a new beginning

We have finally gone on our first adventure on the 28th of november ’09. Hopefully this will mark a beginning in more cooking adventures ahead.

1 kitchen, 2 wannabes (B&M), 9 dishes + 7 testers.  Would it be a flop.. or a roaring success?

Judge for yourself as this post will tell you our bumps along this lil’ journey.

It was decided that we should not risk too much on our 1st attempt. Plus, we wanted the people to come back. Better not scare them off on our first try…

M’s lovely poached quail eggs,pancetta on mini toast

I was facisnated by the process that M used to cooked the quail eggs. Quail eggs are so tiny that if I did it I would have probably landed up with egg shells in the dish.

Hence, my egg dish interpretation was the chawan mushi with salmon roe.

Unfortunately I have yet to perfect the silky smooth appearance. Till then, i should just nickname my dish to be “pimply” the egg custard

The next 2 courses were our protein dishes. It shared a similar idealogy – MARINATION!

B’s miso cod.

This was my 2nd attempt @ this dish. A trick learnt was that the longer you steep it in the marinade the miso taste would be infused further into the fish.

M’s rice wine chicken with ginger & scallion

M had marinated this at her place the previous night before coming over with her gear . It was a very yummy dish. Could this perhaps be the next hainan chicken rice dish?

We were adopting a more fusion approach as our rice (carb) dish took a journey to lil’ italy

M’s mushroom risotto & B’s Linguine with Oriental Mushrooms

By now our guests were pretty stuffed with happy tummies. But every meal needs to have a vegetable dish.

M’s roasted veggies (pumpkin, potatoes, dutch carrots & parsnips)

For B, dinners would have been incomplete without dessert.

M’s japanese cheesecake

I always have a fear of rising things as I fear that they would sink. We decided to accompany the cheesecake with icecream. Why? I guess I should leave that  idea up to M to spill if she wishes.

M’s cheesecake & B’s black sesame pudding with kinako powder.

By the end of the night, we had 5 happy guests, 2 worn out rookies and one tired dog.