Fund Raiser, Round II

In Feb, JAM catered for a fundraiser. Hor d'oeuvres for 30, we did 6 savoury and 3 sweet. I got the savoury tartlet shells from poon huat and to be frank, they sucked. The photo below shows the shells in the background being filled with a lemon cream cheese, smoked salmon and deep fried capers. A fantastic combo marred by substandard shells.

 

At about 20 cents a shell, I should have expected pastries made with their vegetable shortening. When filled and left at room temperature, they were hard and cloying on the palate. Unfortunately, we didn't have the budget for anything else and baking 300 of these just wasn't enticing. However, now that Ming and I have done 1200 macaron shells, baking these tartlet shells seems more feasible than before. A move to maintain the quality of the stuff we put out.

We were called in for a second round of the fundraiser. This time no shells will be needed as the menu will be more substantial. I'm staying away from shells until we find a good source or we get the equipment to bake our own. Right now, I have sashimi grade salmon curing in the fridge and chuck eye roll in the sous vide. Macarons with assorted fillings were made last Saturday so things are going well.

Hope everything goes well, I have a packed 3 weeks ahead :(

Cooking Classes

4 years ago when I was constantly trying to take Jo's eye out and helping to facilitate cooking classes and corporate bonding sessions at the Coriander Leaf, I never thought that I would be running classes of my own. Back then, I couldn't understand why people would pay so much for the same information they could easily find on videojug and youtube. I have a different view on this now.

In Singapore, there isn't much to do. After watching every movie that's out and pacing the malls, cooking classes offer an alternative activity that is interactive without being sweaty, as opposed to passive movie watching and sweaty games of tennis.The tactile learning one goes through by participating in a class gives form to the words and numbers in a recipe. What does consistency of magma or stiff peaks or over whipped cream mean? Better to discover it with your own senses then waste several batches of ingredients finding out on your own.

These classes are also a great way of meeting like minded people. Sure I've met really obnoxious know-it-alls but the majority of the people just want to have a good time doing something they enjoy. One thing I enjoy about hands on classes is that it's a 2 way learning highway. I am there to present a class but we all learn together along the way by fixing things that go wrong on the spot and by trading tips.

Besides being a good source of income, sometimes even better than the cooking stints we get at JAM, we get to showcase our skills and get new leads for what I love doing most, cooking for people. I used to tutor chemistry. I love chemistry but I hated teaching it. I'm quite ok with teaching how to cook though, maybe it really is about the content.

I still think that these classes can be expensive but I can see the allure they have. Check out what I'm doing this month with ToTT and Cookyn with Mervyn.

:)

Circles of Eternal Vexation...

vex·a·tion/vekˈsāSHən/Noun
1. The state of being annoyed, frustrated, or worried.

2. Something that causes annoyance, frustration, or worry.

Why? For starters, these annoying things sometimes go tits up for no reason.

Then, there's ALLLLL that waiting time involved in the multi-stage process of mixing,



piping,


drying,



baking,


filling


and packing...


Yes, I'm talking about macarons and after making at least a thousand filled cookies, I can finally say with conviction that, 'j'ai atteint macaronnage', I have attained macaronnage.



Maca-wud? Macaronnage is the term used to describe getting the correct consistency when mixing your tant pour tant and your meringue. Undermixing gives you puffy meringue-like cookies and overmixing gives you chewy discs.

Even if you get the right consistency, nothing guarantees the elusive feet. I think I've seen them all. No feet, feet right across the top (cracks), lopsided feet, half formed feet, collapsed feet. I generally have a lot of luck with patisserie, I almost never ruin chocolate when melting it down, but with macarons, oh with macarons, I'm always flipping coins...



For Valentine's day, Ming and I filled out orders for 600 cookies. 17 hours was how long it took, from start to finish.

Next time you lament at having to fork out $2.50 for one, just shut up and pay. It's much easier to just buy it.

