Happy birthday to Me

The first birthday cake I made for myself :). Wish me all the best in this new year

Culinary Blog Activity 2: Sensory Evaluation

BALUT – DARE YOU TRY?

“A Balut is a boiled fertilized duck embryo. It is ideally 17 days old, just as when the embryo starts to develop, before it becomes ready for consumption. Also at this point in time, the bulk of the egg is made of ‘yolk’ while the embryo, which would turn into cute little chick eventually, is simply nothing but a small lump covered with white albumen-like membrane. The balut should be boiled for about half an hour before it is eaten, similar to preparation of a hard-boiled egg.”

This is not the first time I have baluts (I have been tried duck balut and quail balut before) but the example I have today is also the first time I tasted: Chicken Balut! In Vietnam, we don’t have chicken Balut because we think it is quite small, not tasty like duck balut or quail one and somebody said that will cause poison inside?! Although I got balut before but whenever I have balut, I still feel shuddering inside. 

Visually, chicken balut is plainly an egg, except that this one has feathery wings, premature beak, and a pair of brittle legs.. By not imagining too much on how it looks, eating balut is as easy as peeling its shell. As for the taste, it is at par with the regular hardboiled egg, even more flavorful indeed. Moreover, eating balut is an art. Each country has different ways to enjoy this unique dish. The art begins by cracking a small hole on its shell. Start peeling the shell from the crack. As I peeled, the amniotic fluid would eventually drip. I started drinking all the juice from the egg. The salty flavor of the amniotic fluid would remind me of your favorite entrée, and for that, I was getting the right appetite for the main course. I kept sipping through until there was not any of “juice” left. This is my most favorite step when eating balut. After that, I continue peeling the shell until the main course is finally revealed. Start with the yolk first; this was the yellowish part of the chunk. That is good with sprinkles of salt and pepper. The yolk tasted like any egg yolk and the texture is consistently soft. There was the hard egg white part which I really enjoyed chewing it. Last but not least, the chick! I guess I was lucky because this was a ideal balut which had a bit small chick and mostly covered by a thick white membrane. As usual, I felt a little bit giddy when going with chick part, so I used some Vietnamese mint (which we always use when eating balut in Southern style) to reduce the strong flavor of balut. After spooned out whole chick from the shell, I bite into the crunchy break of tiny bones from the chick which well combine with a bit chewy texture. Surprisingly, chicken balut tasted all the same but less flavor comparing with duck balut. It might because the chicken balut is smaller and quite “young”, the texture is more tender than original one. 

Balut is not an egg, not a chick, it is something in between which make it is the unique in the unique dish ever to dare people to try. Moreover, this is a high protein dish with at some point have a health benefit for human body. I do enjoy eating balut sometimes but I still have the shuddering feeling whenever I eat it. Therefore I am thinking of another dish with these unique dishes. May be I will deep-fried it then deep in tamarind sauce with a little bit of chopped peanuts and crunchy fried slice shallot twisted in some Vietnamese mint. That will upgrade all the best flavor from balut and the deep-fried cover will make it look more tasty by eyes and even when eating it.

Cheese Tasting

Vegetable Cookery

Week 4 already

Croquembouche - From the goodies sweet treats to fancy wedding cake.

I do love cakes and bake cakes. After the love for Tiramisu with me, is Profiteroles or Cream Puffs. I have never made it before but I would love to if I have time. When I craving for small, cutie, soft and creamy Puffs, I just go straight to Sobeys and buy 1 box of Sensations Profiteroles – that is the best brand having really taste and quite cheap for Cream Puffs.


Back to Recipe Research, I found the recipe I am really interested in and would love to make it on my birthday from Patisserie: An Encyclopedia of Cakes, 1994 of Aaron Maree. “Croquembouche” or Cream Puffs tower means Crack-in-the-mouth – A traditional French wedding cake of choux pastries (profiteroles), each filled with crème patissiere (smooth custard cream), joined together in a pyramid shape with caramel, and decorated with spun sugar.


Recipe


Pastry


1½ cups water


150g unsalted (sweet) butter


1 ¼ cups plain (all purpose flour)


5 eggs lightly beaten


Filling



2 cups of crème patissiere


To Decorate


1 quantity of caramel


Basically, every ingredients and steps in this recipe is the same with any recipe to make cream puffs and caramel. However, instead of Cream Puffs have the whipped cream filling inside, the Profiteroles for Croquembouche have the custard cream. In my opinion, I would prefer the whipped cream for Croquembouche, that will bring more fresh taste for the cakes, not too sweet and heavy thick texture for a bite of Cream Puff.

Culinary Blog

Hi, my name is Trang Nguyen or you can call me Scarlett because my favorite color is red and by another personal reason: the short called of Scarlett is "Scar". I am Asian girl and with the age of 23 I just think I am quite old to start over again with studying instead of starting build up my career.

As you know, everybody loves eating, me either, so I just feel I love cooking and be serious with that when I was back my hometown, had my internship for my last year of university. At that time, I spent my time with my family, enjoyed every single time with them and took care by cooking for my parents. Day by day, I felt in love with cooking and especially baking so much. Whenever I felt stressed and depressed, I led myself to the kitchen and cooked anything I could, just focused on that and forgot anything upset me. However, the weird thing is I was usually not eating what I cooked. I don’t know why but I am prefer sitting there, look at the way people enjoy my dish and be happy. I will be happier if receiving feedbacks about my food.

Asking a question about “Why you want to be a Chef?” and studying Culinary now. The best answer is I just do what to make me happy and help me to improve myself with passion. After graduated, I want to work for a while to gain experiences and have enough money to pursuit my continuing study in France for Pastry Arts or Italy for Savory Dish. That is my dreaming plan at this time.

Currently, I am offered a job in line cook of Wilbur Mexicana (opening soon). That is my first job too so I feel little nervous for this commission. 1 year ago when I was at home, I ran a small online-business for cakes and goodies. That did not bring me as much profits but at least I could bake and tried new recipes and learnt.

My personal philosophy of cooking is “Cook with Love”. I found the love with cooking few years ago because cooking makes me happy and feels de-stressed. I put my heart on that then my dish is full of loves and tasty. “Whatever you do, do with love and that will give back love to you”.