4 Course Dinner Practical Class

Well, started my sem 3 as I have said earlier and for our R&D we have decided to come up with a 4 course meal - for practice as the final exam we will actually present a 4 course menu this time round.

Search the net and recipe books - is there any good recipe books around ? Can I have suggestions please ?

For our starter - We wanted to have an appetizer - Scallop with Lemon and Ginger .Unfortunately, the main course is a FISH item, so substituted the ingredient with Chicken. Can't have seafood appetizer with seafood main, can we ?





















Top - side view
Bottom - top view


Simple enough to make them.

Ingredient

Butter

Olive Oil or vegetable oil

4 pcs of chicken breast or thigh - cut into lengthwise

1 bunch spring onion / scallion - cut diagonally

3 tablespoon - Lemon Juice

1 teaspoon tumeric - chopped

4 Tablespoon - Chinese Rice Wine

2 pieces of ginger - chopped

seasoning

Heat wok till hot ( er.... I used a skillet ). Add butter and I teaspoon of oil and heat over gentle heat. Add chicken breast slices and stirfry for 3 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Add remaining oil and heat. Add in spring onion and tumeric, stir fry for a few seconds. Add lemon juice and Chinese rice wine and bring to a boil. Stir in chopped ginger.

Return the chicken slices and their juices to the pan/wok/skillet and toss till heat through. season to taste. Serve immediately.

Do adjust the lemon juice. Add some sugar if too sour or reduce amount as required. I served the chicken on a Daun Kadok that you find a lot in Thai Cuisine. It was meant to eaten with the leave as a wrapper but those #$%&^* didnt eat them. What a waste !

Even our Blogger Maestro Peter Tan of The Digital Awakening had blog about this leave way back in April 3rd,2004. I am way way behind.



For the soup - simple enough. You will need :-

Ingredients:4 large seedless cucumbers , 1 litre lowfat plain yoghurt, 1/2 cup fresh dill chopped, 2 cloves garlic minced ,2 teaspoon salt & 1 teaspoon pepper .

Peel cucumbers and cut into chunks. Place in food processor and process until pureed
Transfer mixture to large bowl. Add yogurt, dill, garlic and seasoning; stir until blended. Chill until served

Nice ? Well, its a lil sour as our cucumber is not up to our expectation. I had to use some sugar to counter the sourness and yet they said its sour....arghhh........

Oops! The soup is actually called Chilled Cucumber Yoghurt Soup that I have tasted during my stint in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I tasted this soup in one of the French restaurant that serves both Classical and Fusion food. Cant remember the name but the decor and food are excellent.

Sorry KY, cant give you the name and address for your next trip there. Its somewhere in Hai Ba Trung Street, if I'm not mistaken and am not sure whether it still exist.


Now for the main , we decided to do a simple enough name but a lot of work for this dish - Pan Fried Fish Cake with White Wine Basil Sauce.




















I screwed up the sauce. It says Basil Puree and being me,Ii just chopped them up. Being too cocky to refer to recipe. It may sounds the same but it aint. On top of that I did not reduce them enough to thicken. *&^%#$ ! to meself of course.

Serves 10 ( depending on ur serving sizes )

1kg potato puree

500g salmon

500g sole fillet

6 hard boiled eggs

200g spring onions

1tsp English mustard

10ml Worcester sauce

100g mayonnaise

100g clarified butter

Salt and Pepper

Method for Fish Cake
Cut the fish into even 2cm dice, season and quickly pan fry in a quarter of the butter. Mix the fish and potato puree together. Add the rest of the ingredients and mould into 160g balls. Allow to set in the fridge.Neatly pane in flour, egg and breadcrumbs - twice to give a better coating. Pan-fry in the rest of the butter when required.

I uses a doughnut cutter as a mould to make them into even size and shape.

Method for Sauce

Sweat the shallots in butter until soft. Add white wine, boil and reduce by half. Add stock, lemon zest and peppercorns and reduce by half. Add cream and reduce to a light coating consistency. Season and stir in basil puree, at the last moment or the sauce will be darken like what my classmate did. I told her to place the chopped basil last but she dumped them in and simmer them for the 1/2 an hour that I disappeared. Cant blame her as my instruction was not really clear since I have given them in Mandarin......chuckle.

To serve, tossed some black olives, cherry tomatoes and cubed cucumber in olive oil and some balsamic. Place on plate and arrange the fish cake on top of them. Since I screwed up the sauce which is not thick enough, the taste is ok but ......................Don't wanna talk about it.

For dessert, its called Croquembouche - whatcamacallitagain - chuckle, its just choux paste with custard cream as filling and topped with caramel. We whipped up some vanilla sauce and strawberry coulis for colour and extra flavour. No picture as I was pissed off with myself for the White Wine Basil sauce earlier. My apologies...............

Tomorrow, we will be whipping out lunch and again for 4 course meal. Lets see how they present their food.

Cheers !