Epcot Food & Wine — Culinary Demonstration, Bob Getchell – Sanaa

This demonstration was on 30 September, opening day of the 2011 Epcot International Food & Wine Festival.  The culinary demonstration space has been altered for 2011.  It is no longer a stage at the end of an elongated space with tables but is tables spread wide around a stage.  If you attend events you’ll understand better as in 2010 all tables seemed to have a good line of sight.  This year, there are tables that seem to have limited line of sight (do the imagineers, builders and bean counters ever talk?).  Last year’s set-up needed improving but I believe they may have taken a step backward this year.  I could not get a photo that would demonstrate the problem that I observed.

Again this year the kitchen is provided by Thermador.  Below is a photo of the right side of the stage where the Food and Wine Sign appears.  If it were not for the red KichenAid stand mixer this would be a pretty bleak kitchen.  I wonder if those are Cutco knives posed next to the mixer?  Funny that Cutco is front and center in the Festival Center every year?

On to the specifics of this demonstration.

Food: Spicy Durban Style Chicken from Chef Bob Getchell of Sanaa, Animal Kingdom Lodge, Kidani Village

Wine: Dr. Loosen Riesling with Sarah Noble from Loosen Brothers Winery, Germany

At every demonstration there will be a recipe at each place setting.  It is a convenient way to follow along and to make notes.  Below is a photo of our recipe for this event.

Our old friend (ok, she won’t like me saying “old”), Pam Smith is the presenter for all culinary demos again this year.  Pam has been a fixture at every Food & Wine Festival.  When she asked if anyone in the audience had attended every year, two people raised their hands.  Pam noted that those two folks were teen-agers when they first came BUT she (Pam) was only 12.

At each culinary demo you start with the wine. Sarah (the representative for Loosen Brothers Winery) explained that Riesling isn’t always the overly sweet, saccharine-y wine that typically comes to mind. However, one of the reasons that so much German wine is sweeter is that the German culture uses wine for socializing, not so much for pairing with foods. The wine that we’re drinking today (2010 vintage) is 100% Riesling grapes (can have up to 15% other grapes to add more sugar and fullness). The grapes are grown in southwest Germany, the coldest latitude that can support these grapes. When we taste it, we should be aware of lots of fruits, good mineral content, and a high acidity… all things that will make it pair well (or as Sarah said, “make the wine and food happy together”) with the spicy durban chicken.

Sarah Noble from Loosen Brothers Winery

Dr. Loosen Riesling (stemware is new this year and it is engraved, I wonder how many will grow legs and walk off?) 

Next, Chef Bob comes out and begins to prepare the demo food (because of course, what we’re going to be tasting is already prepared)…

Chef Bob Getchell, Sanaa, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge, Kidani Village

From our notes:

• Sanaa is African food with Indian influences, apparently, there is a lot of Indian influence in African foods – particularly the spices used and the cooking methods used
• This particular dish was incorporated in the Sanaa menu because there are a lot of cast members at Animal Kingdom Lodge etc… from the Durban, South Africa region.
• MASALA is a spice mix; each dish at Sanaa has its own signature spice mix
• CURRY is a cooking method, not a little bottle of yellow powder in your spice cabinet; with this cooking method you end up with a gravy or sauce;
  • WATER… interestingly, Indian and African curries usually include the addition of water to thin down the gravy and distribute the flavors more thoroughly
  • ONION is a key component of African curries because as it cooks it breaks down and adds a bit of thickening to the gravy
  • GINGER is another key component of African curries

Tip: keep your fresh ginger in the freezer (Nora does this already), ginger spoils quickly and most times you don’t use a large quantity of it when cooking.

Tip: peel/scrape your ginger with a spool, cut into coins/disks, smash these with the wide blade of your knife before chopping (okay, Nora doesn’t do this, she just uses a microplane grater )

• When Sanaa first opened, guests often wanted more spice/more heat to their meals, so the Durban curry was added to accommodate that
  • SPICIEST AT WALT DISNEY WORLD… this is the spiciest dish served at Walt Disney World (yes, it’s the spiciest thing we’ve ever tasted at WDW; not overly spicy for our taste buds, it was spicy with lots of flavor)
  • OPTIONS… you can get this curry with chicken, shrimp, lamb, and vegetarian style at Sanaa

Doesn’t this sort of negate the statement that each dish has it’s own unique spice mix???

