When a comedian-chef holds a cooking class

Ikram Putra
Contributor/Jakarta

It is a double delight to see in action a comedian trapped in a chef’s uniform because he will entertain us through good food and a good laugh at the same time.

This was the exceptional offering at the InterContinental Jakarta MidPlaza on last Thursday, when chef Bobby Chinn held a “master cooking class” for journalists. Bobby, who hosts culinary program World Cafe Asia on the Discovery Travel & Living channel, is in town to promote the exotic flavors of Vietnamese cuisine.

The program runs until time for Sunday brunch at the hotel’s Scusa restaurant.

The first “lesson” was in how to make “Bun bo wagyu beef with rice noodles and salad”. Before the class, French-trained Bobby said it was not an original Vietnamese dish but rather a fusion. And a fusion is something that people make “when they don’t know how to cook the original version of the food”, he said, adding that even the Indonesian semur was actually from the Netherlands.

He said that back in Vietnam, people did not use beef as the main ingredient for Bun Bo. “It is a war-torn country and you don’t want to kill a cow for food. You would eat pork instead,” he said.

Bobby marinated the beef in fish sauce, lemongrass and oil. Then he seared it, adding some garlic and glaze with the stock. He then mixed it with salad and garnished with sesame seeds and peanuts.

“You know, Wagyu beef is the best meat in the world because the cows receive the best treatment including a massage and sake. Even the lowest quality of this meat is still better than the ordinary American beef,” Bobby said, jokingly. “That message is brought to you by the American Beef Association.”

The second subject was “Clay pot caramel ginger chicken”. For this dish, skinned chicken breasts were marinated in fish sauce, garlic, black pepper, chopped ginger and ginger chilli. Bobby mixed the chicken into a caramel sauce and added some more chilli, lime juice, cinnamon and peppercorns. Lastly, he sauted the chicken in a hot pan, simmered it until cooked and then garnished with sliced ginger, spring onions and fresh coriander.

But Bobby could not cook the chicken in the clay pot because for the “class”, he was provided with an induction cooker — which only works with a steel pan. The 43-year-old chef got a bit tense about how fast the cooker heated the food (”it gives no time for talking”) but finally he managed to get it to work.

After about two hours, Bobby ended the lesson by demonstrating how to cook “tamarind-glazed crab cakes with chive flowers”. Although this was the shortest lesson, as everything had been prepared earlier, it was entertaining because the comedian-chef humorously played a mock cook killing a crab and then boiling it in sake, ginger, garlic and lemongrass with a steamer, before picking the meat from the shell and, of course, preparing the sauce.

It’s pretty hard to tell when a comedian-in-chef’s-uniform is serious. For instance, when asked what he liked most from Jakarta, the owner of Restaurant Bobby Chinn in Vietnam first said, “I love air-conditioned taxis. When the car doesn’t move because of the traffic congestion, you know, it’s still cool.”

But Bobby seemed to really mean it when he urged the journalists to “tell your readers that they should better appreciate the people who cook their food everyday, including their mothers.

“Because, you know, we could poison you whenever we want.”

#The Jakarta Post’s “On the Town”.

Karaoke di Sannhac.com

Anda suka karaoke tapi seringkali tak punya cukup uang waktu?

Situs ini mungkin cocok bagi anda: Sannhac.com

Di sini ada sedia ribuan lagu Barat dan Vietnam dalam format minus one, yang memungkinkan anda bernyanyi tanpa perlu mengeluarkan uang pergi ke tempat karaoke.

Cukup ketikkan saja judul lagu atau nama penyanyi yang anda inginkan.

Memang sih, jika anda ingin bernyanyi langsung saat itu juga (streaming), dibutuhkan koneksi Internet yang lumayan kencang supaya lagu yang keluar tidak tersendat-sendat dan merusak suasana hati anda.

Tapi tenang. Anda bisa mendownload lagunya terlebih dahulu kok baru memainkannya. Gratis. Tinggal klik kanan + save as.

Jadi tunggu apa lagi? Ayo berkaraoke dengan hemat gembira di Sannhac.com!

#Thanks a lot to my Vietnamese friends, for introducing me to the site.

