At some level of the principle Filipino restaurant to be awarded a Michelin celebrity

May is Asian American Pacific Islander heritage month and what a better way to celebrate with some amazing food Yeah Tim Flores and Jeannie Quan are the chefs and owners behind the Chicago hot spot it's called kasama and they're going to cook for us in a moment but first check out their story in the morning lines form outside the.

Chicago Eatery with customers eager for a fresh pastry chocolate croissants and at night kasama is one of the hottest dinner reservations in town the restaurant which opened in 2020 is the brainchild of husband and wife team Tim Flores and Jeannie Quan its name means together in Tagalog and perfectly sums up their culinary collaboration.

Genie oversees the bakery and Tim oversees the Savory menu when we think about new dishes or new pastries we think about the flavors together I kind of joke that I'm a catastrophe and Tim's an idealist so we kind of balance each other out I'm pretty well in April 2022 kasama made history as The First Filipino restaurant to be awarded.

A coveted Michelin star we got the call and I was like Genie I think this is it and as we were like getting together to answer the phone call we missed it it's just kind of validation for all the work that our team has put into it they were awarded the prestigious honor only five months after debuting their.

Tasting menu the 13 course meal is inspired by Tim's Filipino Heritage and features creative takes on traditional dishes when we started thinking about the concept of kasama I was thinking what food is going to set us apart I needed to do something that meant something to me and something that I grew up eating and that's Filipino food.

Tim's earliest memory is of Filipino food are thanks to his mom Lolita I started cooking because the cafeteria food was so bad and so I started asking you for the adobo recipe and like beefsteak recipe and the college friends every time he cooked like oh gosh I said what did you put in your food started cooking professionally Filipino.

Food was just not what I learned at all so I never envisioned cooking Filipino food professionally until we decided to open our own place and this was our take on adobo source of great pride you know and we really wanted to come out here and support very very proud but I tell all my friends about it our dream was always.

To just highlight Filipino food and bring it up to the mainstreams and kind of do away with the stigma that Asian Cuisine has to be a cheap Cuisine we're still using modern techniques with Incredible ingredients I've always thought I don't want to open the best Filipino restaurant in the world I want to open the best restaurant that we can.

Possibly operate wow this is so impressive and beautiful I feel like y'all are culinary royalty in our kitchen michelin's how did it feel to get that Michelin star it was insane come on we weren't even thinking about that 'll do a tasting menu and and try to.

Make it and when we got that college to hear your parents say they're so proud of their friends I feel pretty good all right so are we gonna get cooking let's get going all right so I'm gonna get on this side of you cooking chicken adobo okay so sort of The Unofficial national dish of the Philippines okay everybody sort of has their version.

Um but generally it's soy sauce vinegar and garlic are the main components so do you always use a leg like that or can you I like using dark meat but you can use a whole chicken you can use breasts if you want wings um super versatile um we grew up eating and cooking yeah exactly and so you can do this with pork.

Beef and adobo are there certain run through the ingredients we always should have so we usually use um white vinegar soy sauce garlic are the main components some people use some aromatics like black pepper and bay leaves okay but those are the main ingredients they're super easy to make and you can use different vinegars if you have them.

House um one free soy sauce things like that but we're just gonna Brown off our chicken probably like three to four minutes per side got it all right okay um but this step is even like if you don't have time not the most important thing okay here we're gonna start Browning some garlic this is kind.

Of the crucial step is the sauce and um Filipino cuisine in general is getting that deep rich garlic flavor a lot of times like it's a sweat garlic gently without the ground it you brown it okay I have like that deep it's not amazing how did you get in charge of the Savory and your wife here got in charge of the sweet just the way it works working in a.

Restaurant and um you're the pastry chef who's the I'm gonna ask you who's the better cook that's a tough one we do rip off each other a lot oh you do but Tim Cook's usually all the meal wait look what's going on I know I've never seen garlic cook like that because you don't want to burn it right you just put on the ground.

You want to get really nice brown color but that's going to build into the now it's easy we can add all of our ingredients so this is soy sauce soy sauce so equal parts soy sauce the vinegar white vinegar okay beautiful okay is your chicken fully cooked when you put it in there yes it's just you're just adding the.

Browning for color Okay um and then we're gonna finish braising it in here for probably like 45 minutes to an hour okay um Brown dark brown sugar this is also to taste um so you don't always have to add I'm coming over here yeah all right so tell us about your.

Pastries here these are two of our most popular yeah I'm selling pastries we have a uban Huckleberry basket which is kind of like a buttery pound cake filled with Ube pastry cream oh my gosh and um huckleberries dusted with the Sun from the Filipino flag and then we also have a ham and cheese danish with Raclette fondue and shaved Serrano ham.

We finish it with a black pepper caramel what okay wait I need to try this too this looks insane but how good is that chicken it's insane it's so easy it seems like there's more ingredients than just soy sauce vinegar and garlic ones oh my God I wonder why you got the Michelin star all that.

So delicious to get this recipe today.com food

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