In the hands of one fine chef, the Waldorf salad became one modern masterpiece. Australian chef Glenn Austin, the famed director of the World Association of Chefs Societies and the honorary life president of the Australian Culinary Federation, prepared a modern-style Waldorf salad that blended whipped cream cheese and chevre together. He then added in a merry mixture of Brunois apples and celery. Afterwards, Chef Austin molded a delicate terrine from this.
That night, he served each of his guests a generous slice of this terrine, garnishing it with bits of caramelized walnuts and dashes of reduced apple balsamic dressing. This modern-style Waldorf salad was a mouthful of texture and flavor. There was the undeniable creaminess that coated your palate, plus the crisp, sweet surprise brought about by the apple, celery, and walnuts. The dressing, meanwhile, was a divine undertone that balanced everything through.
All in all, it was a perfect start to an extravagant culinary dinner featuring Chef Glenn Austin and the brand-new Anchor UHT Culinary Cream.
This new culinary cream may well be the richest of creams. Anchor and its parent dairy company, Fonterra, have come up with a kind of cream that is much higher in fat content, allowing for endless cooking possibilities in the kitchen. This new Anchor cream will not curdle or split in high heat or with the addition of acid. And to many chefs and home cooks, that is good news indeed! So spread the word!
And so that evening, at the ballroom of Sofitel Philippine Plaza, Chef Austin, Anchor Culinary Cream official ambassador, created a four-course dinner menu, proudly showing just what Anchor’s new cooking cream can do.
What followed the creamy Waldorf salad was another creamy creation, this time with risotto. For his lamb stiffado risotto with baby green peas and Parmesan cracker, Chef Glenn braised some diced shoulder lamb in red wine and thyme. In between layers of cheesy risotto, the lamb and its sauce swirled through. While at the bottom, there was a bit of basil oil with some baby green peas to round up the flavors of the dish. This risotto paired well with a cabernet sauvignon-shiraz served that evening. It paired well, too, with the crisp Parmesan cracker, which was either eaten on its own or broken into pieces with the risotto.
What followed was a generous medallion of beef. It was fillet of beef in Welsh rarebit with poached beans and roasted prawn bisque. The beef was cooked to a medium tenderness, then topped with a creamy Welsh rarebit sauce made with bechamel, Worcestershire, mustard, egg yolk, white crumb, and cheddar. He then set the rarebit-topped beef medallion on a warm prawn bisque made with some tomato concasse and of course, cream!
Finally, dessert was a playful creamy creation, featuring acreme brulee with stewed fruit along with pistachio and macadamia biscotti. The creme brulee was a very creamy light custard with some sugar on top, caramelized to a toffee-sweetness. The biscotti, meanwhile, was kept thin and crisp, perfect for dipping into the stewed fruit mixture made with a rhapsody of berries that were cooked until their flavors simmered as one.
After such a meal, I realized that if you want a life filled with good eating, you must fill your food with some very good cream.