[Music] I'm not here to attend the wedding instead I'm here as kitchen help do we put the glass on the table or no the table but I'm not sure how much help I really am because this is the first time I'm cooking for 3,000 packs in a day right now my state of fatig is tired I'm Derek Chong you might remember me as the winner of Master cheef Singapore that was the first time I stepped out of my comfort zone and now I'm doing it again Dy come come we do the right in this series I'll be exploring the business of big batch cooking from festivals to soup kitchens serving a 2,000 people we need a large volume of vegetables s this way from down to up what does it take to feed thousands with quality food on time and within [Music] budget s h is only 50 years old all right you ready now let's go but it's already been to more than 7,000 th000 Malay weddings and that's because he's part of nasin catering one of Singapore's oldest Malay Caterers so say how many people are we expecting for this week's event this Sunday we are actually having this three event about 3,000 packs 3,000 packs is that a normal load nor load is 1,000 packs but this is quite high end for this week it's about 2,000 packs I wasn't expecting to cater for three weddings in one weekend but site tells me that since the pandemic big wedding celebrations have returned with a vengeance in the ' 70s there were no dedicated catering services so we have to depend on our friends kind neighbors to help things run so this was common before in the campong days so gong is a very common site gong means to work together and in aong in L ASU or in Aang I've seen Chinese neighbors actually help my grand to carry the pots here and there over the charcoal some even blow the fire to make it know to to really light it up Malay wedding evolved through availability of space and also help from the camp FS when the Malay shifted from campong to Flats the only space that they could find was under the void deck spes became very limited you don't really see gong that much so evolved to lesser of gyong they engag in in catering services since 1978 my late dad started this business we don't start as a kin company we started off as a company that rans plates Sports to the cat but eventually people come for us to have food my father saw potential in the business that's where he started to do a catering business I start joining the business uh because my father at an early age of 44 he got a stroke that I was s schooling after that my mother told me don't go further your study just rope into the family business and till today 27 years I'm in a business we about 70 K before Co now I think it's about 10 in the market running so right now where are we going now we're going to Paran pla my supplier my M supplier the centerpiece of this Sunday's weddings will be the mutton briani how many kg of ingredients are you talking about for rice and mutton for 3,000 packs rice is about easily 400 kg mutton is about 450 kg wow that's crazy a lot how many pots of Bry are we talking about the Bry alone we talking about 15 pots so say how often do you come here to check out your master on every Friday of the week because the storage is done by param so my manager got to come here got check the temperature and the quality before delivered to us I see hello oh ni morning morning where is your M from what from Australia Australia because they have a quantitive Supply New Zealand have a bit even expensive so but they can't Supply the quti what we in Singapore so the quality is is quite good yes austral quality more than enough so say is there a reason why you pick M from him do you need to get a big supplier because we are doing volume they's say I need tomorrow 300 kilo param is ready for because param got fle of vehicles it will deliver immed to yeah because in our business we need uh the quality the sizing so we cut normally for him according to what size you want then service fridge everything we prepare before one day we deliver to him most kitchens get their ingredients delivered way ahead of time besides having his delivered just a day before the wedding feast and I'll soon find out why besides pre-ordering the muton S also has to BR an order of desserts for 3,000 people I was expecting to go to an industrial kitchen but I've been directed to a hdb unit hello Mr gazali Hi D Hello nice to see you good to see you too wow come please come in come to my house creating cakes needs specialized equipment and dedicated storage space so s has outsourced dessert making to gazali Murat a baker but I'm surprised at how little space there is in fact my home kitchen seems roomier so so I can't imagine where to begin baking dessert for 3,000 people where are we going to place everything okay Mr gazali so this is where you bake for thousands of people oh yes this you have to bake batch by batch every single time yes correct so how do you store them I store them in my freezer gazali's chest freezer is only 210 L big which means there's a limit to the type of desserts he can bake and store they need to be dense flat and stackable so we are actually doing brownies yes correct so we'll start with butter and mix with the sugar yes correct I think what really intrigued me about Mr gali's process is actually his planning so he actually plans 2 weeks in advance so he prur the ingredient make sure he has enough ingredients for the bake and also making sure that he has enough