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On being a Yaletown Hobby Chef for a Social Bites dinner

6 Comments Karen HamiltonMay 11, 2009

I had so much fun being a guest of the first Social Bites dinner hop in Kitsilano that it was only natural to step up as a Hobby Chef for the next bout. Luckily, Annika picked Yaletown as the second neighbourhood of focus…right in our neck of the woods. Equipped with this knowledge in December, we left on our vacation to Asia knowing that we must return with a trip-inspired menu.

Our adventure didn’t disappoint. In fact, it was all we could do to narrow down the dish options to 3. (It would have been impossible to select just one to represent all the culinary delights that the South Pacific had to offer.) After several weeks of trial runs, I settled on the following Bites of Asia tasting menu, shown above from left to right:

• Vietnam: BC spot prawn rice paper rolls
• Philippines: sinigang na corned beef
• China: braised pork spare ribs in apricot preserve

Bruce, one of my truest Tiny Bites dining companions, was my sous-chef for the evening. Together, we served these dishes to 2 waves of appreciative guests, followed by much celebrating, wine-tasting, and elbow-rubbing at Yaletown Gallery.

Since Greedy Guts and Wine Bard have already recapped the Yaletown event from a diner’s perspective, let me run you through the experience I had as a Hobby Chef.

Step 1: Inspiration

This was the easiest part!

While I could have kept it simple and picked a recipe that I could serve with my eyes closed, I decided to watch for interesting dishes while we ate around in the Philippines, Macau, and Hong Kong. Meals that won us over were dutifully documented via notebook and camera. There were much too many to list, but here are a few that caught our attention: 

These starred items became our shortlist for the next part of the workflow: finalizing the menu.

Step 2: Menu Planning

Annika required Hobby Chefs to submit a high-level menu plan long before the event was promoted. The menu plan helped her to select the Hobby Chefs she would approach, and forced participants to work forethought into their cooking process.

I already knew that the Tiny Bites menu would be a trio. The trick was to select three from the catalogue above that provided breadth of regionality without flavours clashing.

As it turned out, that nixed dishes that were overly sweet, delicate, fishy, or exotic. Goodbye bangus; fare thee well pineapple bun.

The chosen ones were within similar parameters of weight and spice. Other influencers were level of difficulty, cost and sourcing of ingredients, ease of portioning, and ability to make components in advance. I certainly didn’t want to make three things that all required last-minute cooking!

Step 3: Trial Cookery

For me, this was the most enjoyable part of the planning. I probably cooked 10 meals and had several guinea pigs trusted gourmands over to provide feedback for the dishes I intended.

This iterative process commenced with recipes from our repertoire and from the world wide web. After each trial run, I returned to my dry-erase board, where I had scribbled the guidelines for each dish, and checkmarked the ratios that worked and starred items that needed improvement. Ingredients often required substitution due to seasonal availability or outrageous prices. Sometimes I returned to steps that I thought were a write-off and folded them back into the recipe.

It was tedious, grueling, frustrating and puzzling at times, and required a lot of legwork to source the right materials…but the eureka! moments and the oohs and aahs extracted from pilot dinner guests made it all worthwhile.

Step 4: Event Prep

With the recipes down pat, the days leading up to D-Day were filled with a hell of a lot of grocery shopping, advance ingredient prep, and cookery for components that could be made ahead of time. My kitchen must have exuded apricot and corned beef for a full week leading up to the event!

Favourite prep moments:

• My husband and I peeling 2 pounds of BC spot prawns over the kitchen sink while chatting about our day
• Stealing hourly nibbles of Sebastian & Co. corned beef as it simmered for the entire day in tamarind broth
• Snapping off bits of chives, Thai basil, and pea sprouts with Bruce, eating them in different pairings until we found what combo worked best for the rice paper roll

Step 5: Game Time

With sittings at 6:15pm and 7:45pm, I put sous-chef Bruce to work as soon as he was able to come in at 4:30pm. With him came the chili soup bowls that cradled the sinigang on each plate, as well as a bottle of chili garlic sauce that our household was not equipped with.

I was a bundle of nerves for the first sitting. The rice rolls were taking longer to wrap than I anticipated and the oil for deep-frying the prawns kept getting too hot (resulting in at least one toss of the burning batch). Our first guests also entered 15 minutes earlier than we expected. Luckily, they were Karen the Wine Bard and her fiancé, whom I was able to leave to their own amusement until the kitchen was in better order. Once all the guests were seated and chatting each other up, Bruce and I bumped paths around the island as we figured out where each person was most efficient. Somehow, we managed to plate the three dishes by 6:20pm and sit down with our guests till 7. The rolls took too long to make for ourselves to eat so we picked at the soup and the ribs as we anxiously awaited some feedback about the meal. Positive remarks – so far, so good.

