Kirk Westaway (below), sous chef at Jaan, will represent Southeast Asia in the S. Pellegrino Young Chef 2015 finals in June. He tells us how he came up with his competition entry and his favourite local dishes.

Meet Kirk Westaway Of Jaan Winner Of The Southeast Asian Leg Of S Pellegrino Young Chef 2015
Though only 29, Kirk Westaway has worked his way (literally) through all of South America – Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, all of it – and has been sous chef for three years and counting at French fine dining restaurant Jaan. Before this, he’s also worked at Daniel Boulud’s eponymous two-Michelin-star restaurant in New York. 

Recently, Westaway out-cooked nine other chefs from Southeast Asia in the regional leg of the S. Pellegrino Young Chef 2015 competition. This can’t have been easy – among these were promising talents such as Guo Sen Chua, chef de partie at Sky on 57, and Andrea de Paola, sous chef at &Sons. And to think all this wasn’t even his idea – Westaway tells me he only entered the competition at the prodding of Julien Royer, chef de cuisine at Jaan.

Meet Kirk Westaway Of Jaan Winner Of The Southeast Asian Leg Of S Pellegrino Young Chef 2015 2
His entry dish, which he’ll also be serving up at the finals in Milan next month, is called, quite simply, Forest Pigeon (below). “It’s one of my favourite ingredients to work with,” Westaway explains, adding that he just went with his instincts when it came to creating the dish.
Meet Kirk Westaway Of Jaan Winner Of The Southeast Asian Leg Of S Pellegrino Young Chef 2015 1

The pigeon, imported from Brittany, is painstakingly prepared to retain as much of its natural flavours as possible – cooked sous vide for 30 mins at 63 deg C (“At around 62 deg C, the proteins in the meat begin to cook, so I can cook it very slowly and perfectly evenly,” he says), then the legs are confit (slow-cooked in oil) for four hours while the rest of the bird is pan-roasted with thyme, garlic, hay and bay leaf (see below – looks a lot more exciting than it sounds!) Not much goes to waste – Westaway makes a sauce with the bones and cooking juices, and a parfait (something like a mousse) out of the heart and the liver. The pigeon is served with barley risotto, a nod to the bird’s natural food.

 

#forestpigeon #jaan #spellegrino No I didn’t eat it, but it looked damn good during lunch.

A photo posted by DFL (@davidwiseguy) on

When he’s off duty, he’s… still cooking. At home, Westaway enjoys cooking up comfort food like stews and pies – Guinness stew and lamb shepherd’s pie are part of the repertoire. As for local food, he says black frog porridge at Geylang is a big favourite, as is salted egg crab (which he thinks beats chilli crab anytime). “But there’s so much (Singapore) food I haven’t tried yet!” he adds.

Volunteers to take the man out on a massive food trail, please step forward. 

Like this? Read about another chef from Fabulous Baker Boy who’s also obsessed with local food