(Photo: the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi)

Chi: Everything is chosen to create a Christmas atmosphere.

Chef:  For the scallop, we use US scallop, we slice the scallop and we burn the scallop, then we marinate with ponzu, which is the Japanese soya sauce and we decorate it with edible flowers from Da Lat.

Chi: That’s the starter. What’s the second course?

Chef: For the second course, I have nice ravioli. With ravioli, I spread the nice part of the sheet, so you roll that out. In the meantime, you make the filling, which is the chicken muse. We puree the chicken with a little bit of egg white, salt, pepper, and some cream, so we have nice, smooth puree of chicken with creaming filling. When we got that ready, we sauté some mushroom imported from France. We cube the foie gras, we sauté that. Once the mushroom and the foie gras cool down, we then fold the mushroom and foie gras through the chicken muse, and that’s the filling for the ravioli. We do one sheet of ravioli, put the filling inside and put another sheet on top. We cut out the ravioli. This one is boiled for 5 minutes in boiling water. Then we sauté more mushroom for the underneath of ravioli. We sauté the mushroom with a little bit of olive oil, butter, salt, pepper with parsley. That one will go with ravioli on top, then we pour some chicken consommé. That helps combine the foie gras and mushroom, and chicken muse you eat together.

Chi: This is the season for cod fish. I see that your menu includes some smoked cod from France.

Chef: We fillet the cod fish, we take out the bone of the fish, we then put a little bit salt and pepper into the flesh. We have a very hot pan and we seal the skin of the fish on the pan. After 2 – 3 minutes, we put a little bit of butter, garlic in the pan, and put lemon juice to neutralize the butter, then flip the fish and let it be there until you finish cooking. For decoration, I make saffron sauce, we make yellow sauce. We sauté some shallot, some mush room, some white wine to deglaze the pan, and some chicken broth, we reduce that down, we put some cream. When it’s hot, we put some butter and infuse with some saffron. The saffron is a special flower. It has special taste and golden color for the festive.

Chi: Why we have a frozen mule before the main course?

Chef: After the fish and before the main course, it’s very important to clean the palate, to refresh ready for the main course. Going with the festive theme, we choose the beetroot, which is the winter vegetables, and also it’s very red with vibrant color, red in Christmas and vodka also to celebrate. We mix them together vodka and the beetroot. We put a bit of lime in there, frozen and puree it into a sorbet, so the frozen ice and we put a scoop of it in a Martini glass, we decorate with thin slice of beetroot, and some lime leaves as well which is very fragrant with green and red which is very perfect color for Christmas.

Chi: I’m eager for the main course, Australian lamb.

(Photo: the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi)

Chef: The lamb I put it in a hot pan, and seal all the sides until it turns golden, and brown with a little bit salt and pepper to enhance flavor, and then we put half of spoon of butter. You throw the lamb in the oven, we make crust of wasabi-black sesame, the spicy wasabi gives a kick for Christmas. And that will be put on the top of the lamb.

For dessert, we have log cake which is popular for Christmas.

We have chocolate mousse inside, to give the local flavor, we infuse chocolate with some ginger. We put the top with chocolate ganache.

Chi: Great food in a romantic setting of candles, flowers and music adds to a memorable Christmas Day. Bon appétit, everybody. Good bye until next time!