Chocolate Room at Soneva Fushi

When talking to guest about the resort I work in I always compare it to a chefs paradise, partly because I can buy the best products from every where, then I have a great team that makes the best out of these products and I have guests who truly enjoy our offering.

But there is more, we have an organic garden that falls under me and I will tell you more in another blog about it, we have 3 amazing a la carte restaurants serving true Japanese foods, progressive Mediterranean and fusion Asian food, we do special events, sandbank dinners, organic garden lunches, buffets BBQ's and more.

Now our main buffet area has some really amazing features, something one will not find everywhere. One of these features is the Chocolate Room. It is most probably the absolute favored room by everybody on the island. All the chocolates are hand made with the best chocolate. We are buying different brands but some of the best is Valrhona Chocolate. I buy a very special chocolate from them which is their Fair Trade brand. Yes it costs a little more but here at Soneva we like to do our part in sustainability and Fair Trade chocolate is one part of it. Most of the chocolates we do is made from dark chocolate. There is a lot of healthiness to dark chocolate, I am not going too much into it, but yes, a little bit of dark chocolate improves your health....a little bit, hehehe!!!!

We change the chocolates all the time, at any given time we have at least 15 different chocolate on the buffet. The room is perfectly air conditioned, so the chocolates will stay nice and hard. Even the plates are made out of chocolate, like all the show pieces in the back ground. I have to say that I am blessed with a very creative team of chefs.

In the morning we serve only chocolate pastries in this room, chocolate croissants, chocolate bread and more, then it gets changes for our Pralines during the day.....yes the room is open all day and only gets locked at night.

We like to play a little with the flavors, one of the stranger combinations is dark chocolate with goats cheese. Sometimes we use blue cheese which I think goes a little better. Then of course we combine all the fruits into ganache, like raspberries, passion fruit, coconut, and blueberries. Then we like of course the classic flavors, coffee, toffee and salted caramel. We got the hot and exotic ones, the pink pepper, chili and ginger,

Then there are little chocolate lollipops, chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate covered nuts. There is chocolate mousse, chocolate brownies and yes, there are huge chocolate slabs that one just want to take a bite.

Yes, the chocolate room is one of the reasons I love working in this absolutely wonderful spot, want to come and visit??????? 

Tokyo Fish Market

Another blast from the past, a little bit from my travels while working on some of the most amazing cruise ships. This time it is about the visit of the Tokyo Fish Market, something that will always stay in my memory. I think it is one of the most amazing markets in the world and it was an eye opener for me at the same time....but let me tell you the whole story

While being the Executive Chef on "The World" we spent a couple of days in the port of Tokyo as part of our one month circumnavigation of Japan. During this time I had a little time to explore this amazing city, amazing in every aspect as basically nobody speaks English and all the roads are marked in Japanese only. The city is absolutely huge, so one better does not get lost in it.

One of the adventures I had was going to the Tokyo Fish Market, the biggest in the world and famous for its tuna auction which happens every morning. We got up nice and early, outside was still dark, so around 4.00 in the morning we were in the taxi to get to the market. It was still cold outside as it was early spring, but all the excitement we had was enough to keep us warm.

One of the most amazing parts of the Fish market is the Tuna Auction. All the tuna is lying on wooden pallets and are ready for inspection. All of them are frozen and will sell for a lot of money. For Japanese freshness of the fish is paramount, so why would they buy frozen fish? It is actually quite simple, Tuna is caught all over the world, the boats are sometimes out for many month. To keep the fish fresh it will be shock frozen, that means it will be put through a freezer line that freezes a big tuna in minutes. Like this the ice crystals are very small and won't deter the quality. 

When the tuna gets defrosted carefully, the meat will still be in perfect condition. So to buy a top quality frozen fish is actually not a bad thing, I rather have that then a "fresh" fish that might be already in the shop for days. But everything else on the market is super fresh and sometimes still alive.