Till 7:30pm, when the next wave of diners were to be expected, Bruce and I fell into a rhythm. We got all the dishes washed, dried, and set for the next round. Folded a fresh set of napkins. Got a head start on the rice paper rolls. Popped in the random shuffle of Asia food photos in the digital frame by the table (which the first guests didn’t see).

The second sitting was far more relaxed. We again sat with our guests, remembering how welcoming it felt to have our hosts dine with us. Some of our guests left the rest of their wine at their first stop so we made them a pineapple spritzer with their meal. It was a special pleasure to cook for last event’s winners, Alex and Matt – hopefully they enjoyed our meal as much as my husband and I enjoyed theirs.

The Winners Revealed

With the second course done, the six of us walked 10 minutes to the Social Bites Hotspot for a wine tasting at Yaletown Gallery.

As all cooks and dinner guests converged over art, wine, and chocolate, Annika rounded up the votes from all sixteen tasters. The winners were none other than Belinda and Jason, the folks behind the Farmers’ Market theme. 

Belinda and Jason received a $200 gift certificate from Zipcar and a trophy in the form of a lovely wine brought in by Annika from Germany. All Hobby Chefs received a goodie bag from Social Bites for their efforts, which included 2 tickets to a future Social Bites event. I gave mine to Bruce so that he could experience the fun as a dinner guest, next time.

Pencil in the next Social Bites event in the West Side

Social Bites is such a fantastic way to meet other food enthusiasts in the city, whether it’s as a dinner guest or as a hobby chef. Annika is planning another one on May 30, 2009 as a special benefit for Relay for Life. Check out the menu lineup and grab your tickets. 

Recipe Centre

If you’d like to try your hand at the dishes we prepared that evening, have at the recipes below.

Sinigang na corned beef (corned beef in tamarind broth)

• 1 lb corned beef or regular brisket, uncut
• 1 lb Korean radish or turnip
• 1 bunch long bean or green bean
• 3 ripe medium-sized tomatoes, chunked
• 1 large onion, chunked
• 5 tablespoons tamarind paste
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon Tabasco or 1 jalapeno, whole

In a large stockpot, cover beef with enough cold water to completely submerge, leaving another 1-2 inches of water as margin. Add tamarind paste. Simmer for at least 6 hours or overnight.

2 hours before serving, add turnips, tomatoes, and onion. Simmer for 1 hour and taste. Is it too bland? Add fish sauce. Not sour enough? Add another tablespoon of tamarind paste. Want a kick? Add Tabasco / jalapeno to taste. Keep adjusting until you have the broth where you want it to be.

At least 15 minutes before serving, add long / green beans to soup and simmer until bright green (but still retain crunch).

Serve in a curved plate (one that can handle all the soup) over a bed of steamed white rice.

Braised pork spare ribs in apricot preserve

• 1 lb pork spareribs, cut into 1″ pieces
• Marinade (see below)
• 1-2 tablespoons rice powder
• 1 dozen dried apricots, halved

Marinade and braising liquid

Mix all of the ingredients below in a large bowl and marinate the spareribs for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon cooking sherry
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon finely cracked pepper
• 1 tablespoon quince paste or preserve (optional)

Fill a wok 1/3 full with cold water. Prop a deep plate, or a bamboo steamer with a plate inside it,  just above the water line. You can buy steamer stands at Asian stores but I used a very small steamer with its lid off as my makeshift stand. Make sure that the plate / steamer you use will allow the steam to circulate.

Line the plate with apricots and pour the spareribs and its marinate on top. Sprinkle or toss with the rice powder.

Steam / braise for at least 40 minutes or until the meat is fork tender and fully cooked through.

For better colour, drain and dry the wok, turn the heat up to high, splash a bit of oil in the pan and saute the spareribs until you get some caramelization on the dish.

BC spot prawn rice paper rolls

• 24 Spot Prawns, halved and peeled with tails left on (1 prawn per piece)
• 6 large round rice paper wrappers
• 1 bunch fresh chives
• 1 bunch fresh Thai basil
• Chili-lime sauce (based on this recipe from Epicurious)

Prawn batter (based on this recipe from Chowhound)

• 2 egg whites
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Clean, peel, and halve the prawns and pat dry.

Beat egg whites to stiff peaks and add the rest of the ingredients for batter.

Dip each crab in batter and deep fry until golden (30 seconds – 1 minute). 

Place a large bowl of hot water on the table. Soften the rice paper wrappers in hot water and shake off any excess water. Lay the wrappers on a large flat surface and slice them into 4 strips.

On the edge of each strip, place several basil leaves, a few chive sprigs, and 2 prawn halves. Roll tightly into the rest of the rice paper strip. Serve with chili-lime dipping sauce.

Categories: Dinner, Events, Filipino, Food, Recipes, Savoury

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