ryankhang

from The Star 

MIFB is also featuring the MIFB Cooking Revolution, a new intake on how food can be made the healthier way with chefs from The Cooking House. The cooking extravaganza will chefs like Ryan Khang who will be teaching participants the art of making salads and baking with healthy oil......

It was a three days cooking event where ten chefs were featured for their unique culinary skills in cooking and baking. MyNourishment magazine and The Cooking House were the program collaborators in successfully organizing the public cook-out. the whole campaign was about teaching the public in choosing the healthy type of oil and showing them different ways of utilizing it.

KUALA LUMPUR 7 Julai - Pameran Perdagangan Makanan dan Minuman Antarabangsa Malaysia (MIFB) 2008 menjangkakan jumlah dagangan urus niaga bernilai lebih RM100 juta bakal dimeterai pada tahun ini berbanding RM80 juta pada 2007.

Jangkaan itu disasarkan diperoleh melalui program suai padan perniagaan tempatan dan antarabangsa yang dijadualkan berlangsung selama tiga hari, bermula Khamis ini.

Pengarah Hubungan Korporat Kumpulan Expomal International Sdn. Bhd., Wee Teck Kee berkata, pada tahun ini, lebih 300 syarikat dalam dan luar negara terlibat dalam program suai padan perniagaan itu.

Beliau berharap syarikat-syarikat tempatan dapat mengambil peluang dengan mempromosikan barangan masing-masing kepada syarikat dari negara luar untuk dieksport.

"Setiap peniaga diharap dapat melibatkan diri dalam program suai padan perniagaan berkenaan,'' katanya selepas menghadiri sidang akhbar mengenai hidangan sihat sempena MIFB 2008.

Pameran itu merupakan program kerjasama antara Kumpulan Utusan dan Expomal International Sdn. Bhd. (Expomal) dengan kerjasama Kementerian Pertanian dan Industri Asas Tani.

MIFB 2008 dijangka berlangsung selama tiga hari iaitu pada 10 hingga 12 Julai ini di Pusat Perdagangan Dunia Putra (PWTC), di sini.

Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi dijadual merasmikan pameran itu.

Pameran tersebut melibatkan 350 peserta dari 40 buah negara termasuk Singapura, Filipina, Korea, China, Emiriah Arab Bersatu dan Afrika dengan lebih 400 ruang pameran.

Sebanyak 40 peratus daripada peserta pameran adalah dari Malaysia.

Menurut Teck Kee, seramai 2,000 peniaga telah mengesahkan kehadiran untuk melawat pameran berkenaan berbanding 500 orang pada tahun lalu.

Jumlah pelawat itu termasuk para peniaga dari luar negara seperti China, Taiwan, Korea, dan Vietnam.

"Peniaga tempatan perlu mengambil kesempatan untuk menghasilkan produk makanan dan minuman terbaik untuk dieksport ke luar negara.

''Ini peluang terbaik untuk mewujudkan pakatan strategik dengan syarikat-syarikat dari luar negara selain dapat menangani krisis bekalan makanan dunia,'' kata beliau.

MIFB 2008 turut mempertaruhkan peserta pameran baru seperti dari negara-negara Asia Barat

my honor to be chosen as spoke person for Panasonic product and worked-along with the team in creating recipe for healthy cooking options.

A great day with great people mainly distributor and Panasonic team.

Last quater was the month for healthy cooking campaign with panasonic microwave. Roadshow and promotion were fun to do and was very rewarding working for international brand.

 A Japanese rendition on the "scaborough Fair"

For years I have been amazed by the meticulious approach the Japanese people handle their food. Really, there is not much complication to it, in Japan everything is about seasonal, everything is about rawness and the freshest food mother nature has to offer. I remember my first encounter with raw scallop at JOGOYA STARHILL made me wonder why the western chef  have been grilling these delicate sea creature or served  them with some sort of reduction. To me, scallop is one of the most wonderful all-muscle food packed with all essential amino acids and beneficial sterols (contrary to old school perception on cholesterol). People think of scallop as something dry and needs long hours of braising to bring the flavor out. But if you have the chance to open the shell up and slice it, and then pop it in your mouth,  it should be one of the greatest, unforgettable gastronomical and sensory experience. well, maybe I have been a little bit hedonistic over gourmet and fine ingredients, and possibly alienating myself away from the insipid mainstream ideas of food, but then I thought as a new age food advocate, I shall rhapsodize about Nouvelle cuisine -- that is an approach to cooking and food presentation contrasted with classic Cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased emphasis on presentation.