Another amazing part is to see how everybody works, the ethics the camaraderie, the team work. The best example is when they fillet a tuna, the fish is so big that one needs more than one person to do the job. Sometimes up to three people help with the filleting. They use a special knife that is about two Meters long, flexible and extremely sharp. With the skilled men they are able to fillet a tuna leaving none of the precious meat on the bone. I was just watching them how the quickly filleted a fish, working in complete harmony and making it look so easy

Another great par is to see all the different types of fish and seafood. Here I stood behind some New Zealand Green Shell Mussels, I had never in my life seen Green Shell Mussels of that size, I just had to have a photo with me, just to see the huge size of them. But of course there was a lot more to see. All the sea Urchin, the Hamachi, I found Guey Duck which is a clam that is mainly from the west coast of Canada, a Clam with a mussel hanging out that is up to 50 cm long. It gets mainly used for Sashimi, and of course there was so much more.

We must have spent something between 3 to 4 hours in the market and I could spend easily a lot more time there, I think I have only seen a fraction of the entire market, but the memories I have are always with me and have changed my way of thinking, especially about freshness and quality of fish, about the way the Japanese take care of the products in the market, it was a real eye opener.

I have seen many fish markets in the world, but I think this one is by far the most impressive one, the sheer size, the cleanliness of it, yes it smells of fish, but it it is all fresh, it smells of the sea. By the time we left they were already busy cleaning up the market, everybody is making sure their little stand is absolutely clean for the next day

On the way out we could see all the fish packed and ready to be delivered to thousands of restaurants, not just in Tokyo, but all over the region and some is even exported. It was a fantastic experience and I hope that some day I will be able to go back to Tokyo and it is 100% sure that I will go back to one of the most fascinating fish markets on the world

Crab and Avocado Timbale

Another quick dish with crab, this time a starter, very easy to prepare and so delicious in the end.

The easiest way to prepare this dish is actually to buy the crab meat and if you want you can even buy the avocado puree, it will make your life a lot easier. Yes of course it is great to take the meat out of the crabs, but believe me, it takes quite a bit of time and after buying so much crab, you won't have that much meat left over......

I serve the avocado as a puree, just because it looks really nice and tastes delicious. the peppers are roasted, peeled and marinated for a while.

I like this dish a lot because it is a perfect way to start a light summer lunch or if you want to can simply make the salad bigger and enjoy the crab as a salad main course

Recipe
700 G White Crab Meat
100 G Mayonaise
150 G Chopped Celery Stick
20 G Basil Leaf
150 G Red Bell Pepper
150 G Yellow Bell Pepper
150 G Green Bell Pepper
300 g Red Onion
500 G Avacado Puree
300 G Feta Cheese
150 ML Lime Juice
Salt & Pepper

Method
Sautee crab meat with chopped onions and garlic, cool down

Finely chop the celeriac, mix with crab mix and mayonnaise

Roast the peppers in the oven with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary
Cool the peppers down in a bag, then peel
Cut the peppers in wedges and roll them up

Season the crab mix with lime juice, salt and pepper

Serve with baby leaves, cocktail tomato, avocado puree
Lime and balsamic reduction

Pepper Crab from Sri Lanka

Happy New Year to everybody!!!!

The recipes keep on coming, today another lovely recipe with crabs. The crabs we have are absolutely amazing, the meat is sweet and juicy and the way we prepare it they become a real feast. We are getting the crabs as well from Sri Lanka, so they are really nice and fresh.

As we do not fly any life animals at Soneva Fushi, the crabs we buy are quickly boiled to kill them and then flash frozen, only then they are sent to us. I think over the last couple of blogs you could see that we do things different here at Soneva Fushi. We try to keep our carbon foot print down and are busy reducing it to Zero by the end of 2014, a big thing to do. The of course we go as much as possible local, organic and sustainable.......I think in the long run this is the only way all the hotels should go but unfortunately only a small fraction is actually doing it.

So one of the things we don't do is flying life animals around half the globe that our guests can savor them, no, this is cruel to the animals so there is no way that we will do it, no oysters, no fresh lobster from US and Canada, but still we buy the best available products and have extremely happy guests......we call that as well Intelligent Luxury.

Anyway, back to our crab dish. The sauce is extremely easy as we don't want to overpower the crab, just onions, garlic and oyster sauce, a little extra pepper and that's it.