JAM

I have a test tomorrow, and another one the day after. Also, final exams are about a month away. What better way is there to pass the time than writing an entry here? :) I thought I'd talk a little about the private dining outfit I run with my friends Alroy and Ming.

The 3 of us met during NS where we played rugby for armour. Some time between choreographing the best looking offense/defense drills and dancing to music on the field, we discovered each others inclination toward the kitchen. Soon, we were organising massive meat bbqs for our friends. Once in a while, friends and family would ask us to cook for dinner parties and we started roping in each other to help. It occurred to us that we could increase the quality of what we were making by planning and charging for better ingredients instead of just churning out whatever the person wanted. This was the start of things to come.

The name JAM comes from the first letters of our first names. In sequence, here's the crew.

I love the name. Alroy came up with it one day while we were at Ming's house messing around in the kitchen. Ming's mum was talking to us and asked what we would call ourselves in the future and Roy just spat it out. I was on the crapper at the time but I heard it loud and clear and loved it. That was more than 2 years ago and we've come a long way since. The logo was only finalised this year after a lot of struggle on Ming's part to get the design finished.

Simple, unassuming and yet elegant, quite like our food. I am sure I pissed Ming off quite a bit with all the hounding I did for him to get this done. It's irritating though, when people ask what JOM is. Once that was done, I got the email accounts and website set up, jackets embroidered and the calling cards embossed fairly quickly. Overnight, professionalism x 10,000.


Our charges are low, you will probably never see anything above $100 a person for an individually plated meal with up to 8 courses. Communal plating of 5 dishes goes as low as $50 a person for a large group. We made it this way for several reasons.

1. We're not doing this for profit
2. We don't want to over reach and go beyond our capabilities
3. We don't believe that access to such services should burn a hole in your pockets

We've had more hits than misses, that's for sure. To date I can only think of 2 occasions where our clients were not impressed with our food. Most of the time, we totally exceed expectations and that's a great feeling.

Our cuisine is simple. We take the flavours we like and express them with the ingredients we're familiar with so expect to taste limau purut, lengkuas, gula melaka and tau cheo in our cooking. Having spent almost 7 months in Vietnam on my Industrial Attachment, I must admit that my cooking of late has been influenced by Vietnamese flavours. Some dishes are reinterpretations like this chả cá Thăng Long,


while others are original creations like this tomato, avocado & prawn salad.


Our plating is simple, to save on costs and to showcase the ingredients used.

Roast Leek & Asparagus Salad with Beetroot and Xiao Bai Cai Miao

Hei Mee Ta ( Dry Prawn Mee)

Mi Cuit Salmon with Watercress & Taragon Puree

Chick'n in a Bizkit

Each new client gets a customized menu to fit the theme and reflect the personal preferences that he/she has. After all, it's a meal in your own home, you should get whatever you want. Many people have told me that the JAM website needs to be spruced up but I designed it to be deliberately enigmatic. Before all the press coverage happened, all our clients were recommended to us via word of mouth. This suited us perfectly because we are weekend warriors in the kitchen and this method was just right for the amount of time we could commit to cooking. The site simply serves as a point of contact for those already in the know and as a shell for us to 'chope' the domain name.

So here's a little introduction to what I do at JAM :)

To contact us, drop me an email or visit the website.

Bon Appetit!

This blog has been dormant for over 2 years. Why bother with it now?

Well why the hell not? This blog was never intended to be a place for me to write forced reviews of restaurants. I detest taking pictures of food during a meal anyway. This was a personal project I started to see if I could successfully integrate science and art, eastern and western flavours.

Things have come a long way. My private dining outfit has taken off rather well and the amount of experience and exposure I've gained in the last 2 years has been incredible. I'm currently writing for the Miele Guide as a vacation job and learning a lot about the restaurant business, from outside the kitchen.

Let's see if I can manage to average one post a month till graduation.

For those of you who are interested, feel free to visit my site