Fenomena 'helm terbang'

Saya kesal banget melihat fenomena “helm terbang”.

Apalagi di Jakarta ini, sering sekali deh ada “helm terbang”. Setiap hari mungkin ada puluhan bahkan ratusan helm yang beterbangan ke tengah jalan gara-gara tidak dipakai dengan benar oleh penggunanya.

Mereka dengan bodohnya tidak mengaitkan helm ke dagu (entah karena malas atau memang tidak ada tali pengaitnya) sehingga ketika mereka melaju kencang ... sang helm pun terhempas melayang dari kepala dengan sama kencangnya!

Mereka yang malas mungkin mengira bahwa helm itu bekerja mirip topi. Cukup ditempelkan saja ke batok kepala, beres.

Sementara, mereka yang helmnya tak ada pengait, mungkin punya jampi-jampi supaya helmnya tetap melekat di kepala. Atau terlalu miskin untuk membeli tali rafia guna dibikin pengait.

Tidak saja membahayakan, fenomena “helm terbang” ini jelas bikin naik darah para pengguna jalan yang lain. Pertama, helm itu bisa saja membentur pengendara motor yang berada di sekitar kejadian. Bukan hal yang mengenakkan dong, kalau kita lagi enak-enak berkendara eh tiba-tiba kena getok benda keras yang memang sih beratnya tak sampai satu kilo. Paling tidak kita akan kehilangan konsentrasi sesaat, kalau tidak gegar otak.

Belum lagi jika helm itu mendarat persis di depan kita sehingga kita tak sempat mengelak. Motor bisa terguling. Dan ini pastinya juga tidak enak.

Yang kedua, setelah helm terlepas dari kepala, sang pemilik hampir bisa dipastikan akan buru-buru melambatkan motornya (dengan mendadak) dan langsung berusaha menuju ke pinggir. Dan itu dia lakukan dengan asumsi tingkat tinggi bahwa jalanan pasti lagi sepi – padahal tidak! Memangnya pengendara yang lain mau dikemanakan?

Memang sih ada ungkapan “you never know what you got until it’s gone”, tapi tolong dong, masa’ iya sekonyong-konyong hal terpenting di dunia ini hanyalah si helm?

Ketiga, dan yang paling parah, setelah berhenti di pinggir jalan, si pemilik akan tergopoh-gopoh lari ke tengah jalan untuk memungut helm laknat tadi. Dasar bodoh, dia akan rela menyabung nyawa demi benda seharga sepuluh ribuan. Karena terlalu menghayati ungkapan “you never know” tadi, dia akan peduli setan dengan kendaraan lain yang harus melambat supaya tidak menabrak atau menyerempet pantatnya.

Yang penting jangan sampai helm dibiarkan terlalu lama sendirian terbaring di tengah jalan.

Aaargh. Saya tidak tahu apakah hal-hal seperti ini sudah ada aturannya dalam Undang-undang Lalu Lintas, tapi menurut saya pengendara motor yang bodoh, bodoh, bodoh seperti ini sangat patut diberi hukuman.

Tidak usah didenda mahal-mahal... Cukup dijitak saja kepalanya pakai pentungan sambil didoakan supaya cepat sembuh.

Hmm, bicara tentang kebodohan, beberapa kali saya juga ada lihat beberapa pengendara motor memakai sarung, kopiah haji, dan baju koko membawa-bawa bendera hijau namun tak pernah memakai helm. Well, mungkin mereka mengira bendera itu fungsinya seperti helm, sama-sama bisa melindungi kepala dari benturan. Kurang jelas juga.

Tapi sepanjang bendera itu mereka pegang erat-erat supaya tak terlepas jatuh ke jalan, saya sih jauh lebih senang melihat yang beginian ketimbang fenomena “helm terbang”.

Amrozi cs. ditembak mati

Kami di kantor sudah bersiap-siap pulang ketika stasiun televisi TVOne menayangkan laporan mengenai terpidana terorisme Amrozi cs. yang, menurut sumber mereka, sudah ditembak mati. Kami pun tak jadi pulang tapi berkerubung di depan televisi.