space to put all the cakes into the freezer everything goes in so he only bake maybe 20 cakes for Wednesday and then 26 on Thursday 21 on Friday he'll start to Pace himself so that he has enough rest and to ensure that every batch of cake comes out very good condition I start very early in the morning I start about 5 then I finish around 10 11 once my kids is at home so I'm not making I'm not doing anything so they can uh study at home now you can put this in the oven okay so it's done preheating ready okay no problem take it up two in each t two in t okay how long you going to break them for 1 hour 1 hour yeah okay great yeah okay so 1 hour okay right this right okay the brownie is ready okay okay let me have you to shck out one okay can yeah yeah yeah after 1 and 1/2 hours we've only made less than a tenth of what's needed for this Sunday hi gazali hello mad yes on time for inspection yeah that's right man it's important to control the quality of the cakes and and the brownies and inspect whether they follow the hygiene protocols one block like this can count how many pieces 6 64 pieces 64 pieces if the taste is not according to our specs we will ask them to redo and if this happen more than three times we might change for our vendors weding they take and stra every put in the mouth so one one piece yeah 1% one piece you want to try first let's try let's TR first I definitely wasn't expecting a Master Chef style judging today [Music] [Music] you want to try first let's try let's try fantastic man oh thank you thank you very much thank you this is why he's a specialized doing specialized job M for us because this brownie is fantastic oh this is absolutely delicious so I really like that the brownie is really nice and moist honestly this is one of the best brownies I've had thank you I can really tell why this is actually one of your signature items in your business thank you thank so we have done 14 how many more to go only 14 more to go only you seem very confident in this okay right uh let's get to work then let's get to work so let me enjoy the Brownie and you all go to [Music] work 19 hours to the three weddings and param the muton supplier is just starting to process s's order by 7:00 p.m. on Saturday 450 kg of mutton are delivered to s's kitchen then around 400 kg of chicken arrive next okay I'm going to help you guys with the unloading okay [Music] sure yes okay okay cooking starts in 3 hours and I'm still not sure why s will want to cut the delivery of his ingredients this close when I first entered the Central Kitchen I see a kitchen with lots of to burners there's no oven and there's no refrigerator so everything is made fresh here think that they're going to cook for 3,00 people this weekend it might be quite a challenge because there's about 8 to nine stores I think you have to do batch cooking batch by batch s's kitchen is less than 170 square m in size with only 70% of that space available for cooking the lack of Cold Storage here explains why side has all his fresh food delivered just before the cooking frenzy begins it's now 10:00 p.m. the plan is to cook half the food by 8:00 a.m. for lunch that is due to start at 11:00 a.m. this will be delivered to the three wedding venues so that setup can begin the food is kept warm in these heat insulated containers until they are ready to be dished out for serving meanwhile the kitchen will finish cooking the other half and deliberate before the first half half RS out hello s this is a very huge operation yeah very operation which I am something used to very intense bat cooking there are five dishes to cook for the three weddings we begin with the star of all Malay wedding Feast Nasi briani Nasi briani is a must have Nasi brani is yellow in color and yellow symbolizes royalty yellow equates to gold and gold equates to wealth so when you have n brani it tells people that you're going to have a gold meal a special meal today in Singapore we started to infuse other dishes like sweet sour fish masam or you know or some a BAL now this is to cater to other ethnic Community we want to invite them to come and Savor the dish first you have to put this one that you got to put the spices the spices then I put the salt put the spr of din and then okay so now the m is actually oiling let it reduce a bit correct now we reduce the fire we waiting for the mton to be sof before the rise goes in the mutton needs to be braced till it's tender and that can take two precious hours in the meantime s directs me to portion out down for the daa the Lal Curry that goes with the briani p p ready you got count I count never count I don't know I lost count or what counting the door you counted wrongly we can afford that kind of mistake because why it's time consuming to readjust everything and we don't have that luxury of the time [Music] [Music] about I'm told to measure 20 scoops of Dow but Midway I lose count you bring one one more out no no out out never count I count about 18 I don't know I lost count or what count 20 20 okay can 5 K right slightly more around five you one more I think half a scoop half a scop half a scoop come car watch luckily s was there to rectify two little down would cause the SCE to be not so thick and not having that mouth F but too much that sauce might be a little bit too thick so I think in such a environment consistency is very important the mistake leaves me slightly embarrassed but thanks to size