Global Cuisine

Today is Cinco de Mayo, a day when, no matter where you are, you might find yourself thinking about a delicious quesadilla or a burrito supreme and a Corona beer.  I had no time for such thoughts, however,  as I found myself, unexpectedly but with great pleasure, taking my niece's spot in a cooking class at the Ritz Hotel!

I entered the building from the back, through the staff entrance, far from the glitzy hotel hallways with the decadent displays of expensive gee-gaws, including the iconic Ritz Teddy.

Down in the basement, however, along endless corridors and known to a select few, lies something much more interesting:  the exclusive École Ritz Escoffier Paris.

Here in its own "super" kitchen, under the guidance of Michel Roth (the "directeur des cuisines"),  you can choose from an array of classes, all the way from a year long, full-bore course that takes you through every facet of French cuisine (and costs several thousand euros!), to a one-hour "atelier" catered to the amateur enthusiast with a leaner wallet.

Today's one-hour atelier "recette" was neither French nor Mexican. Rather, we travelled to the sub-continent, with a recipe for chicken curry madras, cooked in a coconut milk sauce, that placed it somewhere between India and Thailand! (Fricassée de volaille au curry madras.)

A group of 12 eager cooks gathered around the work table -- French, Brazilian, Canadian, American, English, Russian. A truly global group!

An apron, tea-towel, recipe booklet and pencil were set beside each work station, with the center of the table filled with bowls of ingredients: chicken breasts, onions, tomatoes, peppers, apples and bananas.

And a bowl of coriander and another filled with fresh green peas.

Our chef today, Adeline Robert, trained in Biarritz, Paris, New York, and at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, before joining the team at the École in 2009. At 1 pm precisely, she began instructing us on exactly how we should slice and chop the bananas...

...peel, slice and chop the apples, the tomatoes, the red and green peppers, the onions.

Then it was time for us to go to work, carefully following her instructions as to how to hold the knife, so as to avoid chopping your fingers -- this gentleman doesn't quite have it down yet!

 With a dozen eager knives peeling and chopping, we soon had all the vegetable ingredients ready for the next step.

Moving over to the stove, the pace picked up. After all, this meal had to be cooked and, more or less, eaten in one hour!! So, the peas went into a large pot of boiling, very salted, water. Adding lots of salt retains the bright color of the peas, Adeline explained. Once tender, they were placed in a colander over iced water, to stop the cooking.

A brief pause as we awaited our next instructions. The basmati rice had been soaking in water, salt added, and crushed cardamon seeds. The pan was covered, then brought to a boil, removed immediately from the heat, and left to stand, still covered, whilst we moved on to the rest of the cooking.

Time to sauté the chicken breasts, which had been deboned, skinned, and chopped into rough pieces about 1 to 2 inches square. Salt, pepper, and curry powder were all liberally added to the chicken pieces and mixed in before the whole lot was dumped into a marvellous copper pan. A few minutes of cooking and the chicken was removed to a side pan, more olive oil went into the copper pan and it was time to throw in the onions, tomatoes, half the bananas, and half the apples.

At the same time, the red and green peppers were being sautéed in their own pans. No stirring allowed, Adeline insisted, you have to "toss" them over the high flame!

The chicken pieces went back into the copper pan...coconut milk was added, and the whole thing simmered away for a few minutes.

Before we could turn around, Adeline had a few of us pouring the chicken liquid into a super blender, to purée the onions, tomatoes, apples and bananas, after which she tipped the liquid into a sieve, over the chicken, so that the resulting sauce would be smooth, like velvet!

We were almost done!!

Time to lay the cooked peas over the now cooked rice, and then add the "tossed" red and green peppers, with toasted almonds sprinkled on top

Are you hungry yet??!!

A stack of elegant Ritz Hotel bowls suddenly appeared, and Adeline began carefully dishing out the chicken into each one, garnishing with sprigs of coriander. A nifty tip: she put a small paper towel around the edge of the bowl to catch any drips! The basmati rice dish was served into adjacent, smaller bowls.

It was ten minutes to two, and time to adjourn to a small library nearby, where a table had been set up for us, with bottles of wine and water.

As we took our places, we raised our glasses to bid adieu and un grand merci to Adeline who, in less than an hour, had directed us all to produce this elegant and delicious lunch!

Believe it or not, she had to return, with her two helpers, to "our" work kitchen to prepare it for the next class, starting at 2:30 pm -- baking brioche!!

The rest of us spent a pleasant half hour or more, enjoying this Fricassée de volaille au curry madras, and sipping delicious French wine -- a Sancerre and a Medoc. As we sat there exchanging a few stories as to where we were all from, I was struck once again, at what a small and random world it is -- here we were from six different countries, somehow all finding our way to the basement of the Ritz Hotel in Paris on this Cinco de Mayo day, to cook and eat Asian food!

Bon Appetit!!

(And thank you, Juliette!!)

À bientôt!