What to expect for this coming week. I'll de demonstrating how to made your own home made fresh Pasta Dough from Scratch. I will be making a video for this to clearly demonstrate how it should be done and make it easier for you to do at home. We will also be uploading a amazing Chocolate Fondant (Chocolate Lava cake) recipe, and if I have the time I will also be making a video for this recipe. Last but not least there will also be the Double Chocolate Mousse recipe that I mentioned in my Japonaise recipe I posted a few days ago onhttp://www.chefdewet.co.za/blog/giving-the-french-japonaise-meringue-a-japanese-flare.
This might not be the only things you can expect to be posted this upcoming week as I might feel like doing some other new and interesting cutting and garnish techniques.
So keep posted and make sure to go and subscribe to my News letter to ensure you don't miss anything.

Each of these picture tell a story of my time in Kuwait up until this point. I will add more photos as they come along. I have put short description below some of the picture so you can get some sort of an idea what the mean. Only thing that could have possibly made this whole experience more rewording is if there was someone to enjoy them with me. Hope you enjoy having a look though all of these and keep an eye out for more post tonight. 

The Eight Essential Traits 
Posted by Jonathan Merrill

I’ve always loved the number 8. I feel like it is a powerful number that no one recognizes its relation to ∞ on its end. These next eight traits are ones we as chefs and line cooks must adopt into our lives immediately and represent continually for all of time.

Culinary schools won’t educate you on this. Chefs will yell at you for not realizing these things yourself. Co-workers will secretly judge your dense inability to miss these crucial cues of becoming a culinary professional.


Chef Vagabundus’ Eight Essential Traits:

Humility:

You must realize you suck. We all burn things. We all fuck up a knife cut. We all have way more to learn than any of us will ever realize. Accept that you have a much longer path ahead to grow and you won’t seem like that shithead coming out of culinary school that thinks they know everything and can do any job. We, the already industry-seasoned chefs and cooks, can’t stand that person. Learn humility and how to just say “Yes, Chef.”

After spending half the day in bed catching up on some Grey's Anatomy, I got a call from a fellow chef  inviting me for late lunch at this new Japanese Restaurant Called ORA. So I decided to do little research about the place. Interesting, I must say.... ORA had'nt even opened it doors and yet it was already a hit on instagram and the rest of the Kuwait social media community. But that was not what I wanted to know though. As a Chef myself, when a new place opens, I'm more interested in the people behind the scenes than the name, but thats a story for another day ;-)

Fast forward, we get there... And I must say myself, I was sold from the moment we entered the door. The dining area was spacious, clean, and very welcoming to say the least. We had a look at the menu and it had more lots of beatiful dishes to choose, from Cold Tapas, Hot Tapas, Salads, Sigiture Sushi Rolls, Donburi's ( A Japanese "rice bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice), Dessert and finally Fresh Mocktails....
So in the blistering heat, I decided to kick things off with their Ginger & Lemon Ice Tea

From Hot Tapas I had the Tiger Creamy Shrimp. 

Signature Sushi Rolls we tried the ORA Crispy Roll

Crispy Rice with Tuna

Robata Grilled Lobster

Aslo tried thier Fresh Water Melon Juice

Cinnamon Bred Pudding (My flavourate*****) and Homemade Ice Cream

The place is beautiful! From the fresh flowers on the table, to the chilled out music playing in the background and the wierd but awesome art piece they have mounted on the wall. You can't help not notice such things. The  food as well is on its own level... Nothing out of the ordinary for me but definately something to try out when you are craving for something new and fresh. I must warn you though, the place is a bit pricey and some of the portions are a bit below par.

Other than that I liked the place on a once off basis. So i'm giving ORA a 4* seal of approval.
Want to try it out? Swing by at Arabella Mall  and check the place out

So today I decided to have some Chinese on my off day. The nice thing here in Kuwait is that almost every place delivers to your apartment. A really useful application for finding out what restaurant near you actually deliver is Talabat.com . So if you new to Kuwait or the Middle East and don't feel like going out on you off days, but still want to get some really good food, this is the app for you. Available on Apple Store as well as Android. Here's what I had for lunch today and diner later on. This is from @ChinagardenKW,  you can find them on Instagram and Twitter for more great photos of there menu items.