sharp eyes it doesn't hurt the cooking D come come we do the right after an hour and a half is enough yeah so one pot is ready we can start adding the rice in but there are any other five parts more they haven't passed the send test yet so we got to wait for it to boy and then we check the texture again when it's good we'll go through the process of adding the tomato paste spices and fried shallots one more time five more pts of briani need to be cooked before the stove space can be freed up for cooking the other four dishes in 6 and 1/2 hours the food must leave the kitchen what make the best brany it's not how you cook it it's how you play it the fire so we have to slow down the fire in order to maintain the juice and not overheat the food that is why it takes 3 hours last time the traditional cooking of Brandy they use charcoal on top they put charcoal so now time has changed so what we do now is that we have below fire and on top of the for also another fire because we need to cook the rice at a certain temperature and the mton at certain temperature also so we want to maintain the Heat and to maintain the freshness and the aroma the first time you open the PT is always the bride and bridegroom or their family will eat first so they know that we are giving them something that's fresh and they can taste it and they can evaluate it this is something new to me not being able to taste or check if the food is cooked but I'm told the briani has never been rejected so I trust in s's perfect track record the first batch of BR has been sent out and we're going to start to cook behun chili sauce sauce okay so in this pot we have added some oil some garlic red onion Dred chili paste as well as some soybean so it's about 7:00 a.m. right now so this is actually the last dish we're going to make before we transport all the ingredients to the side so this is just basically a sauce for the sweet and sour fish in half an hour the food needs to leave in three vents for three wedding lunches due to start at 11 a.m. but when we arrive at the loading Bay we find one vent the one Bound for a void deck wedding at jalaga missing as the man in charge of logistics Muhammad has arranged for a backup van reload the food but there is a problem the backup van is too small to hold everything eventually correct van arrives 10 minutes late yeah this one this one bring now bring now okay tag all go to that side and now we have to scramble to move all the food over to the correct van [Music] check all the item we have to go all right okay done by the time we're done we're an hour behind schedule while I hit for the wedding taking place at the vo deck sides other two weddings are held in the ballrooms during pre-o time it was 80% VC 20% was vro that point of time VC was still in demand but now the trend has definitely changed 90% of the customers that call us they want a venue that's borro venue from social media now people see wedding in hotels bues you know it's more levish and more stylish and their family members can sit down and enjoy their wedding despite the search in hotel Ballroom rentals most of the wedding f are still catered by companies like SS as hotels don't always have hollow kitchens I head to the wedding at jalaga which is taking place at aoid [Music] deck get get when we arrive we have less than an hour to set up which is shorter than what Muhammad had hoped for the crew and I have already worked 13 hours through the night and we will need to work for seven more put down I'm okay uh right now my state of fatigue is um tired but still can work we still can keep things [Music] going now we start to put them on the warmers yes correct careful take daa yes you can see the mton will go up can C okay it's time for the taste test that s mentioned earlier the briani has been left in the PT for 8 hours will mix it evenly I can still feel its heat the moment of Reckoning is here the family of the bridegroom is taste testing the briani with before the party begins will they approve of it if there's in of food rejected by the customer we activate our Chef to make sure that they recook the particular dish hell hello how's everything it's good how the Mt the Mt is soft and tender oh nice nice nice I like the texture of the rice okay then the how the chicken I think the chicken is uh the proection the tast is just nice because sometimes too spicy so the kids cannot really consum it if the food is not up to the standard I think I will lose my job or you know I will retire from catering because the image have been Tanish but it never happened before so I'm still good so when it's nice you can go for the second round oh my goodness was okay the number of guests steadily increases as the day [Music] progresses until the moment they've all been waiting [Music] for I think seeing the Malay couple walked through for the first time for their wedding I think it was very heartwarming because I've come to know that I am part of that very important M Stone in their life that I actually helped to put the briani on the table for the guest and their family to enjoy and that I was part of this special operation right now it's about 5:30 p.m. I've been working non-stop for 21 hours and I'm very tired but it was extremely worthy and I felt that every time spend in this was very [Music] memorable I have one very important task left to do which is to clean up all the dishes and clean up the [Music] place
