Grilling

Grilled lamb

Grilled chicken

Grilled fish

Grilled sausages and vegetable

Grilled corn on the cob

Mint sauce for grilled lamb

BBQ sauce for the sausages

Tamarind sauce for grilled fish (also suitable for any other kind of seafood)

Pizza and Zopf

Almanzo in action

Freshly baked pizza

Zopf (the name is derived from the shape of the bread which literally means “braid”)

CAC Education Tour

Can you guess where did we go for our education tour? Here are some of the clues…

Assorted cookies

Assorted French pastries

Break time

Banquet kitchen tour

Soy kitchen tour

Soy kitchen again

Main kitchen tour

Buffet lunch

Rojak

Cakes!

Wholemeal loaf

Jelly

Peach pudding

I have no idea what this cake is called coz it’s nameless (perhaps they wanna test our taste buds..haha)

same goes to this…

and this…

and this…

and this also… but they were all so cute and nicely decorated

Leong’s all-in-one lunch (noticed his appetizer, main course and dessert are all in one plate)

Leong and myself

Yong and Fong (buzy taking photos with their mobiles)

A photo with “RM20,000 future-to-be-chef” on far left *giggles*

Souvenir presentation by Mr. Bruce Lee & Aivin to the Mr. Marco Battistotti (General Manager)

Executive Chef Lim and the girls (alamak.. what are the 2 guys doing behind)

Briefing about how chocolate is being made

Samples to try out

These are all the clues I have. Any ideas yet?

Noodles

The making of fresh noodles

Thin fresh noodles for…

Wanton Mee

served with wanton (dumpling), steamed vege and concassee

Wanton Mee again

Wanton Mee also but with thicker noodles

Are you bored of Wanton Mee? Or are you a Wanton Mee lover? Haha. Even though I have not had wanton mee for a long time, after having it so much for lunch today, I felt quite ‘jelak’. My mind keeps thinking of noodles. Then we had lasagna which is made from our noodles dough.

Lasagna

Creamy filling

Chocolate and Green Tea Marble Cake

It’s weekend baking again *grins* This is my 2nd attempt in making marble cake and I thought instead of using the normal butter and chocolate flavour, I tried green tea and chocolate from La Tartine Gourmande’s recipe. And the taste? Haha. It was good. Just that my cake is a little bit dry (lack of butter I suppose). And again, during the baking process, my cake formed a ‘cauliflower’ on top. I don’t know why but according to some resources I read, I either over mixed or lack of sugar or butter. It can be one of those errors or more. I need more practise till I get a smooth and nice cake.

Chocolate and green tea marble cake

Tuna And Banana Filling Tarts

I still have some left over baked tart crust which I made 2 weeks ago and I do not know what to do with them. I brought them to my colleague’s house last night for potluck and I added tuna, sliced banana and hard-boiled egg as the filling. Frankly, I have no idea what to use for the filling. I felt savoury tarts would be a great idea for potluck. When I arranged the sliced banana on the tuna fillings, dear was like “Banana and tuna?”, “Are you sure?”. “Yeah” I said confidently. “Aiyo, so healthy” he added. “Of course!” Haha. And this is how they look like.

Tuna & banana filling tarts

I was eager to try one. As I have expected, it tasted a bit salty and sweet (that’s what I wanted) but the banana taste seems to cover the tuna taste. I will experiment with other fillings next time *grins*

Croissant and Danish Pastries

“1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10..11..12..13..14..15..16..17..18..19..20.. Into the fridge. Fast! Fast!” Wow, I didn’t know that making danish pastry isn’t easy. You must work under a cool temperature and all the ingredients have to be cold. And you need to work fast, especially in rolling out the dough. Roll out only for about 20 seconds and rest it in the fridge for about 5 to 10 minutes. Then roll out again and rest again. We repeated that process for 3 times before cutting the dough into shapes. It’s a great experience anyway though I don’t fancy danish pastry because of its flakiness which causes a lot of mess when eating it. Haha.

Croissants

Danish pastry with custard filling

Cinnamon bun (California version)

Pasta

As we all know, pasta is a term for Italian variants of noodles. There are approximately 350 different shapes of pasta and each of them has a unique name for itself. The common ones are spaghetti (thin and long), macaroni (tubes), fusilli (swirls) and lasagne (sheets).

Today we had Italian lunch. We prepared 4 types of sauces for our spaghetti and fusilli. The fusilli we used comes in 3 flavours with 3 different colours; tomato (orange), spinach (green) and original (beige). The colourful fusilli make our pasta look more appetizing *grin*

Fusilli

Fusilli Napolitana (made with fresh tomatoes & tomato puree)

Fusilli Bolognese (we substitute minced beef with minced chicken)

Seafood Marinara (tomato concassée with fish fillet and crab sticks)

Spaghetti

Spaghetti Napolitana

Spaghetti Bolognese

Seafood Marinara

Carbonara

Buns

We learned to make bread from scratch last week and this week, we used the bread machine to make buns. It’s so much easier. Chef Wai taught us the rolling, folding, twisting and cutting dough techniques. He’s so fast! I wasn’t able to capture any photos of the techniques. Anyway, there are various ways of doing it depending on how you want the shape of your buns to be. All of us made 4 buns each; coconut bun, sausage bun, mayonnaise bun and mexico bun. Let me show you what I’ve made.

This is my coconut bun. The shape is not suppose to be like this. I have cut it at the wrong side but I still find it cute. Haha.

It’s suppose to be like this (Cher Wai’s version)

My good-try-cutting-and-twisting sausage bun. I only managed to make 4 holes instead of 6 and the sausage sank inward.

Chef Wai’s where the sausage is evenly divided.

Now, this is my mayonnaise bun. I’ve rolled the dough to long and as a result…

Chef Wai’s version again. Look more presentable and appetizing.

Lastly, our perfect Mexico bun! Haha.

Roasting

Roasting is a cooking method that uses dry heat. This is another healthy cooking method apart from steaming because it requires very little oil. Slow roasting (200 degrees C) is the best to retain the moisture and the tenderness of the meat. During roasting, meats and vegetables are usually covered with butter or oil to reduce the loss of moisture by evaporation.

French roast chicken with roasted squash & potatoes

Tandoori chicken

Chinese roast chicken

Salad

Chinese Roast Chicken Recipe

1 chicken drumstick

1 tsp 5-spice-powder

1/2 tsp sugar

A pinch of salt

Method

1. Wash chicken drumstick.

2. Pat dry with kitchen towel.

3. Make a few slits on the chicken surface.

4. Marinate it with 5-spice-powder, sugar and salt.

5. Leave it over night in the fridge.

6. Place aluminum foil on a tray and put chicken on the aluminum foil.

7. Roast at 200 degrees C for 25 minutes.

*The time varies depending on the size of the meat.