A Singapore Kitchen

Kitchens come in all forms and sizes, there are restaurant ones, home ones, studio ones and catering ones. I have visited many kitchens in the past, met the owners, interacted with chefs and even cooked in some. For me, coming close to a professionally run kitchen has been to all those luxury F&B Establishment kitchens I have visited and the only other different experience was the one on a cruise (Cruising) in Malaysia.

Don’t we wonder where and how our in-flight food is prepared? 99% of the time I have heard travelers tragically revealing their food experience on their flights (be it domestic or international) and it can get quite discomforting to imagine being on long haul flights with mediocre food to nibble on. When I recently flew Singapore Airlines (SQ) to Japan with a stopover at Singapore, the airline was generous enough to arrange a visit to S.A.T.S. (Singapore Airport Terminal Services Ltd.) at their catering facility called SATS Food. SATS provide services to most airlines flying around the world but they have separate facilities for SQ.

A tour was in order and nearly took half a day to complete. Hermann Freidanck, the food and beverage manager for Singapore Airlines ensured I was well stuffed with a special menu at the facility before we took off to see the inner working of the airline food industry, from SQ’s perspective.

We immediately started with the inspection of the kitchens, hygiene standards are meant to be adhered to strictly. Apart from being stripped down from our rings, watches and jewellery (no open toed shoes allowed) I was outfitted with their uniform – a crisp white coat, a hair bonnet, face mask and then made to walk through an air shower which basically was to blow off any foreign material, dust, stray hair and even dead skin off your body (alright, I admit I felt more sterile than if I had to take a shower 10 times in a day).

From then on, it was like a precision clockwork and mechanically sound process. Each cuisine had its own team and kitchen space allotted, so we had Indian, Japanese, Vegetarian, Dim-sum, European and many more (even Halal). The most fascinating station was the omelet station where 5000 of the egg dishes are made each day. The eggs were beaten and poured through a machine in computerized quantities over a rotating pan station comprising of 20 small sized omelet pans, a team of chefs add the toppings and cheese, manually flip the eggs like clockwork and practically churn our omelet clones.

All the meals are made from fresh, seasonal produce, and are prepared in this kitchen in such a way that they are served in-flight within 24 hours. Though I got a taste of Business Class meals, SQ has won the Skytrax award for best economy catering. From prepping stations to packing stalls right down to a pressurized cabin which can simulate the conditions of an aircraft at 30,000 ft. Food is tasted in this chamber to improvise on taste (apparently one of the reasons for finding food bland and listless is because of the pressure leading to a deprivation of one’s taste sensation by up to 30%) SQ’s catering facilities are state of the art and it’s this investment which allows them to bring to our seats a fine dining experience.

Singapore Airlines is known for its “Book a Cook” service. This service is reserved for its first- and business-class passengers; which allows us to pre-order from an online menu of 60 dishes before flying. Gourmet choices include lobster and wagyu all served on fine bone china and crystalware made by Givenchy. The biggest challenge is to ensure that there is no loss of flavour in the dishes, which are pretty much derived from recipes created from their International Culinary Panel (ICP) Chefs. The ICP is a team of celebrity chefs (immensely renowned and who know their job apart from having a glamour front) who develop recipes on SQ’s menu by choosing flavours and textures which are robust enough to be served on-board. The panel includes our very own Sanjeev Kapoor for the Indian cuisine to Matt Moran of Australia, Sam Leong of Singapore, Yoshihiro Murata of Japan (who’s restaurant experience in Japan was altogether a welcome surprise, this was at his three Michelin star restaurant – Kikunoi in Kyoto) and many more. The wine list is not far behind with their expert sommeliers going through a painstaking process of selecting fruit forward wines of similar characteristics throughout the classes.

Each and every dish the ICP’s create goes through Freidanck’s watchful eye and palate, analyzed for ingredients and whether it will be suitable to the airline’s cooking process. The process involves a unique technique in which each dish is blast chilled (to stop it from instantly cooking), packed and sealed, and then loaded onto trucks to take them to the respective flights. In the end the on board crew simply reheats, plates and serves up the food which bounces back to its cooked form the moment it goes through the on-board cooking process.

Finally coming down to choosing my dish was a task by itself, not only did I get to see it being prepped (I was flying out next day to Japan) but I insisted on the recipe too to try it out back home (and at the same time give my readers the joy of experiencing a bit of the meal which was laid out for me). From the plethora of choices I landed up selecting Masterchef Matt Moran’s version of Lobster Thermidor which was going to be served to me from my flight to Osaka vide Singapore. A true delight in a meal which was served in courses starting from a delicate salad and ending with a cheese platter, especially since I had had the pleasure of meeting Matt in India a few months ago.

