FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Chef in the ‘Pink’ with local produce

Chef in the ‘Pink’ with local produce

Restaurant raises awareness of abundant natural foods and Breast Cancer Foundation

FOR THE past three years, Blue Elephant Royal Thai Cuisine has served up healthy dishes in October to raise awareness of breast cancer and donate proceeds to the Queen Sirikit Centre for Breast Cancer Foundation. This year is no exception. 
Award-winning and globally acclaimed Chef Nooror Somany Steppe conjures up some really interesting Thai dishes with local herbs with medicinal properties, premium ingredients and lots of creativity.
“We have seen these plants, fruits and herbs before, but sometimes we just forgot how magnificent they are to benefit our health,” said Chef Nooror, the executive chef and founder of the restaurant. 
“With these set menus, I just wanted to remind the diners of how abundant natural resources are in our country, and how they can be created into many various dishes that are tasty and good for your health.”
The Go Pink with Chef Nooror set menu, available throughout this month, starts with an east-meets-west dish, seared foie gras with karonda sauce and pink pomelo salad. The star of the dish is karonda, the super sour and tart berries believed to be antioxidants and a great cure for anemia. 
While most enjoy it raw with Thai-style salt and chilli dip, Chef Nooror preserves them with sugar to lessen the sour and balance it with sweetness. When made into a sauce, karonda gives a bright, tangy flavour that cuts through the grease of the foie gras, and the slight tartness helps cleanse the palate, making the dish even more well rounded. 
Next up is a platter of three amuse bouche: river prawn salad with quinoa, pink dumpling with tom yum-flavored crabmeat and chicken korma served on crispy roti. 
The highlight ingredient here is quinoa that is gluten-free, high in protein and one of the few plant foods that contain all nine essential amino acids. It is also high in fiber, magnesium, B-vitamins, iron, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, vitamin E and various beneficial antioxidants. 
The chef uses pomegranate juice – in the salad dressing and in the dumpling dough – to add a slightly sweet and tart nuance to the bite. More importantly, pomegranate extract has been shown to inhibit reproduction of breast cancer cells, and may even kill some of them.
Cleanse and refresh the palate with gac fruit and karonda sorbet, that is especially creamy but not fatty thanks to the blended gac fruit flesh.
The main course starts with a little plate of green curry with beef served with rice berry vermicelli. |The homemade curry paste is perfumed with herbs and the curry is well seasoned, with much less sugar than most recipes. Key ingredient to note is organic sand ginger, which has been mixed in the past that adds an earthy yet citrusy and fresh aroma to the dish. The brownish-yellow root has antioxidant agents and has been used extensively in traditional Thai medicine to ease stomach upset, kill bacteria and relieve inflammation. 
The remaining savoury dishes come in a small tray, or sam rap, which normally has a rice dish, soup and a meat dish. Chef Nooror’s sam rap is truly fulfilling and delightful with tom yum with roasted duck and mulberry leaves that has a robust kick of salty, sour and hotness with a bit of aromatic tartness from the shredded mulberry leaves. 
On the side is stir-fried rice berry tossed with chilli dip and topped with tamarind glazed river prawn. The highlight is the snow fish cooked Isaan-style with lots of herb. The fish fillet is topped with herbs, wrapped in a banana leaf package then slowly grilled. 
End the hearty meal with a “heavenly combination of homemade desserts”, that comprises the fragrant jasmine coconut ice cream, date custard, sweet dumpling on rich coconut cream and coconut milk sticky rice. 
  
 
HEALTHY CHOICES
>> Go Pink with Chef Nooror set menu is available for lunch and dinner at Bt1,850 net per person until the end of October.
>> Blue Elephant Royal Thai Cuisine is on Sathon Road, close to BTS Surasak. It is open for lunch from 11.30am to 2.30pm, and for dinner from 6pm to 10.30pm. 
>> Reservation is recommended at (02) 6739353 to 8; www.BlueElephant.com
 
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