Best RecipesChef Monica Galetti - MasterChef Elite News Recipes

Chef Monica Galetti is the most famous Samoan chef I know of. For those of you who don't know who she is, I'm not going to ask what rock you've been hiding under (because I'm polite like that), but I am going to introduce her. 

She was born in Samoa, Monica Fa'afiti, and moved to Wellington, New Zealand at a young age. There she trained as a chef and entered international culinary competitions. Bitten by the travel bug, she applied for jobs with leading restaurateurs and Michel Roux, a renowned chef in the UK, took her on.

Since 1999, she has worked at Roux's high-end restaurant Le Gavroche which is all kinds of famous in itself (was first UK restaurant to receive three Michelin stars, trained Gordon Ramsey, has a Guiness Record for most expensive meal in the world). Chef Galetti started there as a lowly Commis Chef and rose through the ranks to become the restaurant's first female Sous Chef and then Head Chef for a Le Gavroche restaurant in Mauritius. 

She returned to the UK Le Gavroche and on top of working there, she is currently a presenter and judge on MasterChef: The Professionals where she judges a fierce cooking competition between qualified chefs. She has also just published her first solo cookbook Monica's Kitchen, and she is Samoa's very own UK Tourism Ambassador. And she's a mother. This is one busy woman so I was really fortunate to get an interview with her for our humble blog. 

Read on to learn more about this magnificent Samoan who has reached the pinnacle of culinary success.

© Charlotte Knee

Can you tell us a bit about what inspired you to write your book?

I’ve been asked a few times to do a book but being an actual chef I felt there was no point in writing up another sauce or meat book or a book about slow cooking. And then my friends came up with the idea, ‘Well, why don’t you just teach people how to cook what you do and make it a bit easier?’ and that’s how the idea came about and it kind of grew from there.

What kind of recipes and flavours can readers expect to find in your book?

It’s a whole mix. My background in cooking has been based in French cooking for the last twelve years while I’ve been here [Europe]. But I’m also a Mum with a young child and I rush home from work and have to knock out quick meals, as nutritional as possible and as quick as possible. It’s all about seasonal availability of what I have at the time, straight from the source and as fresh as possible. And then there’s the Something Different chapter which is different on this side of the world, not so much if you’re living in New Zealand. I’ve got a recipe for the oka and I’ve taken sapasui and deconstructed it – I’ve used veal and made the noodles separate to make it more appealing to this side of the world compared to how we know it.

Umu Galetti-style, seriously,
that's pork, taro and luau

How was it, writing your book?

I think most of it has just been learning to get a balance of working life and family life. There’s so much going on at the same time: filming, the restaurant, writing this, and I think my daughter suffered quite a lot from the timing of it. I’d finish work and pick her up then be at home with her and then sort of rushing to get her bed so I could get on the computer to type stuff out. So if anything, it made me appreciate the time that I have with her and also how fun it is to be cooking with a child. When I was doing the book it actually made me realise how much cooking I do actually do with my daughter, and it's quite a bit.    

With the Samoan dishes that you mentioned from your Something Different chapter of the book, I love the way you’ve taken Samoan food and refined it. Do you have an opinion on Samoan food and how would you like to see it develop?

I’d hate to have it change. You know, it’s just what we grow up on. Luau is luau and I’d hate to have it any other way. For our palates, we know what to expect. Teaching the European palate and adjusting the food to suit, making it more pleasant to the eye is the thing. And also to teach about the ingredients we have - you can eat the taro leaf, the sea grapes or limulimu that we have in Samoa - and showing them that there are other types of things can Samoans can cook other than the coconut bun.

I’m really fascinated by your journey from Samoa to New Zealand and now there to Europe and by how you’ve developed in your career. I was wondering how your French mentors have influenced your cooking style.

I think it’s down to the person. I’ve had to prove myself over the years to be worthy of the positions and the promotions that I’ve earned. Through that, my mentors have seen that I’m very keen and passionate about what I do so they’ve invested in me, sent me off to France to work there for a while in pastry, and I think it’s that. They see I have a passion for it and they’re willing to put back into you what you put into your work.

