I am proud of Hong. He is understanding a little bit more as time passes. First of all, he works sauté or fish station and needs to move tilapia because the current dish needs to change. He comes to me, and we decide on a curry dish, as in a Thai style curry. Then he goes to the store, buys a small jar of Thai red curry paste and brings it to work. He then reads the ingredients and says to himself, "I can make this from scratch." He does, using Korean chili from Korea. We walked through the steps of making the sauce and had four versions, each version treating the fish a little differently. The first one was straightforward - sauté in the pan and add the sauce, then braise. In the second one, the fish was hot oil blanched after dredging in corn starch. The third was fish jun style, and the fourth was katsu curry style. Everyone chose two and three as the best ones. What happens is that when you coat the fish with something you protect it from direct heat because exposure to direct heat hardens and dries out the fish much faster if you are not careful. But when you do protect it, it stays really moist and tender. I like the idea of making the curry from scratch, and Hong thought about the dish just like I would. He read the ingredients on the jar to find out what the curry was made of and said, "I can do this", and he just worked on the flavor profile that suited us.
~AW