Here is the recipe

Recipe
3 Kg whole Crabs
250 G Butter
750 Ml Oyster Sauce
125 G Garlic
75 G Onion
100 G Spring Onion
50 G Sugar
30 G Black Pepper Powder
1.5 Kg Steamed Rice

Method
Cut the crabs in large pieces, crack the shells open, especially the claws
Dust the crabs in corn flour and pepper
Saute in oil for a couple of minutes, add sugar and some more pepper

Cut onions and garlic finely, then add to the crab
Add the oyster sauce, bring quickly to the boil
Toss quickly

Serve the crabs on a plate, garnish with fresh spring onions and lotus root chips

Steamed rice separate

Chocolate Soup

Still on the desserts, this time with a chocolate soup, but with a little difference. I am sure you have seen the special chocolate slabs with sea salt in the delicatessen areas of the shops? It is something similar but we will go one step further, we will combine chocolate, sea salt and olive oil into an amazing dessert.

The soup is very easy to do, it is basically cream with a top quality chocolate, I like to use one of the top Valrhona dark chocolates like the Guanaja which has a great flavor and is about 70% cocoa, so dark and intense.

I made a photo from the top, so you can see the salt flakes and the swirl of olive oil. The streusel are normal streusel one uses for cake toppings, just baked without a cake..... It gives great texture to the dish and actually cuts the richness a bit

Recipe
200 G (7 oz) Chocolate
1 L (1 qrt) Fresh cream
 Sea salt flakes
 Olive oil

Streusel
100 g (3.5 oz) Butter
100 g (3.5 oz) Sugar
150 g (5.5 oz) Flour

Method
Heat the cream until 80C and add the chocolate
Cool down completely

Mix the butter, sugar and flour together, make sure you got fairly big crumbs
Refrigerate for a couple of hours
Bake in the oven at 180C till golden brown, which takes only a couple of minutes
Cool down completely before using

Santa has come to town

Santa on his Speed Boat

Like every year, Santa is coming to won all over the world and of course it is the same here at Soneva Fushi in the sunny Maldives. For some unknown reason I was chosen to be Santa this year. I was pondering over the reasons for a long time and just could not come to a conclusion........maybe there was a little hint when I looked down on me and saw this tiny little bulge sticking out, the result of enjoying and tasting food for many, many years. Yes I admit, it was my tummy that made everybody vote for me and there was absolutely no chance for escape.

The kids waiting for Santa

The costume was bought and flown in from London, fancy yes I know...but it was just because we had some people coming from there and they could bring the costume, the purchase was made over the internet. When I tried it on the first time I immediately knew that it must have come from a cold country as it was excruciatingly hot in it and I was not sure if I would actually survive the ordeal....as you can see I did.

We had about 20 kids on the island, most of them still in the age of believing in Santa, so it was a big thing for everybody. I had 2 elves with me and of course Mrs. Santa.

Santa, Mrs Santa and the 2 little elves

After changing in a secret place (GM's home) we went off to the other side of the island, hopped on the speed boat and off we went. What a great ride, just at the end when I had to stand in front of the boat and have to admit that my knees where a bit wobbly, I am not good standing on something that is not steady.

Anyway, we arrived with a big ho ho ho and the kids had major fun. Every one got a personalized present and they all promised to listen to their parent and go to bed when told to....hehehe, I am sure it is not working but worth a try.

Santa with the kids

Overall it ended up to be a lot of fun, hot, sweaty, but a lot of fun. To see the kids faces when they were called up was just marvelous and to see them when they received their little present which was packed in second hand paper  (as we are making sure we look after nature, stay sustainable and reuse as much as we can) was worth every little drop of sweat. We laughed a lot and had fun, so it was a great experience.

A big thank you has to go to everybody who helped, especially Dorine who is in charge of The Den, our kids club. She personalized with name every little present and made sure that Santa got the right present for the right child.

After a good hour we were off again, happy kids, happy parents and happy Santa, Mrs. Santa and the two gorgeous little elves. I guess next year I will be Santa again if I fit in perfectly into the costume......

