As you may have already been well aware of this, Augustdiners are not particularly a good cook, not exactly the best wife of the year candidate here, but once in a blue moon, we will feel inspiration pouring in and decide to cook for the family. So on the 3rd February after spending long hours watching Junior Masterchef Australia (they are blardy amazing), we felt totally inspired, and start working out a list of what to make for the family. Turns out there will be some guest joining us for dinner, and so the pressure is on to cook an (EATABLE) meal that serves 15pax.
I ordered most of my main ingredients like chicken, seabass, tenderloin etc through my restaurant, and for the rest of the ingredients we merrily went to BSC for some grocery shopping. I LOVE GROCERY SHOPPING IN BSC! As we happily topping away food onto the trolley feeling extremely generous with ourselves in conjunction to the Chinese New Year celebratory mood, everything on the shelves seems to be “necessary” to make this dinner. After a good hour of intense muscle flexing from shelve to trolley, shelve to trolley, we felt so accomplished!!!

The only problem of this joyful exercise is probably the cost. I shall not disclose the exact amount but it’s definitely a four hard earn figure. I dare not think of the RM130 bucks saffron sitting on top of my kitchen counter right now, especially since my attempt of making seafood paella was a failure.com

So as the clock is ticking away, and a good 6 hours ahead of us for preparation, not a single minute was wasted. Chopped the vegetables we did, clean the gooey (and May I add disgusting) chicken butt I did. We roast, we cook, we broil, we grill, in the end of it all, we were ready to throw in our white towels and call it a night.

The menu is a feat on its own, Crazieapple and I repeatedly had a heated argument on what we would be serving to our guest. She was to be in charge on appetizers and desserts while I can focus on my main course. But being a control freak who likes to take control of situation and make sure everything is perfect (yep I’m a true virgo) I crossed off every single thing she propose or had in mind until a point where she refuses to tell me what she’s making. So there you go, we have two chefs here who refuse to communicate and collaborate.

So how will this night turns out, you wonder?

THE PREPARATIONS



One of many ingredients~

The notes.. =)


The Chefs...

The concentration on camwhoring

tomatoes and capsicums sitting on the baking tray ready to be roasted for one of the triple-play soup.
*scroll down to see what this is all about!* =)

Lesson of the day: DO NOT soak a good slab of beef in the water in hope that it will soften faster!

Baby Back Ribs

In the making..

My adorable assistants..




DINNER AT THE NG’S


Appetizer: Warm tomato bruscetta and creamy mushroom on toast



Appetizer: Triple play soup (which crazieapple names it in some Chinese prosperity bull-ah, something which I care not to translate) a combination of peas and asparagus, roasted tomato and capsicum, and cauliflower soup with cheese grissini. This was the one dish that i strongly disagreed to as it takes up way too much effort.. But im glad that Crazieapple insisted to stick to her plan cause these were absolutely divine!! Each of the soup brings up distinctive flavor altogether..Crowd favourite was definitely the roasted capsicum and tomatoes.


Appetizer: Baby Back Ribs with Whiskey Sauce Décor with sauté asparagus wrapped in prosciutto


Main: Jamie Oliver’s perfect roast chicken (HELLO, MR. HUCK if you are reading this, mine was way better!)

I joke of course. I roasted two but only manage to serve one as my guests were all stuffed by now…

Main: Failure.com seafood paella. I never dealt with paella before. And I cheated the recipe by substituting Spanish rice with risotto rice.



To be fair to myself (also as a comfort for my expenditure of the RM130 saffron that I no longer need) the paella DOES taste like paella. Only mine was a soggier version, and I think I was a wee bit greedy with the saffron and put three handfuls of it when the recipe only require one.


Main: Tray Baked Lemon Seabass (perfect lemony flavor and the right doneness with a nice flaky texture)
The Grilled Rosemary Australia Chilled Tenderloin didn’t manage to make it to the table as the guest called TIMEOUT. Oops, so we did overdo our portioning a little.


Side: Assorted roasted vegetables. Just look at those beautiful colours!

Desserts: Our messy love affair with Oreo cheesecake topped with strawberry compote.


Our wine of the night is none other than my favourite Penfold 707 Vintage Cabernet Sauvignon, and our whisky Louis XIII


It was a successful dinner and i could finally sleep soundly that night (and i'm pretty sure it's due to exhaustion) =)

14 comments:

Baby Sumo said...

Wow I salute you... cook so many dishes :)

Well done! Practice makes perfect.. so do cook more hehe.

AugustDiners said...

Babysumo: hahaha... my mom ban us from cooking in future, said we made too much mess, and too much food! :(

Sean said...

too much saffron in the paella is preferable to too little! :D but it all really looks delicious (i'm really reminded of huck's cafe, come to think of it), especially the drool-worthy oreo cake! :D

AugustDiners said...

sean: true true, although saffron does have a distinct taste that not all prefer. and YES, im totally surprise on the quality of the oreo cake myself. It's delish! :D

Michelle Chin said...

Order ingredients through whose restaurant? Who owns a restaurant? Can visit ah?

Jubulicious said...

OMG babe... we do cook night?????? hehe I get that inspiration after watching food channel! Let's do a food channel overload + Wanna be chef day ♥

Tailim said...

Well not bad leh can cook leh .... Salute & keep on doing it just in case the chef is on a long leave.

AugustDiners said...

michelle: just a humble neighbourhood italian restaurant out of town hehe! :)

Julz: yes! sounds like a great plan! Let me know when, n im up for it anytime :D

STL: thank you! hehe

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

so what happened to the tenderloin? i hope u didnt cook it then left it to waste..

man if i were to cook all that, i prob go to sleep after cooking, not eat it!

AugustDiners said...

joe: thankfully it did not go wasted as we cooked it next day n served it to some other guest. :D

eiling lim said...

wah so much ingredients! but your handwriting is really neat! Good job on the cooking!

AugustDiners said...

eiling: Thank you! we got our lil sister to write down the recipes as our printer broke down!

Chasing Food Dreams said...

oh my gosh! what a beautiful meal.. you gals Rock!

Love the trio of soup and the bruschetta. The ribs look gorgeous and so does the fish & chicken.

Drooling just looking at all the food..:)

AugustDiners said...

Food Dreams: Thank you for your compliments :)

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