Sapasui with flair
Didn't recognise it, didja?

You have a bit of a fearsome reputation so if someone wanted to work for you, what would be the top things you’d be looking for?

Always from the beginning, presentation and how you dress yourself is important. I believe that if you can’t respect yourself how are you going to respect the ingredients or the people you work with. So the first thing is self-presentation and hygiene from the beginning. Having common sense is more important than anything. No matter what you are doing, have some common sense and it helps you out with a lot of issues.

I saw you mention elsewhere how you had a trainee who didn’t wash a vegetable before using it.

Yes, it’s just little things like that which people will forget and think is not important, but it does matter, especially at this level of cooking.

With your own kitchen at home, what are some ingredients that you always have on hand?

I always have puff pastry in my fridge. I always have smoked salmon. Lemons. What else do I have? Champagne. My husband is a sommelier so I have a very well-stacked cellar for myself to choose from but champagne isn’t really counted with that. I always have bacon lardons in the freezer. They help with quick easy meals like pasta. And in the store cupboard I’ve always got couscous pasta, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste and fresh herbs, very important.

Do you grow your own?

Yes I do.

I know that people would be intimidated cooking for you. Do you feel intimidated picking a wine for your husband? [He is Head Sommelier at Le Gavroche]

No, because I come from New Zealand and we have some pretty damned decent wines! But I love to leave it up to him and he always tries to teach me something new about wine or grapes so that, I enjoy.

Okra - don't ever cook this for her
(Photo from Columbia Culinary Society)

Is there any ingredient that you won’t cook?

Okra. I hate okra. It’s horrible. People say ‘Oh, you haven’t had it right. You have to put it in a curry.’ But when I’ve had it, it’s slimy and eew and horrible. And I would never use horse meat.

You know they sell that in the supermarket in Holland.

Yeah, I know. It’s not something I like. I lived in Holland for about six months. I wouldn’t cook monkeys, cat, things I don’t think are necessary to eat, I wouldn’t cook with.

Incidentally, do you eat sea (sea slug guts)?

Oh, actually no, it’s been a while, and I think I would eat more of it now.

What are your favourite Pacific dishes?

A proper umu is what I’m dying to have. Roast with the pig, with the luau in there and kalo. So I’m looking forward to Samoa. I’m going to Samoa this Christmas. It’s the first time I’m taking my daughter and my husband and it’s the first time back for me in over twenty years. Part of it is to go back home and rediscover my roots and it’s going to be a really really good trip. 

You mentioned that your daughter enjoys cooking with you. Does she help you around the kitchen and does she have a sophisticated palate?

I think more so now that she’s six years old. She loves cooking with us and she enjoys it. And she always eats her meat medium rare. She won't eat it if it's not medium rare. She loves sea bass and sole. And if we’re having meat at home, if we’re having a steak, she’ll say, “Are we having red wine?” It’s cute.

I’ve read that in Europe when people take their children out for dinner they allow them to taste a bit of alcohol. Is that what you do?

That’s what we do, we encourage her. When it becomes a part of normal eating and dining, it’s in a sense something that’s not abused. So it’s all about teaching her and nurturing her palate as well.

You’re around food all the time and you have such a great figure. How do you keep in shape?

I work out about five times a week. I tend to hit the gym at half six in the morning and I go straight to work afterwards. On the weekends I do boxing training.

And finally, can you tell us a bit about your future projects? What have you got on the horizons?

I just agreed to another three years with the BBC for MasterChef. I’ve got another series coming out for MasterChef in November. We did another series called the Great British Food Revival and that will be out in the next few weeks. We’re also filming a few episodes for another programme with Michel which is called Food and Wine and that will be out in January.  

Fa'afetai tele lava (Many thanks) to Chef Galetti for taking the time to talk to me. It was really a great pleasure to communicate with someone so talented. Thanks also to Ed from Quadrille Publishing who organised the interview.

Monica's Kitchen is a beautifully photographed hardcover book full of sophisticated but simple recipes for the everyday cook. I just received my book today and was salivating over the photos, and I've already marked lots of recipes I want to try out. Make sure you get your copy soon, and if I were in the UK, I'd be doing my darnedest to get it signed by the inimitable Chef Galetti.

