The restaurant is full tonight and I’m grabbing a quick bite before they chain me to the oven. In line with my new and improved eating habits, designed to make me the thinnest (and meanest) chef in town, I’m having chicken and vegetables. Now that’s not a punishment at all, if you know how to cook the stuff. The chicken I’m using is an organic bird, marinated in Guinness for goodness. That simply because it’s something that’s on the menu anyway, so I wasn’t going to find an un-marinated bird in the chiller. Doing it at home, you might just rub the old chicken with a little lemon peel, olive oil and any chopped herb you may have floating around and leave that to infuse for a little while. Like an hour or five.
Now take a nice, healthy zucchini, or a courgette, if you can’t find a zucchini, preferably a green one. Wash it, cut it in quarters lengthwise, cut out the seedy middle and cut each quarter into three (again lengthwise) and then cut into reasonably even batonnets (meaning sticks in French). Now don’t be anal about equal size, just get it roughly right and you’ll be fine.
The next step is a really difficult one: Find a nice, red, ripe and tasty tomato. Make it a big one. Start by checking out the tomatoes on the vine. I suggest you invest about five ringgit per tomato. Anything less and you’ll probably end up with a pulpy, green, tasteless piece of rubbish disguised as a tomato. Even at that price you’re not immune from imposters, so I suggest biting into it before buying the thing. Take home good tomato, wash, seed and cut into strips (how you do that is up to you).
Next step: Put your chicken into a frying pan, or slap it on the grill if you have a grill and cook until almost done, then leave to rest while doing the following:
Heat olive oil in pan, add a very generous amount of chopped garlic and a little chopped shallot and fry until the garlic turns just lightly brown. Add zucchini bits and toss about in the pan for 30 secs. Salt very generously, grind a fair amount of black pepper over it and keep tossing the things about every now and again. The cooking of a zucchini takes longer than you think, so don’t undercook, there’s hardly anything more off putting than the squeegee sound undercooked zucchini makes when you bite into it. Tip: When the thing starts to look translucent on the flesh side, it still has a good amount of crunch, so that’s when you add: The Tomato!
Now don’t cook the life out of the tomato, just heat it through and warm it up and make it give you a little juice. I suggest you add a little more salt at this stage. Dip a finger into the pan quickly and taste. Now toss a shot glass of white wine into the pan and wait for it to bubble away. You don’t want the taste of uncooked wine in there, no matter how much you love the stuff.
Put your vegetables on the plate, pour some very good olive oil over it (we use stuff that costs almost RM 200 per litre and you shouldn’t be stingy either), cut chicken into three thick slices, place on top, pour yourself a glass of wine and eat your healthy, tasty meal.
Oh, and by the way, it took me just fifteen minutes to cook this meal, much less time than it took to write it down!

… is the fact that I haven’t written a blog for over a month. I’ve got a weak excuse, which kind of covers me for two weeks, but then there’s the other three that provide me with none at all. I was here (granted, I was down with the flu, but that gives you more time to contemplate, not less) but I was just lazy. A complete lack of inspiration came over me that I just haven’t been able to shake. Everytime I start to write, it turns into a complete diatribe of frustration about one or the other basically rather unimportant thing. The one thing of interest that  have been mulling over (talking about scandalous) is whether at sixty I shall be able to overpower a person a head taller and  close to forty years younger than me in order to have my wicked way with them against their will. And I’m saying person here, because I know a good many women who could deliver a well aimed kick to the softer parts of my anatomy that would send me reeling from the room all thought of sexual gratification clean wiped from my mind for at least the rest of the day. But then again, I’m still a decade and a half away from 60, so I have yet to realise the full power of my body (or at least my loins) and I shall look forward to the day.

And here’s how to make the bestest cucumber sandwich that you ever wrapped your lips around. First, start with the bread. Now I know that some people (or maybe even most) like really soft, fluffy bread, but to me that sort of thing is a complete waste of calories. If I have to stuff my face with something that contains a large amount of calories per square inch, then I want it to be good. No, not just good, outstanding! Therefore I make my own bread. Okay, I’m not saying I’m the best baker that ever pummelled a ball of dough, but what I make beats anything I’ve ever bought in a KL shop by a very long stretch. I’ve loaded two basic bread recipes into the recipe folder (on your right), so if you’re mad enough, make a few loaves. If not, try and find something with a little density to it, for God’s sake.

