A couple of weeks back I had my first professional catering job, all thanks to my lovely dancer friend Tristan Ching-Hartmann who decided I was a good enough chef to pay for based solely on the pictures on this blog alone (and my ability to Facebook, tweet, blog and basically yap about food all day). Considering that she wanted a full-on 3 course Southeast Asian buffet despite never tasting my cooking coupled with the fact that I had never cooked for 10 complete strangers before (i.e. not friends/family who would smile and say they love the food even if it sucks), my first thought was wow, this woman is nuts! But it was her birthday so she was entitled to madness plus I do love a culinary challenge, so my immediate answer was yes yes YES :)
A 5-day cooking schedule/to-do list- necessary due to limited pots,
storage equipment and kitchen/refrigerator space :)
Thankfully, with the help of my utterly indispensable partner/kitchen assistant (or as he prefers to call it, slave/serf/bitch) Arivind and the initial hiccups aside (the first attempted sago pudding not setting, an emergency dash to Asda for more chicken...) all 16 items managed to be cooked in time and packed safely into the cab for the ride with us to Tristan and her husband Mark's flat (which incidentally, is gorgeous!). As it turns out, clearly people here don't gorge themselves like Malaysians when faced with a buffet- there was probably enough for 30 rather than 10 but ah well... too much food= not really a bad thing :)
Thank you Tristan and Mark for the opportunity, I really had fun and hope you guys enjoyed the end result!
With the wonderful host and hostess
Starters:
Snacks:
Freshly Fried Prawn Crackers
Mains:
Leafy Salad with Asian Soy Ginger Vinaigrette
Desserts
(which we somehow forgot to
photograph other than the brownies!):
Sago Gula Melaka
*Ooh yes, and thank you Makcik Marisa for lending me your roti jala and jelly mould :)
wonderful! now im really hungry!
ReplyDeleteOMG, you are making me hungry just by reading the list of foods for the buffet
ReplyDeleteHow did you manage to do all that cooking on your own? amazing job, very impressive. It will be interesting to see your 5 days schedules list on the blog. Your time management is fantastic!
ReplyDeleteSara