After I left Mustard Tree, had not quite given up on my advocacy in culinary art. During an occasion for a company function, I had to customize a 3 courses sit down dinner. For some reason, the famous lines" are you going to scarborough fair, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, remember me who to live there..." still lingered in my head,the lines may sound obscure, a reflection of Medieval European gastronomy regression but it aims to captures inspiration that can be found in the simplest of thing, it does a good job in grouping together 4 magnificent culinary herbs cherished by chef in the European Kitchen. So, back to my execution of the scarborough fair, this time I planed to do something of Japanese cultural influence; something with profound Japanese fascination with four seasons in which I would fuse with 4 different culinary herbs.

For my first canapes, It had to be something of spring freshness, I chose to use only chicken breast, one of the most versatile ingredient to be used in cooking. I made a puree of chives and parsley with onion infused olive oil, using the mixture, I spread it over a piece of chicken breast, rolled it up and cover the roulade with mixture of minced prawn and chicken meat, tightened it up with plastic wrapper and let it sit inside refrigerator until harden, and lightly seared it over an oil saucepan until cooked, cut into pieces, drizzled herbs puree as decoration.

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I often take pride in fresh produce, be it imported or localy grown, in one of my class, I had created a whole new range of salads using only fresh and "zero" processed ingredients. To make a good palate pleasing salad, one does not need to use mayonnaise as dressing and I believe in Undressing the natural flavor of ingredients than to DRESS it with creamy based sauce.

Salads can be very well served as a maincourse, it only takes a some creativity in transforming your vegetables into a whole new life, it also underpins a way of looking at food and way of utilizing it: it determines priorities when it comes to cooking and choosing not only ingredients but the organoleptic qualities of the ingredients.

Believe me or not, It did not take me any efforts at all conceptualizing my healthy food range, because I remember my mentor once told me, some of the simplest recipes can be among the finest. It is no rocket science, all it takes is a little observation and appreciation of the raw produce around you, and you can easily think of how simple food can be fused together to achieve a beautiful concortion.  

I have along my career been able to share my knowledge and skills in culinary and nutrition with many people around the world. it has been  my pleasure to exchange knowledge with people from other part of the world in the process of food preparation and the appreciation of agronomical practices. Join me, in creating a peaceful world where food and culture is very much appreciated and respected.

An event about organic food and produces, participants were mostly arden organic food lovers, organic food producers - both local and foreign, the media and press. a successful event with great tasty food and enthusiastic people.

dough kneading can be done manually.

Outdoor salad making using only freshest ingredients.

participants were enjoying the freshly prepared salad

A gourmet session with Daniel McAndrew

Daniel is a sous chef from  Denver, Colorado USA, meeting him brought back my memory of USA. I left the America for 2 years now and it is good to get updated about the latest culinary scenario in the States. Daniel is an all-american-type male who graduated from a prestigious ivy-league college with fraternity brotherhood background. We both love foods and love to explore with ingredients. His trip to Malaysia was to get an insight idea of how foods are made, processed and prepared in this part of the world. I had introduced Daniel to some of the rarest ingredients in the western culinary world such as the natural sapphire blue flower (bunga telang), pandan juice and a variety of spices and herbs with great historical signifance. I hope Daniel found this useful and he would be able to transform asian spices in his American kitchen.

Marinating monk fish with lime juice and cilantro

Daniel having fun grating tumeric..I hope he did.

It had been a pleasure session with Daniel, although it was only a two days events, we exchanged a great deal of knowledge in culinary and cooking.

I love to create new type of bread using root vegetables, fruits and other exotic ingredients. I also love to texturize the outlook of bread. I am not a conventional baker, that also means I do not really bake old school european bread.

Thousand layer chocolate bun with flake pastry on the outside and moist chocolate cream on he inside.

this is hw it looks before baking...in the case that anyone is interested. please visit my official website www.thecookinghouse.com for more info.

my ultimate soft bread with sweet potato crusted and creamy sweet potato filling - packed with antioxidant.

superb citrus fermented triple proofed bread infused with orange and lemon zest and sweetened with wine reconstituted raisin..ehem.

April 2008 - behind the scene, Yat co host the show with me

In this show I had to create a total of 10 healthy dishes with nutritionally sound components

cracked a joke

My tribute to Olive Oil

As a Food Science graduate equipped with nutritional knowledge, I am very fascinated by the nutritional property of Olive oil. I am amazed at how the Mediterranean use it so extensively as not only a flavor enchancer but also a food functional property in their daily cuisine. so I decide to do something about it, I wanted to write and campaign about it in Malaysia, well atleast to where I work and Live. I was approached by the distributor of Colavita- a famous family based Italian Olive Oil manufacturer. so, I did a press launching on their regional extra virgin olive oil each equipped with unique flavors and characteristic.

In the next three times, I co-produced a chinese cook book featuring 15 Colavita Olive Oil recipe infused with local ingredients.

