Sometimes a simple kitchen error can totally change a filming day
by Sandra Kyaw
“We’re sick of bao!” groaned Chris, our videographer/animator, with our sister team at School of Wok having made a big punt a few years back introducing make-your-own bao bun kits to the major supermarkets, the team were debating how many 1000’s of baos they all thought Jeremy had made in his time. But in our current world of what we do, and that’s video production for food and drink, no matter the said food or drink may be, filming was in session and Jeremy was already mid demonstration on how to make the perfect, simple Hirata bao buns. He kneaded the sticky ball and set it aside. I looked on with eager anticipation – although waiting an hour for the bao dough to rise seemed like torture, I really felt it would be worth the wait as he was onto preparing the next dish to film for another YouTube episode anyway.
After we wrapped up the sweet and sour chicken (made from an all-natural ingredients) it was time to check on the dough. Jeremy casts us a slightly worried look of disappointment “It hasn’t risen at all, that’s odd. We put in yeast, we got all the proportions correct, so what could it be? Let’s steam it anyway – maybe it’ll cooperate with heat.” After taking a small bit of dough out the steamers, Jeremy takes a small bite…and immediately spits it out. The whole crew stares in confusion. “Salt. We put in salt instead of sugar!” Good grief. For those who may not know, a small amount of salt doesn’t inhibit yeast rising, however in significant amounts it can pull moisture from yeast, stressing on the yeast cells and breaking them down; a little gastronomy lesson for you all.
Even seasoned chefs like Jeremy Pang make mistakes, I guess. Or was it Jeremy’s fault? Ryan is another chef at the school who prepped the ingredients for us before filming, so let’s just say, Jeremy and Ryan shared a few laughs and tears before Ryan, being the good sport that he is quickly made another portion of dough off camera, which once ready helped us finished off the entire batch as quickly as one can say, “who put in the salt?” These bao buns accompanied extremely well with the creamy miso chili compound butter we made for another dish we filmed that day – check out the melting butter moment if you want to drool over some of our expert food filming.
With so much fun filming (and eating), it was hard to stay upset at the bao catastrophe for long. Having a team that works so quick on their crab like feet, problem solving at the speed of light comes naturally to us at Curious Crab Productions. Making food content is bound to have a slip up every now and then and as we all know, the best dishes in the world often come from a mistake made somewhere.
Let this be a lesson to all readers to always taste the salt – or sugar – before you cook!