• Chicken dishes at Sanaa are made with boneless, skinless chicken thigh meat that is then checked and cleaned of fat and connective tissue

Ummm, Nick’s chicken definitely had fat and connective tissue in it. His verdict – if that’s how well they clean chicken, they need to go back and relearn the process. Nora’s comment – wonder if they had the regular chicken meat cleaners do the chicken for the demonstration?

Tasting Notes:

• Wine = Dr. Loosen Riesling
  • Initial Smell – could smell acidity & minerals… Initial Taste – tart and crisp
  • Initially – the wine was still rather cold/cool and the flavors developed more as the wine warmed up a bit while we were waiting for the food
  • Wine went very well with the durban chicken
  • The spiciness of the food made the wine seem a bit sweeter
  • Not a wine we’d drink socially (well, we’re not sure there’s any wine we’d drink just to be sociable)
• Durban Chicken
  • As said above, this was probably the spiciest dish we’ve had from a Disney World restaurant … however, it wasn’t SPICY relative to our usual spicy eating
  • We had hesitated to get anything off of the “Slow Cooked in Gravy, Simple and Well Seasoned” when we had lunch at Sanaa earlier in the week (honestly, we weren’t sure what was meant by gravy); next time at least one of us is likely to give it a go

Spicy Durban Style Chicken from Sanaa

Recipe (serves 4)

For the Dry Masala Mixture

• 2 each, whole star anise
• 1/2 tablespoon whole cumin seeds
• 3 each, whole bay leaves
• 4 each, green cardamom pods
• 1/2 tablespoon freshly ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 3 tablespoons ancho chili powder
• 2 tablespoons madras curry powder
• 1 tablespoon tumeric powder

For the Curry Sauce

• 1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into one inch pieces
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 cup yellow onions, cut into small dice
• 2 each, jalapeño peppers, seeded and minced
• 2 tablespoons ginger-garlic paste
• 3 cups canned, crushed tomatoes and their juice
• water as needed, about 1/2 cup
• To taste – kosher salt
• To taste – freshly ground black pepper (of course, we’d likely substitute white pepper)
• 1/4 cup cilantro, minced (we’d likely skip this, not huge fans of cilantro)

Method

For the Dry Masala Mixture

1. Toast the cardamom pods, cumin seeds, bay leaves, and star anise in a dry pan until they become fragrant and slightly browned, do not allow to burn. Remove these spices from the pain, allow them to cool, and then grind into a fine powder (a coffee grinder works great for this).
2. Mix the toasted ground spices with the cinnamon, chili powder, ancho chili powder, madras curry powder, and the turmeric powder. Return the entire mixture to the pan and toast until fragrant. Remove from the hot pain and allow to cool.

For the Chicken Curry

1. Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed non stick pan until it is near smoking hot.
2. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and then cook in the hot oil. Brown on one side, turn and brown on the other side, don’t mess around with the chicken (Nora has rewritten some of this in her own words). Remove from pan when browned on both sides.
3. Add the onions and jalapeño peppers to the pan and cook on medium high heat until the onions are slightly translucent.
4. Add the ginger-garlic paste to the pain and mix well, cook for one minute, then add the dry masala mixture. Mix everything until well blended. Cook on high heat for one minute.
5. Add tomatoes and mix well, bring to a simmer and cook  on high heat for about 3 minutes.
6. Add chicken back to the pan, add the water, bring to a boil, reduce temperature  and simmer until chicken is thoroughly cooked (10-15 minutes).
7. Add cilantro (we’ll skip this step)
8. Serve with basamati rice.

Final Notes:

• Wine was served in real honest-to-goodness wine glasses. We remember it being plastic last year.
• Not sure if we had plastic plates and utensils last year, this year it was real silverware & real plates.
• This demo encouraged us to give more things at Sanaa a try.