairies, and you need elevation. In the woodlands, there have to be particular species of trees. Some require deciduous trees like oak, ash and hazel to develop, while others prefer resinous species such as pine and spruce. Porcinis grow in most regions of France, in the Balkans, in Yunnan and in Mongolia. You get lots of morels in India, Pakistan, China and Turkey, and large quantities of chanterelles in the Balkans. Everywhere, growth increases when the phase of the moon changes.

How are wild mushrooms different from cultivated ones? 

The former grow naturally in forests, without any human intervention, and are gathered by hand. Quantities vary greatly from one season to the next – and from one location to the next. It’s impossible to predict what the harvest will be. 

While there’s no difference between a wild mushroom and one cultivated from the same mycelium, most wild mushrooms such as porcini, chanterelles and black trumpets remain impossible to cultivate. The Chinese cultivate certain types, such as morels, and experiments are being done in France. However, there are so many factors that need to be controlled – temperature, moisture, proper mycelium development – that growing them is still a very uncertain and not necessarily economically worthwhile venture.

What’s the best way to preserve a mushroom after picking it? 

The best “technology” to use depends on the type. Morels are best dried, chanterelles should be preserved in glass jars and freezing is best for porcinis. 

Chocolate, Artfully

October 27, 2017 / by China Daily Lifestyle Premium

What’s in a Label?

October 27, 2017 / by Demetri Walters, MW