    
                                                      

Best RecipesChef Robert Oliver - The Pacific People's Chef News Recipes

Chef Robert Oliver is one of the Pacific's culinary heroes. Together with Dr Tracy Berno (co-author) and Shiri Ram (photographer), he took Pacific food to the world in their pioneering book Me'a Kai. And the world responded by naming Me'a Kai Best Cookbook in the World 2010 at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in Paris, beating out such hefty competition as Noma (from a two Michelin starred restaurant), Natura Kuchni Polskiej (from a Michelin 'Rising Star' restaurant chef) and The Essential New York Times Cookbook. 


I caught up with Chef Oliver while he was in China, and he graciously told me about his next project which is poised to do wonderful things with and for Samoan food. Throughout our interview, Chef Oliver's passion and enthusiasm for what he does is unmistakable. He's a man with a clear mission who, despite his culinary fame, remains humble ("I don't consider myself to be a celebrity chef") and hard-working. In fact, he has worked tirelessly for years to bring good food to the table, whether it be for his own restaurants in Miami or Las Vegas, or for resorts in the Caribbean, or even for the homeless or underprivileged folk in inner city New York. Let's find out more about what he's doing for our tiny little country of Samoa.


Congratulations on your cookbook Me'a Kai winning the Gourmand Best Cookbook in the World Award. How did you and your team celebrate?
I was at work in Shanghai one day and I got a call from a number I didn't recognise and this booming French man comes on and says, "Is this Robert Oliver?". I said, "Yeah". He said, "This is Edouard Cointreau [President of Gourmand International]. Your book is just incredible. There's been nothing like it. You've taken a risk. You've broken the mould. And you're shortlisted for the Best Cookbook in the World Award." I actually had to sit down, I couldn't believe it! I called Shiri and Tracy right away. Tracy actually burst into tears. It was all such a project of the heart and it was a very brilliant but hard project. 


Did you know that Samoans came to Paris to support us? I still get very moved when I think of it. And the thing that has been best about the win is that it hasn't been just 'our' win. It's been a win for the whole Pacific. It's an affirmation that the right stuff is coming out of the Pacific. When I was in Fiji this year [for the South Pacific Food and Wine Festival 2012] people were just so honoured by the win. They feel recognised in a very nice way. A lot of the profiles of the food producers have gone up, so they're suddenly on the radar. These are things that we didn't anticipate. The community and their support has been really amazing for us and that's our energy moving forward actually.


Your next literary project is Organic Samoa, in which you'll be creating a tourism cuisine supplied by local organic farmers. Can you tell us a bit about it?
We always meant Me'a Kai to be the beginning of something. And I'm so grateful to the guys in Samoa - actually, there's only one guy, the Prime Minister, and the rest are all women - that are making things happen for me. Sonja Hunter, who is head of Samoa Tourism, has been an absolute soldier on this whole thing. And the women from Women in Business Development, who were already heading in the direction of Me'a Kai, have been wonderful. The Samoan project has been really creative as a result of the Gourmand award. It's the result of two years of intense lobbying during which the Prime Minister of Samoa has been absolutely amazing. He's really gone out of his way to make this project happen.

Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi
Prime Minister of Samoa

Random House (New Zealand) is publishing again. They took a massive risk publishing Me'a Kai because publishers usually look for what's commercially viable and don't put money into books where the market is too small. But because Me'a Kai had such runaway success that no-one anticipated, and we've built a really amazing community around Me'a Kai, Random House liked the idea of this next book.

Now that we've got this profile from Me'a Kai and the award, one of the things we can do with it is make it effective in the communities that we were originally based in. In Samoa, it just seemed obvious that here we have over 500 organic farms and yet there's no organic content, or very little, on the hotel menus and so its not on the tourism brand. And also, Samoa's got diet-related health problems. None of those things together make sense.


So Samoa has just stepped up. Samoa so often does step up, by the way, in the Pacific. There's a real entrepreneurial sense in Samoa that I've just been overwhelmed and so happy about with this project because it's going to make it into a great book, and thus a great movement and a great activity. 


