On Thai red curry.....

    I've been trying my best to keep up with the blog but I have had so much going on that it's become quite difficult to get anything accomplished. There's a good amount of action happening at work with the restaurant. We have been super busy with special events and day-to-day business. In the middle of it all I had to change the menu to accommodate some requests that we received from the owners. 

    Working in hotels has its perks but there's a lot of politics and procedures you have to deal with. Yes, you're the chef but you still need to accommodate all the special desires from everyone that is somehow involved with the restaurant. We really cater to our guests needs and expectations to the point that the menu revolves not around the creativity and talent of the chef but around our clientele, owners, and all our executives. In order to change something on the menu we have to go through a series of steps that involve planning the changes around our guests wants, running the dish as a special for a good week, having multiple tastings for the executives and the staff, making sure that the purchasing department is able to get the correct products I need for the dish, and then finally launching and making sure the team is executing the menu items to perfection. 

   It almost takes the fun out of being creative, it's a difficult process that not all chefs have to deal with but I'm glad that I get to challenge myself in this manner. One of the owners wanted to see a chicken curry dish on the menu which is something simple to accommodate but doesn't really go with my style of cooking or plating. I automatically thought of a Thai red curry. I'm infatuated with South East Asian cooking; I love the flavor profiles and overall balance of their dishes. The use of fresh herbs and ingredients is what really draws me to the cuisine. I wasn't worried about making the curry sauce as much as I was worried about the presentation. I didn't want to make a red chicken curry, place it in a bowl, serve it with a side of rice and call it day. I was really looking to make a composed plate of some sort. 

  I had the chance to stage at Kinshop; Harold Dieterle's contemporary Thai restaurant in New York City. They make all the curries from scratch and the interesting thing about their curries is that they use them as a sauce as opposed to making the curry paste and cooking the ingredients all together in a pot to meld the flavors. I opted to go the same route and made a Thai red curry sauce, on pick up I roast all my vegetables separate and warm the sauce to order. The chicken is marinated in lemongrass, shallots, kaffir lime leaves, and garlic. It is cooked to order and then cut in half. I'm using a boneless half chicken for the dish. I place the red curry sauce on the bottom of the plate, arrange my vegetables in the middle of the sauce, and then place the chicken over the vegetables, 

    The end result is not a traditional Thai red curry but it shares strong similarities. I garnish the plate with fresh herbs, green radish, crispy shallots and garlic. I have a really good and traditional red curry paste recipe that I obtained from the grandmother of one of my friends, I'm up for sharing it if anyone is interested. Just leave me a comment below or send me a message on Facebook. Here's some pictures of the finished product.