Abu Dhabi-based baker Remedios delights

She started out as a nanny and helper for an Emirati family in Abu Dhabi, but today she works as the head cook in the family's kitchen. She often organises the food for parties where important dignitaries could be attending.

And all this without any formal training in the culinary arts! The story of this Abu Dhabi-based self-taught baker is as much a delight to hear as it is to taste the food that she makes.

Remedios Dangalan worked as a telephone operator in a military base in the Philippines before she made her first trip to the UAE in 1984 at the age of 28 to work as a nanny for an Emirati family in Abu Dhabi.

Keen to improve her culinary skills, she often stepped into the kitchen during her free time and tried her hand at creating dishes. One of her first attempts was carrot cake, which was highly appreciated by the family.

It did not take the family long to recognise Dangalan's culinary skills and she was soon asked to become the head cook. She was in charge of planning the daily meals, purchasing and charting the menu for family events, as well as special occasions.

Aside from researching various dishes for main courses, soups, appetisers and salads, Reem (as she is fondly called by her employers) also tried her hand at pastries and cakes and soon became an expert of sorts.

One of the big events she planned was a party where several prominent UAE personalities were on the guest list. With the help of her kitchen staff, she managed to serve 40 types of hot and cold starters, about 40 main dishes (Continental, Mediterranean, Arabic, Mexican and Oriental cuisine), ten kinds of custards, six kinds of cold cakes and 20 varieties of hot cakes for dessert!

With a rich collection of cookbooks, she also keeps her own notes and uses a handwritten cookbook where most of the dishes she has mastered and has been tasked to prepare time and again, are carefully recorded. Most of the pages are well-worn since it is a personalised record of each recipe she used and modified to make her very own personal creations.

Her most popular recipes are for velvet cake, blueberry cheesecake, banana cake, chocolate pudding, biryani (fish /chicken /mutton), machbous, wild rice and mushroom soup, Niçoise salad, Spanish paella, sushi, tiramisu, basbousa, nacho platter. "Today a lot of people are more concerned about making healthy choices when it comes to food,'' she says. "I firmly believe that what we eat should not only delight our palate, but also keep us healthy and fit.''

Reem says, "the most difficult part of cooking is time management." Having mastered so many kinds of dishes through the years, Reem says she has yet to perfect her hollandaise sauce.

Reem plans on pursuing a degree in culinary arts in the Philippines when she retires from her work here, which, she says, is very soon. A formal degree would complement the skills she has already acquired. Back home, she has invested in a three-storey building near a major university where her eldest daughter will be managing a room and board facility.

The ground floor will be a cafeteria, and Reem hopes she can set up a food business there.

Lovely Claire D. Cachuela is a Proof Reader, Gulf News