Ladies' Nite Cooking Workshop ~ 070511

Hi folks, hope you guys & gals had a lovely weekend despite the sweltering heat!!! Mine was packed with activities & fun! On Saturday, I was lucky to be one of the chosen 8 bloggers by Channel U who got invited to the Ladies' Nite Cooking Workshop (from 2pm - 5pm) held @ Cookyn Inc! ;) Each blogger was allowed to invite 3 friends along for this workshop & so, I invited my beloved mum (who loves to watch "三菜一汤" & a fan of Vivian & Michelle), YP & Ms C.

Ladies' Nite Cooking Workshop

Held @ Cookyn Inc

Loved the orientation of this cooking school. There were 4 tables spread across the room facing the cooking stations. Each table came with the ingredients for the day's 2 dishes i.e. Cold Rice Salad with Prawns & Steam-Baked Fish roll! FYI, these 2 dishes were taught to Michelle & Vivian by different chefs for "Ladies' Nite"& would be featured in one of their "Ladies' Nite" episode under the Cooking section. So be sure to catch it on TV! :)

Table full of ingredients

Michelle demonstrated the 1st dish which was the Steam-baked fish roll as it took about 30 mins for it to be done due to the baking process (with an onlooking Vivian as "Latisha" to Michelle for those who watched "The Noose") LOL.

Michelle on the 1st dish

After her demonstration, we did it on our own & I must admit that this was my 1st time attending a cooking class & to speak the truth I never rarely stepped into the kitchen (except the occasional cooking of instant noodles!) Oops! This really put my culinary skills into good test! ;)

There were few steps for this dish. First, we have to pan fry the mushrooms which we were going to use for the roll. Next, we have to roll up the ingredients i.e the ham, dory fish fillet & sauteed mushrooms using the cabbage provided. Once rolled up, we will pour some Chinese wine (花雕酒) & sesame oil over it with ginger slices & put it to bake for about 30 - 40 mins (depending on the thickness of the fish fillet). After which, we will stir fry the spring onions & ginger to pour on the baked product to enhance the taste!

Haha, I did my fair share of dicing the fresh mushroom whilst Ms C & YP did the cleaning & washing portion. Luckily, I had the hindsight to bring along my mum who's the chef at home! In no time, she chopped up the rest of the ingredients, stir fried it & we helped to do the wrapping of the rolls. Due to the wrong vegetable provided (should be Chinese cabbage instead of cabbage), we had a hard time trying to keep the roll intact ;) But still, it was good fun! =) After 40 mins or so, we took out the steam-baked fish roll & look at how pretty the inside looked! It smelled really good due to the Chinese wine used *Slurps* The fish was tender & blended really well with the sauteed mushrooms & ham. It would taste even sweeter if we had used the 大白菜 (chinese cabbage)! Do try it at home folks (a dish suitable for the elderly, sickly & children). LOL!

Steam-Baked Fish roll

Look @ how pretty it was!

Next, Vivian taught us how to make the Cold rice salad with prawns. By the name of it, this dish sounded really interesting! Hmm, cold rice (who would have thought of it?) Apparently, this dish was taught to Vivian by Chef Mervyn and it will be telecast in one of their "Ladies' Nite" program (so do watch out for it!).

This dish was indeed much simpler as one would just need to chop all the ingredients (i.e. french beans & tomatoes) into cubes. Then, mix the rice with diced french beans, tomatoes, canned corn kernels, olive oil & orange juice. Once done, you can add on the prawns & coriander leaves as garnishes. Loves the array of colours! You could also choose the ingredients that you like to go with this cold rice salad for e.g. crab sticks/ sausages/ carrots/ lemon juice etc. To make it taste better, leave it in the fridge to chill until ready to serve! =)

Cold Rice salad with Prawns

At the end of preparing the 2 dishes, each group was to present their dishes and used the colourful papers provided to us for decorative purposes. Haha, being the not so creative us we decided to keep things simple & came up with 2 names for our dishes. We renamed the Cold rice salad to "Colourful Platter" & the Steam-baked fish roll to "三色鱼卷". =) The winning team (I think was either group 3 or 4) walked away with t-shirts designed by Fann Wong.

Our presentation of the dishes i.e. Group 1

Group 2

Group 3 & 4

Group 5

It was indeed a very COOL workshop as it was my 1st time attending a cooking class & hosted by 2 lovely ladies! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and not forgetting, the yummy mini high tea that was provided at the end of the workshop! We absolutely loved the cheesy macaroni!

Cheesy macaroni

Thumbs up to Michelle as she was feeling under the weather & yet, she still displayed a friendly disposition and was truly professional! Special Thanks to Vivian too who made my mum so happy during the workshop, happily chattering away with her! Final thanks to the工作人员 who made this event possible & a huge success! I am definitely looking forward to more such events hosted by Channel U!!! =)

Group peek with Michelle & Vivian!

Folks, be sure to catch "Ladies' Nite" every Tuesday on Channel U at 8pm! =)