dNYel cook-off

dNYel bonding exercise took us to SoEZ Cooking Studio where in teams of four we learned to prepare a three-course set meal. Drawn at random, with me were Liz, Mdm Joojoo and Gladys. They're not people I normally work with, but each of us found a niche in the team to occupy. Since it was better for me not to handle sharp objects, SGL and Gladys focused on cubing, julienning and baton-ing the vegetables. Liz rescued my earlier attempt at making the sauce, which left me stirring the pot and timing when to throw what in next.

On arrival, the workstations were already laid out with the necessary ingredients in mostly the right quantities. Kitchen paraphernalia neatly arranged within easy reach. If you can't find something, it's probably in the shelf underneath the work surface. The instructor chef gives a demo of preparing the more complicated course, then we're on our own to interpret the given recipes from which we had to cook up our own culinary creations.

The instructions in the recipes were a bit vague, though. Specific quantities were not mentioned, so I didn't know that we needed to divide the chicken stock into three parts: one for the minestrone, one for boiling the vegetables that formed the bed and garnish for... the sauce the cod was supposed to be basted in. Result: while the others ended up with a pan poached cod, my group served cod stew instead. Observe below:

Cod and vegetables, served slightly underdone with a topping of weak, light soy sauce-based gravy. Just the way I like it. The veggies on the right is a fresh, crispy cold pumpkin salad. Raw pumpkin soaked in ice-water has a nice crunch, quite refreshing to nibble on. And minestrone with a touch too much salt under guess who's liberal hand.

Reflective of dNYel itself, I daresay we did ok despite the vagueness of our task instructions. Although not exactly award-winning, we still pulled off a "tolerably edible" rating... at least, by my standards.