Family Santa with Dorine

Duck leg with smoked Risotto

Christmas is coming and I want to do something different for the festive season. Duck goes well in the Christmas season, but I am bored of the traditional Duck in Orange sauce. So I am preparing today a slow cooked duck leg, and as it is cooked in its own fat it is called confit. The cooking process takes 3 to 4 hours, one has to be patient, but the result is absolutely delicious.

With the duck leg I prepare a risotto. I have mushrooms in it and instead of a light chicken stock I make a brown chicken stock. For that I roast the bones in the oven till they are nice and dark brow.....remember, only dark brown as if the bones burn the stock will be bitter.

As for the smoke..... I am "cheating" a bit, I am taking one of my fancy powders from the Molecular Cuisine, the smoke powder. If you use smoke powder get a top quality one. I use the products of a company called Sosa. They specialize in all sorts of flavors and products used in the Molecular Cuisine but can of course be used as well in normal cuisine. We don't actually do Molecular here, I call it more progressive Cuisine as we use the aids which can give you amazing flavor combinations, without actually being Molecular.

The risotto is prepared exactly the same way like a normal risotto, but with the brown chicken stock it gives it more the look of being smoked.

Then of course we are using some lovely green vegetables to make the dish perfect in looks and taste

Just for a garnish OI made a little beetroot chip, just looks very nice

Recipe
4 Ea Duck leg

160 G (6 oz) Arborio Rice
560 Ml  (0.55 quart) Chicken Stock
50 G (2 oz) Parmesan
3 g Smoke Powder
120 G (4 oz) Asparagus, green
100 G (3.5 oz) Mushrooms
80 G (2.5 oz) Mange Tout
40 (1.5 oz) Ml Fresh Cream
50 G (2 oz) Onions

Method
Confit the duck leg in duck fat in the oven for 3 hours at 135 C
Chop onions finely, fry in olive oil without color
Add the risotto, fry a little
Add chicken stock and smoke powder
Be careful that you don't add too much powder
Add the cream, mushrooms and Parmesan at the end

Saute the vegetables

Crema Catalana

Finally, I am sharing again a dessert recipe. A very traditional Spanish dessert, but done in a completely new and different way. Ever heard of Molecular Gastronomy? You know all this fuss the people do about El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal, having Airs, Foams, hot Jellies and little Spheres?????

Yes, that is exactly what we will do with this recipe today. Molecular Gastronomy for you at home. But no worry we are going very easy on it. I am sharing recipe that you can cook at home. The only thing that you need is an ISI Whip, what? ISI Whip, what on earth is that. It must be one of these fancy new machines that nobody can afford......No it is not. It is one of these cream whipping bottles that get charged with CO2, my mom had it already in her kitchen nearly 30 years ago. Just that she did not use it to whip up some Molecular treats for the family, no, she simply used it to make whipped cream. So you can actually get a "cream whipper" in every good kitchen shop allover the world.

But now to the actual dish. What we do is that the cream, the vanilla custard is cooked and then cooled down, then put into the ISI whip, 2 charges are added and then it gets "foamed" into ceramic dishes. Quickly add icing sugar on top and caramelize it with a blow torch, again something that should be standard in a very well equipped kitchen. (Don't worry, my mom didn't have that in her kitchen....)

Recipe
500 ml (half quart)  Fresh Cream
500 ml (half quart)  Milk
40 g (1.5 oz) Corn starch
1 Ea Lemon
1 Ea Orange
1 Ea Cinnamon Stick
125 g (5 oz) Sugar
8 Ea Egg yolk

Method
Grate Orange and lemon rind
Boil up milk and cream with orange and lemon zeste
and cinnamon stick
Cool down and keep for one day in the fridge to marinate

Mix egg yolk, sugar and corn starch
Rest for 10 min
Strain the milk/cream mix
Combine egg mix with milk
In a heavy bottom pan heat up the mix to 80 C
Make sure the heat is not higher as otherwise the mix
will be too thick for the bottle
Cool the mix down completely

Put half of it in an ISI Whip and add 2 charges

Shake well and press the foam in a heat proof plate
Top with Icing sugar and blow torch it