 Private catering ( home style dining )

Perfect entertaining

guest loving it

THE FOODS

roasted lamb cutlet with citrus berry sauce and amarito braised red cabbage

pan fried potato cake with tomato concasse and multi colored rice and olive oil sauted spring vegetable

crustacean bisque served with seared king prawns and squid link linguine crisp

It was somewhere during summer 2006, when I was still serving my internship as a garde manger at The critically acclaimed Mustard Tree Restaurant at Ampang, I was lucky to be given an opportunity to create a menu for canapes, It was a special function specially catered for madam Molly to celebrate her husband birthday. Much thought has gone into the attemp in creating four special unique horsdevour of different identity.I don't really remember precisely if I had any prior experience in handling any of the ingredients given by the head chef. I was given the task to accomplish four types of gastronomical wonders treasured by gourmand all over the world. They were, Duck liver, Japanese Blue Fins, New Zealand green mussel and a good handful of mushroom like chanterelle, swiss brown and dried morel.                                                                  

 Yes, I do know what duck liver cost, and I was aware of the warning alarm the blue fins had sent out to the culinary world, but in my part of Malaysia they come in rare and usually only found in really upscale sushi restaurant so this were the occasion when a rookie had to face the ultimate culinary fitness test. Well, I remember as a small boy of eleven or twelve, I was fascinated by a folk song that goes “are you going to Scarborough fair, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme..” well dear readers, you probably know by now why did I emphasize only on the four culinary herbs, I do not want to go to the details on why these herbs were mentioned, but if anyone familiar with that song knows what I am talking about. I planned to create a list of canapes with all the ingredients given and infused it with all the herbs mentioned, respectively, and I would call this starter “The Scarborough Fair”

It was quite easy on the tuna, since tuna is such a delicate material, there was really nothing I could do with it, but I had decided to have parsley infused on this, so I took a whole bunch of English parsley and had it chopped up nicely, dried it up considerably and used it as coating for the precious tuna. Of course, I had added pinch of blended paprika, sea-salt, white pepper and cumin to enchance flavor and color. The next thing was to coat the tuna evenly with the herbs-spice blend, heat up a little olive oil on pan and sear each surface for 3 minutes. The result was a grassy earthy charred surface with distinctive grey layer surrounded an almost raw reddish muscle inside. It was beautiful to look at especially with different hues of color. However, something was missing here, Tuna itself unlike salmon is quite bland and I needed something tart and sharp to blend with it, I needed some sort of sauce or emulsification of fats and acids, so I squeezed out juice from two pomegranates, added in with ¼ cup of good quality of pinot noir and reduced it until thickens, keep on stirring and drop in butter to give a shinny glossy look on the sauce.Stir fifteen seconds more.

 The sauce was ready. It should be thinner than any gravy. It should, however, coat a spoon which you dip in and lift out again. If you like the it sweet, add a few teaspoon of brown sugar at the beginning of the process.Serve this ruby red sauce generously over a sliced tuna and eat while hot.  Next thing was to handle the duck liver, easy enough, I slightly seared duck liver with duck fat, and added in a glass of carbenet sauvignon and reduced unil syrupy. I then mashed it all up with a masher and season with sea salt, cumin and black pepper, spread it over a thinly cut toast and garnished with champagne grapes and thyme.

Mussel may be ubiquitious, however, not many people are keen to prepare it at home due to the mysticism and complication surrounding the cleaning and preparation, there is really very little fuss in preparing these delicious bivalves. honestly, mussel was the easiest to handle among all the ingredients. All i did was scrubbing off the barnacle and fibrious thread on the shell, soaked them in cold salt water. while waiting for mussels to open up, I prepared the stuffing. Here I only did a simple mixture of bread crumbs, chopped sage leaves and powdered parmesan cheese,  next I stuff it over the mussels and baked it for 10 minutes 180c. Mussle does not need to be cooked for long, this is to ensure the juiciness and tenderness.

wild Mushroom do not usually come fresh, they came dried to me, I believe as mushroom dried up, the flavors and aroma is encapsulated and concentrated. so the easy way to handle them is to soak them in a glass of chardonnay to reconstitute the  fibre and flavour. so my last herb to be used was rosemary and I thought rosemary natural flavor should have gone well with the earthy flavor of chanterelle, but chanterelle alone was not enough. I thought I needed some texture and mouthfeel. So my resort was to make a classic duxelle of swiss brown and chanterelle. I heat up the pan, put a tablespoon of butter, added in chopped swiss brown, chanterelle and rosemary leaves, I sauted it for about 15 minutes before adding wine to reduce further. I served this on a piece of toast and garnish with alfafa and berries.