TVOne boleh dikatakan terdepan dalam melaporkan informasi ini -- hebatlah. Tapi ada beberapa hal yang masuk catatan saya selama menonton tayangan itu:

1. Reporter TVOne harus belajar lagi mengeja "jenazah", bukan "zenajah" atau "zenazah". Alasan habisnya-saya-orang-Sunda-sih nggak bisa lagi jadi dalih.
   
2. Mereka juga harus belajar lagi memakai logika dalam laporan langsung, meski saya maklum itu sangat sulit. Tapi bayangkan deh betapa anehnya mendengar kalimat "Saat ini kami sedang menunggu kedatangan Amrozi dalam bentuk jenazah". Maksudnyaaa? Memangnya Amrozi punya berapa bentuk?
   
3. Presenter TVOne harus membaca lagi kapan Bom Bali I meledak: 12 Oktober 2002. Jadi kalimat "Amrozi dieksekusi pada malam yang sama dengan meledaknya Bom Bali" adalah kalimat yang sungguh-sungguh gaib.

Sementara sekian dulu. Selamat malam.

Mexican chefs demo enticing spicing

Ikram Putra
Contributor/Jakarta

Try to imagine Mexico and Indonesia sharing something in common. Confusing? At first glance it is easy to point out how the two countries are different.

But reconsider the point. These two countries, separated by some tens of thousands of miles and with no historical connection whatsoever, do have something in common, and it all begins with Capsicum, the genus of all pepper plants.

Sergio Snyder, a 76-year-old Mexican master chef, said Indonesians and Mexicans share the same palate when it came to good food.

During a Monday press conference at the Nikko Hotel in Jakarta, Snyder told journalists people in both countries are devoted to hot and spicy food. In most dishes in both countries — consider balado (spicy tomato sauce), rendang (meat cooked in coconut milk), or nachos — “we always find chillies playing an important role in the ingredients”.

“It’s not surprising at all,” Sergio said about the similar preferences in flavoring.

Just as people who live in temperate climates have a habit of enjoying ice cream during the winter, he said, people in tropical zones tend “to eat spicy food to keep their body temperature level with the outdoors.”

Chef Snyder and his colleague, master chef Roberto Treves Kaspi, are back in town to show off their culinary skills at the Mexican Food Fiesta, which runs through this weekend. The cooking pair first visited in the middle of last year.

The Nikko Hotel is once again the host of the fiesta, which is supported by the Mexican Embassy in Jakarta as well. Mexican Ambassador Melba Pria also attended the Monday press conference.

The two chefs, seasoned travelers with 82 countries under their belt, are back to once again serve Jakartans authentic Mexican food. They use original ingredients and “cook the food the same way they do in Mexico”, Roberto said.

“So no substitutions,” Sergio added.

At the fiesta they have been serving up, among others, chicken in mole poblano, which is chicken cooked in a thick sauce made of four kinds of dried chilies ground with cocoa, almonds and spices.

They also served chicken tlalpeño soup, prawns Maya, fish Veracruzana, and chile con carne besides the requisite classics: tacos, nachos and fajitas.

The chefs fulfilled their promise when they gave journalists the chance to savor fajitas in their authentic wrapping.

“Normally we don’t use deep-fried tortillas (a flat bread made from corn or wheat). We usually use the soft ones.”

But the problem with using soft tortillas was, Sergio said, that the food would get cold too quickly. “That’s why some people have started to use deep-fried tortillas instead, which actually is no problem.”

Chef Snyder, who graduated from Instituto Gastronomico Jalisco in Mexico City, offered up his theory on why Mexican food is so widely known around the world.

Mexicans, just like the Chinese, excel in cooking. “They built their Great Wall to prevent people coming into China. Like the Chinese, we had a desert and jungles blocking our way for about three thousand years.

“The more Mexicans cooked the same food over and over, the more they perfected their cuisine.”

Both Sergio and Roberto believe it takes more than perfect ingredients to make a great dish. In their experience the most important element is memory.

“No matter where you go, people consider the food made by their mother or wife as the best, simply because they instill in their memories the taste of food made with love.”

#The Jakarta Post’s “On the Town”.