Asian Latino Buffet

Chinese roast duck with cucumbers, scallions and Hoisin sauce in pancakes

The digital clock above me read 7:45 p.m. I took a short breath. I was still assembling pancakes with roast duck and cucumbers when we had until 8:25 to get all our food out there for the buffet. I put the tray of duck pancakes in the oven to warm up.

Planning the Dec. 8 buffet was one of the requirements for Level 4 in the Classic Culinary Arts program at The French Culinary Institute.

Over two weeks, five classmates and I (second from right) prepared dishes we picked for our Asian-Latino themed buffet. Students, teachers and staff came down to the kitchen to have a taste.


Somehow we managed to get the stews in sternos and the banh mi sandwiches on platters.


Chef V ordered eight ducks, and I roasted all eight of them. I used a Chinese roast duck recipe from Saveur magazine as a guide, and the ducks came out really well.


Phil assembled many pork rillete and head cheese banh mi sandwiches on huge platters. The sandwiches were so popular, Phil had to make more.


Kathryn made the Tom Yam soup and served it in spoons. "I heard people say they wanted more," she said.


Gillian made summer rolls with shrimp and basil served with Hoisin-peanut sauce. The rolls went pretty fast.


I really like Zak Pelaccio's Crispy Pork Belly and Pickled Watermelon salad at Fatty Crab. So I took his recipe and turned it into an amuse bouche. It's sweet. It's salty. It's sour. And people kept eating them.



The banana leaves were filled with branzino fish, sticky rice and a spicy marinade. "It's like getting a present," said Phil, who made the dish.


I made the cabbage kimchi three weeks before the buffet because I like kimchi that's really wilted and fermented. By the time I served it, the kimchi had the right texture and taste.


Elena made a Peruvian dish called Causa de Camarones, which are molded layers of shrimp, avocado and mashed potatoes flavored with aji peppers.


Elena served this wonderfully dense coconut flan.


Gillian's tea-braised lamb stew was amazing. She used Ming Tsai's Five-Spice Chile Rub recipe that calls for lapsang souchang tea leaves to flavor the lamb. 



Gillian made mango lassi and I made Korean cinnamon tea.

After I took a break to eat, Christopher told me, "Jenny, I've been eating all this spicy food and I pick up your tea, hoping it's refreshing. But my mouth burns even more."

Earlier in the week, I had simmered cinnamon sticks and ginger in a pot for an hour to make the tea. I added sugar and a pinch of salt. Then I chilled it. The spiciness of the tea had intensified over time.

"It tastes exactly like a red hot," Vicki said, referring to the little red candy.



Jeremiah made stir-fried mushrooms with noodles.


Kathryn made mango sticky rice.

On an Uptown train going home, Christopher said,  "After a while, everything started to taste the same because I tried all this food. The mango sticky rice was the last thing I ate. I just remember thinking, 'Wow. This mango is amazing.'"

He concluded you didn't have to work so hard to make each dish taste great when a ripe mango could be more than enough.

I pulled out the plastic quart container I had stuffed with mango sticky rice. I didn't have a chance to try the dessert until now. I ate a few pieces of mango. Christopher was right. The fruit was delicious.

"Can I have some?" Christopher asked.

I nodded. He picked up a chunk of mango with his fingers. We munched in silence, enjoying the plush sweetness of the mango.

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To see more photos, go to my Flickr page.