It sounds like a lot of work on top of all your other projects, as you're also the Le Cordon Bleu New Zealand Ambassador there in China. How do you balance it all?
I realised early on that I was a horrific manager of people. I mean, I have trouble managing myself! I was told I needed a personal assistant, someone to deal with this and someone to deal with that. But that didn't feel right to me. So I do have trouble, but I've got fantastic partners. After the Gourmand award, we had big publishing deals come our way, but we thought 'What are we about?'. We wrote Me'a Kai as a celebration for the Pacific of their own cuisine so that it would be linking to tourism and it would be connected to day-to-day life. With the Samoan project, we're saying, 'This is how you do it [sustainable cuisine]. This is an activity.' We're pretty excited about this next project. 


Do you have a favourite Samoan food?
Oh, I've got lots. I love the curried octopus. And I love Ofupua'a - Pork Heart and Liver in Soy and Ginger. That's incredible.


These aren't things you would expect to eat at a fine dining establishment. Are you determined to take locally cooked Samoan food to those heights?
Yep, and actually, we're doing that in Auckland. You know, I was never going to do restaurants again, because I've had restaurants in the past, including a high profile restaurant in Miami. But there's a reason to do it now, for Me'a Kai and for Pacific cuisine.


Our 'Kai Pasifika' restaurant is due to open in 2013 on the Auckland waterfront. It will be headed by restauranteur Richard Hall, who has an extensive international background in the business, and it will be the quintessential Auckland dining experience, offering the beautiful cuisines of the South Pacific.  


The restaurant concept is based on Me'a Kai, so it will be the face of Pacific food trade in New Zealand. But more than anything, it's about celebrating Pacific Island food culture and having somewhere fantastically Pacific to go to in Auckland. 


I've seen you say in another interview that Samoan coconut cream is the best. Could you please tell us why?

It's now out of business actually. It was called Fiafia Pacific Coconut Cream and it was made in Samoa. It was the only coconut milk that first of all, didn't have any additives in it, and you could taste that. Also, it had a real roundness of flavour. It's something that you find in Pacific Island coconuts that's different from Asian coconuts. 


Is there anything you won't cook?
Not really. We can't avoid pisupo [canned corned beef]. We have to have a recipe with pisupo in the book because the pisupo story is important to Samoa. But there's a whole lot of Samoan recipes that have been pulled out of use and I want to bring them back and put the spotlight back on them because I think they're a lot healthier than the pisupo, lamb flaps and chicken backs that have become so central to Samoan and also Tongan food culture. But I'm not writing a health book or here to judge anyone or tell them what to eat. We just want to put the focus on the amazing organic produce that is being locally grown.


A lot of original Pacific foods were natural and what people are now calling 'organic' farming is actually the way islanders had farmed for many centuries. 
And that's the reason behind the organic movement in the Pacific. It's not to create 'organic'. It's to preserve the integrity of the original land and ocean and water. Organics is the mechanism which maintains Pacific cultural integrity in relation to farming. I think people think of 'organics' as being this hippy thing, but in the Pacific, the goal is to create a legal framework that stops things going wrong. Samoans understand this because the Samoan Prime Minister is the Head of the Pacific Island Organic Taskforce. 


Most of my readers at SamoaFood.com are home cooks. Do you have any advice that can help make our food more like yours (ie. better tasting, better looking, just...better)?
The whole of Me'a Kai is home food. It's not restaurant food. I think that's one of the reasons it's so successful. If anything, we're learning off the home cooks and not the other way around. 


That leads me to my next question. You've had a lot of success getting recipes from home cooks in the Pacific, but one of the most common complaints here at SamoaFood.com is that no-one shares their recipes (and we're talking about our own mothers, aunts, cousins etc!). So, how do you get your recipes from people?
I don't know what the problem is because I have no trouble whatsoever. I was arriving at people's homes in Samoa with a photographer and getting their story and I really felt like these were stories that were waiting to be told. There's a whole lot more than a recipe that you get - the story of the person, the culture, the farming and all the loving anecdotes around food. That's what we got with Me'a Kai and that's what we're hoping to get again in Samoa, because Samoa has great personalities. 


