Hosting My First Dinner Party

I had decided not too long ago that I was going to start learning to cook, so what better way than to host a dinner party. I asked some of my friends from work to come and try out my cooking. Fortunately they all came despite the fear of food poisoning.

Here are some photos from the night.
Here are the happy guest, minus Wei who was taking the photo.
From centre going clockwise, we have Tin hiding behind the chair, Jessie, Tafazal, Mark, Emmanuel, Trung, Jamela, Hien (who I am obscuring) and myself.



For entrees, I cooked, or cut, some sashimi with asparagus and Japanese mayo. I also prepared some oysters (the cheats way by microwaving them instead of steaming but the results is just as good) with a black bean sauce.

The sashimi is salmon and tuna with some blanched asapargus.



The black bean sauce is made by frying some oil, black bean, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, spring onion together in a hot wok.



Mains included a nice and spicy Thai salad. There was also a Pan Fried Beef with onions and special Japanese soy sauce mixture that I make. It was finished with Quail marinated in lemongrass, chilli and fish sauce baked with potatoes.

The Thai salad contains prawns and cuttlefish with green papaya making up the base of the salad. The sauce is a spicy mixture of lime, fish sauce, sugar, chilli, garlic, coriander and sesame oil.



The beef is resting on a bed of raw white onion and topped off with sesame seeds. The special sauce is a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, whole garlic cloves marinated together overnight where the vinegar acts on the other ingredients and produces a very nice strange flavour. Just before serving the sauce, mix in a bit of sesame oil to give it an extra fragrant touch.



Here is Mark showing Emmanuel how large the quails are. :-)



Finally for dessert, I made fruit tarts served with fruit salad and ice cream. Totally delicious is I do say so myself.



The meal turned out very well and I timed most things quite well. I didn’t know the quail would take so long to bake so I put them in a bit too late and we had to wait a bit. But everyone just kept talking and drinking while we waited so it was ok.