Archive for July, 2006
Cooking with fruit and extracting their natural flavours is healthy and tasty.
We love cooking with Orange Oil and it partners well with King Prawns.

Kham adds drops of the reduced oil to our King Prawn Salad.

The prawns are cleaned and lightly blanched.

Orange Oil is easy to make, just boil off some freshly strained juice (say a litre) and lower the heat and allow to simmer until you have about 200ml and it is thick and syrupy. Allow to cool. Place in a clean bottle and add some Grapeseed Oil cut with a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Keep in the fridge until needed.
Use Orange Oil in Vinaigrette’s or Steamed Fish.
Kuchi & Saki are our Fish Experts, and they love to prepare Japanese style dishes using the fresh fish that we are lucky to have everyday (except Sunday and Monday´s, even the Fisherman need days off too!).

Saki by the pool.
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Sashimi is a Japanese dish mostly involving raw seafood, sliced thinly and served as is with some Wasabi and Soy Sauce, or a Citrus Ponzu sauce. (Not all Sashimi is raw i.e. Octopus, which can be chewy is normally cooked before hand. Beef Sashimi also exists, however, in the western world Sashimi is mostly associated with Raw Fish.)
Make sure you buy the freshest fish possible, and try not to handle the fish too much, otherwise you may bruise the tender flesh, and make sure to keep the fish cool at all times. You will need a very sharp knife for best results.

We will be using Seabass. If possible get the fishmonger to clean and trim the fish for you, otherwise carefully cut along the belly and remove the internal organs, then rinse in cold water. When scaling fish, do so under running water, again being careful not to bruise the flesh.

Remove the head of the fish by cutting just behind the side fins.

Read on……..
Happy Independence Day to all those celebrating it.
Junior´s Teppan Training is complete and before he went “live” we had a final “Dress Rehearsal” with the staff.

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Our “Busy Season” will kick off in September, so from now until then we have some extra free time to relax and catch the rays of the sun.

Laurene & Patti hit “La Playa”.

Junior “Up to his neck”.

Guess it is all “down hill from here”…

A nice “Right” from Patti…

9499! We´ll have to be careful what we say to her in future…
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Back in the Kitchen we are still working on the dish for Alexandra.

Her Official Site has her Bio as well as news about events, also be sure to check out her Fan Site.
We hope to be able to mix Bulgarian and Laotian ingredients, like a blending of two cultures. After a few trials, it looks as though we will continue with the theme of Yoghurt, which is featured in many Bulgarian Recipes. It is unlikely that we will be able to get hold of Authentic Bulgarian Yoghurt, which is creamier and more full bodied than say Greek Yoghurt which is widely available.
Our finished recipe will probably be a Modern combination, and will definitely be a Summer item.
We have had great fun with Tarator, which is a Cold Bulgarian Yoghurt based soup (or Liquid Salad, depending on how you look at it), and it reminds us of Gazpacho (due to the acidity of the Vinegar and “point” of garlic), which in turn reminds us of Tum Mak Deng…weird the way we think…..
Whatever direction we take, you can be sure that we will post the results at Laocook.