Tuesday, May 2, 2017

cook off for our masterchef bday boy

 This year is huge!! the fiancee and I are getting married PLUS we turn the 3! (in my dreams.....)
30!!!


Thing is we don't feel the least bit like 30, or how is 30 supposed to feel anyways? 
Me thinks keep having fun and keep that energy up whatever our age may be.
As they say it's all in the mind, if the mind don't matter, it all don't matter.
Which take me back to a couple of months when i threw the fiancee a surprise 30th birthday party. 
So we did the dinner with family, the romantic steak dinner, but here's the fun part.
This surprise got Cooky Inc, his friends, and my cousins to help pull it off for our masterchef Roy Fong.


I decided to throw his surprise at Cookyn Inc cos ever since he knew how much I love food, and through our favourite tv series since eons such as Masterchef, Hell's Kitchen, and now Chef's Table; He's always raving how much he loves to cook and idolises Gordon Ramsey. With a spatula in hand, and friends who are game, we decided to surprise our boy with a cook off!! 


Phew managed to decoy him into Cookyn Inc and let the fires begin!
We were split into 2 teams~guys vs. girls
Spanish vs. Vietnamese
2 mains 
1 mystery dish
90 mins


Before we got started, they fed us well with fries and some tidbits, and the guys said thats probably gonna be our dinner cos they don't trust us girls to cook! Oiiiiiiii........
Cookyn Inc is definitely way more than just a cook off, cos I too was surprised! I thought we came to cook, but they had some surprise team building challenges which involved some pretty daring guts. Enuff' said cos you're gonna have to experience yourself fully to FULLY enjoy it > <


More importantly the food!! 
We girls got the Vietnamese menu which consisted of 
Baked juicy chicken thigh with Asian lemongrassraspberry dressing
Vietnamese Spring Rolls
Mystery Box Challenge 
(which we made a dessert)

One of my favourite dish if the night was our very own baked chicken and the guys chocolate churros. Which I'll share the recipe at the end. 
So you'd might think, after eating can just eat right?
NOOOOOO

 

There's the plating and the menu description to our competing team and the facilitators. 
After which there's there tasting to be done by the facilitators while we finally chow down on our own handmade dinners.
Not to worry for future goers, the food will definitely be edible thanks to the facilitators who will walk through every step with you. And ensure they your food and hair won't get burnt down, or inedible raw food, or walk away hungry. Thanks to them, we actually have a legit and decent dinner for 12.


What we really enjoyed at Cookyn inc was their whole package of fun and team work. Instead of a typical dinner celebration or night out with friends, they've managed to tie in fun, food, team spirit, lots of laughter and surprises, let down your hair and throw in lots of creative juices. Really an all in one package that is simply memorable. The facilitators were  a really important ingredient too, they were energetic, knowledgeable about how to cook what to cook when to cook, friendly and so helpful. It's one experience where you'll definitely have fun and sure to build a stronger team spirit and cohesion! I look forward to coming back here again :)


Here are 2 of my favourite recipes we tried and tested for the evening and hope you have fun with them :) 


Baked juicy chicken thigh with Asian lemongrassraspberry dressing
Serves 10 small portions
Ingredients:
5 tablespoons of soya sauce
5 pieces of boneless chicken leg
100g of salad leaves
2 tablespoons sugar
Salt and pepper to season
4 tablespoons of olive oil
For the sauce:
The white stem of 2 lemongrass stalks, minced
5 shallots or 2 red onions, minced
2 tablespoons of raspberry vinegar
2 chillis, minced with seeds
Juice of 1 large lime
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Task / Directions for preparation:
1. Preparation of sauce
- In a small blender, blend all the ingredients for the sauce until well combined and
set aside to allow flavours to develop.
2. Preparation of chicken
- Season the chicken with sugar, salt, soya sauce and pepper.
- Bake in preheated oven (230 degrees celcius) for 12 minutes.
- Switch to broil mode for 2 mins (constant monitoring required).
- Using meat thermometer, insert into thickest part of meat and ensure that meat is
at 73 degrees celcius.
3. Plating
- Add two tablespoon of cooked chicken juices into chilli sauce, stir to combine.
- Plate chicken over some salad leaves before spooning some sauce over.
- Serve immediately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Crispy Churros with Warm Chocolate Dip
Makes 20 small churros
Ingredients for cinnamon sugar coating
5 tablespoons castor sugar
2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
Ingredients for churro dough
1 cup plain flour
1 cup self-raising flour
20g of salted butter
1 3/4 cups of boiling water (from pot on stove)
Vegetable oil, for deep frying
Ingredients for warm chocolate dip
80g dark chocolate couverture
1/3 cup of whipping cream
1/3 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of sugar
30g of salted butter
Task / Directions for preparation:
1. Making the cinnamon sugar
- Mix cinnamon and sugar in a bowl and reserve.
2. Making the chocolate dip
- Melt the sugar with the cream, milk and butter and heat over medium heat until
completely smooth.
- Add the hot cream mixture into the chocolate covertures along with the liquor until
the chocolate completely dissolves and smooth.
3. Making the churros
- Sift the 2 flours into a large heatproof bowl with a pinch of salt .
- Bring the water to a boil in a pot and add in butter to melt.
- Make a well in the flour, then pour boiling water and butter in.
- Mix with a wooden spoon for about a minute until the dough is soft and sticky to the
touch.
- Place a star-shaped tip into a piping bag.
- Fill piping bag with churro batter.
4. Cooking of churros
- Squeeze out about 6cm long churros into the deep fryer (you can use a chopstick to
scrape off each churro end).
- Fry for about 2 minutes, or until golden and drain on kitchen towels.
5. Serving
- Coat warm churros in cinnamon sugar, and dust off excess.
- Serve churros immediately with warm chocolate dip.

No comments:

Post a Comment