I enjoy having fresh clean foods while I watch Rugby or football games. My favourite snack to make must be "Nachos", I simply love the simplicity of nachos and how incredibly easy it is to quickly whip up. The main things that attract me to this dish is the use of completely fresh and clean ingredients. But people seem to rather go out and buy the salsa and guacamole ready made from the store, which I do not under stand. Firstly the guacamole has this unpleasant green color that I've never seen when I make my own. Then when it comes to the salsa, the ingredients simply don't have the crunchy juicy texture they had when they were made. But today with this recipe I hope I can inspire people to rather make all of this at home. So they can enjoy this wonderful dish the way it was ment too. . . Fresh! I have decide to give you a recipe for the traditional salsa and then another recipe which makes use of mango as the main component. The mango salsa is perfect for beautifully grilled salmon or even as a condiment for a spicy curry.

Traditional Salsa 

Ingredients 

• 1 large firm tomato
• 1 large firm green tomato
• 1 medium red onion
• 1 medium green chili
• 1 medium red chili
• 1/2 large cucumber
• 1 flame grilled corn cob (optional) 
• 1 lime
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tsp chopped coriander
• 1 lemon

Method

1. Start out by deseeding your cucumber and tomatoes. (you can use the seeds of both the tomato and cucumber to make a fresh bloody merry) 
2. Now carefully remove the corm from the cob by using your knife and then place it unto a medium sized bowl. (use a transparent glass bowl to show off all the colors) 
3. Now you can start to cut your chili's and onion into fine brunoise (see glossary) and place in with the corn
4. As for the tomato and cucumber, you want to give it a slightly large brunoise to that you still keep a good texture for the end product. (if you wanted too, you could remove the skin of the cucumber and tomato but I prefer not too) Add along with the rest of the ingredients.
5. Now squeeze  the juice of the lemon and lime into the bowl and give it a good stir. 
6. Once all your ingredients are cut to the appropriate sizes and shapes add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and stir once more. 
7. Place into the fridge for 5 minutes to cool down a bit and then it is ready to serve with your nachos 

I will be posting a recipe for home made corn nacho chips and guacamole  soon so keep an eye out for that.  

Today I have decided to keep it simple with a easy home made chili oil. It does how ever take a bit of time, but at least you don't have to stand over it the entire time. Its also a very small ingredients list as well as amount of steps in the method. Some people choose to simply use this oil for a colourful decoration and some for actually enhancing the entire dish. There are plenty of ways to play around with this easy to make and long lasting oil. You can choose to incorporate more of a complex flavour profile by adding different spices, one really nice one for me is the Rosemary oil and mint combination for drizzling over roasted leg of lamb. As I mentioned earlier, this is a product that you can easily store in a air tight bottle or container and it will last you a good 8-12 months. As for what oil is the best to use when making your own flavoured infused oil, it should be a tasteless oil with little to no taste of its own. Some of the oils I would recommend include a good quality sunflower seed oil, canola oil or a good quality vegetable oil. While doing this you might also want to make use of you thermometer to ensure that your oil does not get too hot,other wise the ingredients will burn and you will be left with a bitter tasting oil. 

Ingredients 

• 300ml of canola oil 
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or 1 tsp dry chili flakes)
• 1 fresh chili 

Method

1. Place all your ingredients into a medium sized pot and then place on top of a medium to high heat. 
2. Allow the oil to come up too 85C/185F and then put it on a low heat. 
3. Allow for the ingredients to infuse on the low temperature for a good hour. 
4. Once the hour has past, carefully remove from the heat and allow to cool down
5. Once cooled down, slowly with out disturbing the ingredients at the bottom, pour the oil into the container you have chosen to store it in. 
6. If there are still some impurities, you can strain it through a fine sieve or muslin cloth. 

