by Miss Terry Diner
The man in number 73A wants a lamb curry.
Have you ever stopped to consider just how your meal
arrives at your table? In this particular case, your in-flight tray table
(to be put upright before landing, thank you).
Last week, the Dining Out Team visited Bangkok for a
preview of the new menu items to be served on Air-India, at the invitation
of Mrs Alka Jayakar, the manager of Air-India for Thailand and surrounding
SE Asian countries. This preview was held at the Thai Airways Catering
Services at Don Muang Airport.
The
Pattaya Mail Team, including our resident Indian, since this was
Indian cuisine to be sampled, was met by Mrs Jayakar and her Air-India
personnel, and the executive chef of the Thai Airways Catering Services
Santo Zoppis and the Pastry Chef Urs Rohrbach.
The new menu was devised in India at the head office of
Air-India itself and was then sent to Bangkok to be produced. The
photograph, for example, shows a part of the economy class dinner that
will be given to fliers from April onwards, provided it passed the taste
test, of which we were being a part.
With the lunch we had one of the wines served on
Air-India, a Laroche 1999 Chablis Premier Cru, and it was a most pleasant
French wine made from the Chardonnay grape. I also had the good fortune to
sit with executive chef Santo, who could explain the dishes where
necessary.
We began with the famous bismati rice, which is fully
imported into Thailand and I chose a lamb in oyster sauce as a starter to
go with it. From there it was off to try the paneer (goat cheese) curry
(very mild), a dal (slightly hotter curry), a chicken with lemongrass
(again milder) and finally a lamb curry, which I personally found superb.
Amongst the tasting contingent were many Indians and it
was interesting to see that they too backed the Dining Out Team with top
marks going to the lamb curry.
Chatting with Santo resulted in an invitation to tour
the Thai Airways kitchen and this was a real eye-opener. Imagine the
busiest restaurant you have ever seen and now take on board (literally)
the fact that the catering service kitchen produces 42,000 meals a day! To
produce this number there are 200 pastry cooks and 500 main kitchen cooks.
Now
to get all the different airlines’ orders correct, the whole system has
to be computerized and the logistics involved are almost beyond
comprehension. Want an omelette? This is no nip down to the corner shop
affair. Santo’s kitchen goes through 10,000 eggs a day. And while in the
mathematical bent, he also uses 800 kg of bread flour, 350 kg of
tenderloin beef, plus another 150 kg of other cuts, 1 ton of chicken meat
and 400 kg of local fish. And whilst local produce is used where possible,
there is still much of the ingredients that are imported. On my tour there
they were unpacking cartons of endives from Australia, for example.
According to Santo, the most important initial steps in
food production are to start with quality ingredients and have scrupulous
hygiene standards. In Thai Airways Catering Service they even have a
jacuzzi for the lettuce leaves, to ensure that all dirt and any crawlies
are removed from the garden fresh vegetable leaves. Also as part of the
food hygiene the pre-cooked (about 70% of total time) hot items are
rapidly brought down to a core temperature of 4 degrees Celsius using very
specialized chilling units.
The different meats and poultry kitchens are separate,
so that there is no cross contamination between beef and pork, for
example, and there is a dedicated Muslim kitchen as well.
Before serving, the meals are finally cooked (the last
30%) in convection ovens on board the airliners and served. Mr. Singh in
73A wants a lamb curry, and a fine choice, Sir!
The combined team felt that the new items from
Air-India, courtesy of Thai Airways Catering Services, was of a very high
standard and probably well worth the flight! Thank you Mrs Jayakar and
Santo. My tray table is upright again.