I totally agree with you. In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share with my readers?
I just want to say that I'm thrilled at what you're doing because I think the more recipe sharing, the better. 


Thank you Chef Oliver for your generosity of time and spirit. You're doing such great things for Pacific and Samoan food. We wish you all the best with Organic Samoa and all your other endeavours.

Chef Oliver with his good friend Beatrice Faumuina

Chef Robert Oliver is heading off to Samoa this Saturday and will be based in the Pacific for much of the remainder of the year. He'll be bringing a food festival element to the Teuila Festival later this year, and be assisted by a celebrity guest who I'm not at liberty to disclose. 


And don't think that this is the last you've seen of Me'a Kai. Chef Oliver has been working closely with Gourmand and Le Cordon Bleu to bring this fabulous cooking text to life. And in fact, Me'a Kai is even being made into a TV series by Zoomslide Productions. The effects of Chef Oliver's work seems to know no bounds.


If you see Chef Oliver out and about, please show him your support for his work on Organic Samoa. He's at the helm of a movement that is going to transform the way that we, and especially the world, see Samoan food. 

Best RecipesChef Sam Choy - Hawaii's Celebrity Chef News Recipes

This is the first of what I hope will become a regular feature here at SamoaFood.com - interviews with island chefs and/or those who work daily with island food. I know that most of us are home cooks, but it doesn't hurt to hear how the pros do it, right?

Chef Choy grilling ahi

To kick things off, it's an honour to present my recent interview with Chef Sam Choy.


Chef Choy is a James Beard award winner (the restaurant version of the Oscars), a prolific cookbook writer, and a champion for Hawaiian Heritage Cooking. (Heritage cooking is cooking traditional foods, those that evoke memories of special people and special times. It is 'remembering through food'. Sounds a lot like what we are doing here at SamoaFood.com, nay?). 


Chef Choy has competed on Iron Chef America, and appeared in Ready..Set..Cook! and his own cooking show 'Sam Choy's Kitchen'. He creates menus for American Airlines and even has his own signature food and coffee range.


Actually, Chef Choy doesn't know it, but he was one of the original inspirations for my food blog through his book Sam Choy's Polynesian Kitchen, without which I would not be writing recipes for you guys today. So it's fitting that he is our first ever chef guest here at SamoaFood.com.


Chef Choy, thanks for being so generous with your time.

You've been doing true Hawaiian Heritage Cooking for some decades now. What trends have you seen over the years? What would you like to see in the future?

The trends that I have seen over the years went from traditional, Nouvelle, Fusion cooking, Heritage even fast food. In the future, I would like to see more sustainable cooking.

What was your vision for the cuisine at your restaurant Kai Lanai?

My vision for the cuisine at my Kai Lanai restaurant is sustainable cooking with local Island Heritage; just a combination that would entice anyone’s palate.

I was salivating just reading over the menu. What dishes do you highly recommend for first time visitors?

I would suggest the Noodlemania made with fresh vegetables and chicken or beef along with chowmein noodles, or any of our fresh island fish cooked to your preference, or our salads.

Can you give us your impression of Samoa and Samoan food?

Samoa is the land of the “happy people” and the food is very unique and good. Being born and raised in Laie, we always ate Samoan food; puligi, fa'ausi, sapasui, etc.

What ingredient(s) could you not live without?

I think I could not live without mayonnaise because you can do a lot of different things with it.

What's your favourite local/regional dish?

My favorite local dish would be poke.

Do you have one piece of advice for my readers who want to make great-tasting island food at home?

Always start with fresh ingredients and don’t be afraid to do different things with your cooking.


Many thanks to Chef Choy and his wife Carol for sharing their thoughts.


If you're in Hawai'i, please check out Sam Choy's Kai Lanai and grab some Noodlemania. And if you would like to try out some of Sam's flavoursome recipes at home, pick up one of his cookbooks from Amazon.




[Are there any chefs/cooks you would like to see featured here? Make your suggestions and I'll see what I can do.]