Gold for Pacific Sutera chefs’ ‘linopot’ dish
Published on: Monday, February 05, 2024
.jpg "Gold for Pacific Sutera chefs’ ‘linopot’ dish")
Chef Federico ‘unveils’ a pan container of quail meat for the competition during a briefing for members of the Black Box Team.
HARRY Mungod, 38, and Wahab Awang, 43, both Sous Chefs from Pacific Sutera Hotel, stole the limelight at the Sabah Hospitality Fiesta, with their winning dish “Quail cooked in spicy coconut milk”, regarded as a traditional Borneo food.
Named ‘linopot’ in the Dusun dialect, it is peculiar to the KDM (Kadazandusun Murut) community.
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The experienced duo effortlessly bagged the gold prize after beating 18 teams in the Class P15 (Professional Category): Practical – Hot Cooking (Team Black Box) Competition with the theme “My Food, My Culture”.
“Although we were preparing this quail dish for the first time, we were very confident of winning the hearts of the judges. It is simple and easy to prepare this dish. We are elated over our triumph in the competition,” said the gold winners of Class P15: Team Black Box.
According to Harry and Wahab, they were not aware of what was in store for them as the mandatory dish (to be prepared) was only made known to participants before the start of the event.
“The main ingredients – quail meat and chocolate sauce – were provided by the organisers and kept in a black box. We did not know what was inside the black box.
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These were compulsory items while other condiments were of our choice. To us, the chocolate sauce was a ‘surprise’ ingredient.
“For additional condiments, we used the tuhau (a type of wild ginger), sambal belacan (a popular Malaysian chilli condiment made of chillies, ‘belacan’ or shrimp paste and lime juice), and fern shoots.
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The ‘linopot’ has to be spicy to make the food taste nice.
“To enhance the presentation of our food, we also served the sambal belacan in a cut-out bamboo piece, the bambangan (wild mango) and tuhau as additional offerings,” the chefs explained.
A close-up view of the winning ‘Linopot”.
RECIPE for the Winning dish – quail cooked in spicy coconut milk (Linopot) or Gulai burung puyuh (Quail) masak lemak cili padi:
2 pcs burung puyuh (quail)
4 nos bawang putih
3 nos bawang merah
3 grm lengkuas
4 grm kunyit hidup
6 pcs cili merah
5 pcs cili padi
6 pcs cili kering
1/2 kg santan
1 pc asam keping
30 grm gula
40 grm garam
Chefs Harry and Wahab were given an hour to complete their dish from preparing clear pumpkin soup to cooking the main course (quail cooked in spicy coconut milk) and then producing dessert which consisted of black glutinous rice with coconut meat and chocolate sauce.
Asked on the method of cooking, they said: “We don’t marinate the quail.
We just braise two pieces of the meat for about 15 minutes together with the coconut milk and sambal belacan to make it spicy.”
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