So today I am bringing you a recipe that I was lucky enough to get from a friend that stay's in Germany. The amounts are estimates as her mother simply said you must be able to feel when the dough feels right. Being a chef and a passionate baker my self I understand what she means by that. It the same with me when I cook at home, I never use exact amounts of each ingredients. But rather add this or that till I feel that the taste and texture is at the correct level or desire. But too make it a bit easier for all of you, I have decided to make the amounts as accurate as possible so you don't have to guess.   
As for the pumpkin to use when making this fabulous bread is really up too you. I would use a sweeter pumpkin just to ensure that the flavour is properly carried through out the bread. You can also prepare the pumpkin two different ways. The first way is to simply boil it until it is soft and you are able to mash it into a smooth paste. The second way is to roast it in the oven. This method will make the end product a bit sweeter as the natural sugars will be caramelise while in the dry cooking method. (I prefer to roast it, not just because of the extra sweetness but also because the paste will not be as wet) Too spice up this bread, great spices to add is cinnamon, nutmeg or even cardamon. To make it more of a sweeter bread, you can add a it more brown treacle sugar and a hint of vanilla extract. 
So with out a further a due here is the recipe and method to make this tasty bread. Enjoy and don't be shy to share your pictures and results. 

Ingredients 

• 350 g of pumpkin
• 500ml milk
• 30g fresh bakers yeast 
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 200g butter
• 450g-500g white flour (depending on the wetness of your pumpkin puree)
• 1 tsp salt 
  

Method

1. Preheat your oven too 190C/374F after bulk proofing is done. 
2. Peel and deseed your pumpkin. If you choose to boil your pumpkin, use the milk to boil it in and once it is soft either use a hand blender or potato musher to break it down to a smooth texture. If you choose to roast it in the oven, place it in a baking tray and then cover with tin foil and place into the oven at 180C/356F till soft. Then place into the milk and blend until smooth. 
3. Allow the milk and pumpkin mixture to cool down before using.
4. Once the liquid to cooled down, you can start with your bread. 
5. Place all your dry ingredients into a bowl along with the yeast, then add in your milk and pumpkin (should not be cold but room temp) liquid and start to knead till you have formed a dough ball. If it's still sticky, add more flour till you have a smooth ball of dough. 
6. Now this is where the difficult part starts, add your butter now to the mixing bowl and start to work the butter into the dough. (this is quite messy and takes patience and constant kneading, at this point do not add any extra flour) Once all the butter is worked in and the dough is not sticky any more then your dough is ready for the bulk proofing. 
7. Bulk proof for 2 hours and after every hour degas your dough. 
8. Once the bulk proofing is done, shape your dough and place into you greased bread tin and allow to proof for another hour before placing into the pre-heated oven. 
9. Bake for 25-30 or until golden brown, remove and allow to cool down before cutting. 
10. Hope you enjoy it and make sure to share your photo's

Good evening every one, I have been getting some request to start making video blogs. So I finally got the courage to put one together. It's a very basic video with a bit of slicing and dicing, as well as some tips and tricks which you can use in your kitchen at home. I will be making more, and with time the quality and interaction will improve. So keep and eye out for more, I'm going to try and at least make one every week. Hope you enjoy it, and make sure to share with friends and family. 
I have made it a little bit fun with the intro as well as the background music. 

So yesterday I got a flood of people sending in questions and just showing there appreciation for my site and what they were able to gain from it. Yesterday I said with the blog post I posted that its was the last one before I going to Kuwait. Bur because I got so many messages I decided to squeeze in one last post to answer some of the questions that where asked yesterday. 

Q&A 1. So someone asked me if I had hired in a web producer to make the theme for my site and the answer to that is no. I simply made use of a simple theme that is available on weebly (the website host I'm using)  and simply personalised it myself. I also chose to use browns, reds, blues and greens on my website page to reflect my love for nature and the calming and relaxing effect it can have on a person to make the page more appealing to the eye. 
Q&A 2. Another message I received asked me about how to get onto the Yahoo News! time line, as that is where he found my website. Unfortunately I am unable to answer this question as I myself do not know how I got there other than my site must have been trending and Yahoo News! decided to include me on there time line. 
Q&A 3. I was also asked if I could make a list of all the other social media platforms I post on so that he/she could follow me on those as well for any and all updates. So here goes, I have a twitter account: @ChefDewetV(or you can just hit the follow button on my twitter feed on the side of my blog posts.), my Google+ account is De-wet Visser, my Facebook page is Chef Dewet Visser, my Pinterest is Chef De-Wet Visser, for Linked in you can simply search Dewet Visser and I also post on Glipho. Most of my posts on all of these socail media platforms are the same or similar to what I post on my website blog. 

So those were some of the Questions I was asked to answer, but if you have any more questions you would like to get answered feel free to ask away. It really pleases me to get such great responses from my viewers and really appreciate the time you spend on my website. 

Hope everyone has a great Friday