Lobster Thermidor with Buttered Asparagus, Slow Roasted Vine-Ripened Tomato & Saffron Rice

(Lobster tail sautéed in butter, flambéed in brandy, sprinkled with cheese, and served with creamy mushroom sauce, garlic and spicy mustard, and buttered asparagus)

Ingredients

For the Lobster

• 2 x 600g lobster
• 2-lit chicken stock
• ½ bottle dry white wine
• 1 bay leaf

For the Béchamel

• 100g plain flour
• 100g butter
• 1 lit milk
• 200ml cream

For the sauce

• 5 small shallots, peeled & finely chopped
• 8 White Button Mushrooms (Sliced thin)
• 100ml Brandy
• 500ml of the fish stock the lobster was poached in
• 1 Cube Chicken Stock
• 150g grated Parmesan
• 1 tbsp of Dijon mustard
• 150g butter
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• Pinch of Cayenne Pepper

For the Asparagus & Tomato

• 10 (min 10cms) Asparagus Spears
• Water to cook
• Salt
• 4 Tomatoes on Vine
• 1 tsp Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper to taste

For the Saffron Rice

• 800ml Chicken Stock
• 400 gms Long grained Rice
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 1 gms Saffron
• 1 tablsp Salted Butter

Directions

• Bring the chicken stock, white wine & the bay leaf to the boil, blanch the lobsters for 2 minutes, strain (but retain the stock) and cut in ½, remove the flesh and chop finely. Reserve the shell for serving.
• Bring the chicken stock for the rice to a boil and add bay leaves. Add the rice with a little salt and cook till halfway done. Add the salted butter and saffron, cook till rice is cooked through but still retains a bite (best way to do this is to taste a grain).
• For the Béchamel, Heat the butter till foaming, whisk in the flour and cook till golden for 3 minutes, Whisk in the milk bit by bit till a smooth slightly thick sauce forms, cook for 10 minutes, add the cream. Whisk and keep aside.
• To prep the sauce for the lobster. Add the shallots to a hot pan, add the brandy & burn of the alcohol by setting it alight, add in the mushrooms and mix well till they slightly start oozing moisture. Add 500 ml of the stock in which lobster was cooked & reduce to 1/3rd.
• Add to the reduction the béchamel, mustard & chicken stock cube. Whisk in the butter and parmesan, Mix in the lobster meat. Stir well till the sauce coats the seafood, season with salt and pepper (at this point taste for salt as there are stock cubes and salted butter which contain enough salt, not to forget the stock base).
• Divide the prepared lobster meat & spoon in the sauce between the 4 shells, sprinkle with a little Parmesan & salt and pepper (cayenne pepper may be added to add a little heat touch). Cook in a preheated oven (220c) for about 5-10 minutes till golden.
• Boil asparagus spears in water till half done. In a flash heat pan, throw in some butter and toss the spears briefly till well coated, season and keep aside.
• For the Tomato on vine, drizzle tomatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in a grill till tomatoes have gone soft. Keep aside.
• Serve Lobster Thermidor with poached asparagus, tomato vine and saffron rice

From the long and laborious day at SATS, a tour of the city was a delight in itself, from visiting the calm and serene Gardens by the Bay, sipping on a few beers facing the marina bay hotel to partying the night away at a local club called Oxwell and Co. (they served beers and cocktails on tap) at the infamous Club Street in Singapore, this day was packed with all things food right down to unwinding in Singapore’s hottest party destination in the wee hours of the morning after a fabulous coursed meal at Open Door Policy (Singapore’s ‘Tippling Club’ Chef Ryan Clift’s baby).

This trip was sponsored by Singapore Airlines and the Japan Tourism Board. On a side note, airline F&B is much more complicated than it seems. Every portion has weight implications which results in fuel costs, cutlery needs to be of a certain design to fit the galley storage, Food needs to be made in a sterile environment to avoid contamination. It is an art and science put together and for a catering centre that churns out more than 50k meals in a day it is one hell of a task to prepare it and bring it to your seat.

The complete selection of Book the Cook dishes can be found here:- SQ Book the Cook

The photographs with the blue titling have been shot by Aneesh Bhasin, a multi award winning lifestyle photographer & writer based in India. He shoots everything from food to people all over the world. He is also the co founder of HipCask India’s first wine and spirit focused smart phone app and consumer platform.