Retro High Tea

This was really an "outdated" post; as in it remained in draft state for quite sometime before I finally managed to edit the photos and published it. Yep, the usual 'preoccupied with work' excuse :p I digress.

After Chiffon Cake 101, this was another demo class by Chef Christopher Tan at Shermay's Cooking School. Retro High Tea as the name suggested, brought us back to reminisce the nostalgia times of homemade traditional chicken pie, baked curry puff and cream puff filled with thick vanilla custard. Not that I'm that old! Well, you get the idea.

Chef Tan showed us how to make rough puff pastry which is basically layers of dough with butter (butter is used as it contains lesser level of trans fat as compared to margarine). Simple ingredients but not easy to handle as butter tends to melt easily. The rough puff pastry can be used for both curry puff and chicken pie. So it would be really useful IF I can master it. Ok, one of these days.

The beef and potato curry filling though looked humble actually took quite a lot of effort to prepare and cook. But well worth every ingredient. Baking the curry puff yielded better result than deep frying - healthier choice as well!

Just looking and smelling the chicken pie filling made me drool all the way and couldn't wait to taste the chicken pie. Not as glam as Don's Chicken Pie but sure tasted better (in my opinion). Nothing fancy, just simple humble chicken pie with wholesome goodness chicken filling.

And oh the cream puff with custard filling. Light-as-a-cloud choux pastry, as described by Chef Tan. It may not look as pretty as Beard Papa's Cream Puff, a little old fashion maybe. It is still good old cream puff.

We got to taste the cream puffs on the spot since they are best eaten fresh. Everyone took home a chicken pie and curry puff, complete with Chef Tan's specially designed retro-looking takeaway box. The rough puff pastry turned out light and fluffy and served the purpose of complementing the fillings and not over-power.

Haven't had the time nor courage to attempt the recipes yet as they are relatively time consuming. Ok, one of these days. Serious.

Resources

• Shermay's Cooking School - http://www.shermay.com/index.htm
• Christopher Tan - http://www.foodfella.com/