You would think that doing a thousand canapés when you’re eighteen would forever cure you of the fiddly little things, but that is not the case. I admit that while I sit here writing this, my team are finishing the remainder of 1,200 of them, but I DID slice 200 slices of bread and spread cream cheese mix on the slices. The fact of the matter is, I still like them. A lot. We have a large list of canapés at Frangi and at almost every function we do, we add a new one to that list. There is, believe it or not, a fashion in canapés. A few years ago, the spoons were all the rage, but now, we are slowly returning to bread. In fact I am actively promoting the humble finger sandwich.

The finger sandwich has been unjustly maligned and I think I know why! A few weeks ago I went to Cameron Highlands and of course did the cheesy thing and had scones at Ye Olde Smoke House, or whatever its unlikely name is. Cucumber sandwiches featured on the menu at a rather whopping price (in fact, the same amount will buy you ten cucumber sandwich canapés at Frangi. With prawns in the middle!), but I just had to have them. I imagined a dainty, preferably flower rimmed porcelain plate arriving holding four just double bite sized, pale English sndwchs (that’s the royal pronunciation) with a hint of green in the middle. I would bite into them and find the butter just slightly salted, the bread nice and dense (meaning NOT Gardenia) and the slices of cucumber a bland crunch. Rude was the awakening, I can tell you!

компютри втора употребаPlonked in front of us (by a very nice waitress, it has to be said) was a rough earthenware plate bearing two halves of the dreaded Gardenia, crust ON!!! and next to it was a SALAD!!! and CHIPS!!!!!! CRINKLE CUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All that was once good in mankind had been dragged through the Planta mire that glued that abominable sandwich together. As they brought the bottles of Ketchup and Chilli Sauce, I threw a handful of shekels at the sinister, smiling management, dashing into the open air to violently throw up into the adjacent golf course. Ye Olde Smoke House has been desecrated and I swear I shall never darken their towels again.

Which brings us back to the cucumber sandwiches. I’ll give you the recipe for The World’s Best Cucumber Sandwiches in the next blog.

I’m sitting in the kitchen, quietly contemplating tonight’s dinner for a hundred and thirty people. It’s a grand affair, the restaurant has been transformed into a golden cave, complete with Brazilian band, mirror balls and dance floor in the pond. The menu however is quite simple, as the emphasis is on party, not dining. Still, cooking for that many people is always a challenge. You may not know this, but banquet kitchens in hotels work in a completely different manner from us free standing operations. They pre-cook everything, including your fish, steak, chicken, vegetables, arrange it ready on plates then flash chill the thing and hold it. At the point of service, the whole rack with neatly stacked plates is wheeled into a special reheating oven and out come the plates, ready to be garnished, sauced and sent out. It’s an amazing system. Unfortunately, its a system we poor little restaurants cannot afford and so we have to make everything a la minute. The results, it has to be said, are superior, but getting there is highly stressful.

Tonight we have an hour to get the dinner done. About twenty minutes per course is just nice, so this is a very reasonable request. Still, it means sending out 390 plates in 60 minutes or 6.5 plates every single minute of that hour. I better not think about this, I’m starting to scare myself. Evidently, I’m not alone in the kitchen and my team are very experienced and quite used to this sort of event, so having finished all the mise en place, they are larking about, wanting an early break.

A little hour later and we’re back in the kitchen getting 300 canapes ready. This is not a large amount and we’re happy with the timing so far. Now we must start setting out the first plates and checking back whether the guests are all on time (not likely). If we start too early the first course will be cold. Then there’s the matter of choice of mains. It will take us 20 minutes to get all the mains onto the plates, but it will take an additional 10 to salt, pepper and prepare mains, so normally we like to build in a second starter as buffer to allow us to take the orders. We don’t have that today, we’re straight from starter to mains, so we have to wing it a bit. We’re guessing the mains orders and will start preparing a bit short of total, meaning we will simply make 30 of each main and then add on the rest as the order comes in. Hopefully we will be able to get this done by the time the last of the 90 plates is out. We’ll see..

After that, we’re home free. Dessert is easier as it can be plated and kept waiting without damage. The gong’s going and we’re off. Keep fingers crossed and we’ll be cleaning up in an hour and a half.