Session #1: Appetizer - Shepherd's Pie

For the shepherd's pie, we combined these two recipes:
1. Shepherd's Pie (Cottage Pie)
2. Easy Shepherd's Pie Recipe


Here is how we made our Shepherd's Pie..


Ingredients
800g ground beef
1 onion chopped
2 cups vegetables - chopped red, yellow and green bell pepper, carrot and celery
1kg Russet potatoes
1 stick butter
1 cup beef broth
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce,
1 teaspoon dried Rosemary
1 teaspoon dried Thyme
40g Parmesan cheese
Salt, pepper, other seasonings of choice


Directions
1. Boil potato in salted water until tender. Peel the skin and mashed the potatoes with 4 tablespoons of butter, season to taste.

2. Sauté onions in butter until tender over medium heat. Add in the bell peppers.

3. Add the carrots and celery in with the onions and peppers and cook until tender.

4. Add ground beef and sauté until no longer pink.

5. Add salt and pepper. Add in dried Rosemary and dried Thyme. 

6. Add Worcestershire sauce. Add half a cup of beef broth and cook, uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes adding more beef broth as necessary to keep moist. 

5. Place beef and onions on baking dish. 

7. Distribute mashed potatoes on top. Rough up with a fork so that there are peaks that will brown nicely. You can use the fork to make some designs in the potatoes as well.

8. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top of the potatoes.

7. Bake in 205°C for 30 minutes or until bubbling and brown. 

The meat was a bit watery because we added in 1 cup right away instead of half a cup. To improve this, we figured we should have added in 1 tablespoon of flour/cornstarch so that the meat will stick to the potatoes better. Nevertheless, it was really yummy and was a hit among our kids as well.

Session #1: Main Dish - Homemade Aglio Olio Fettuccine

This was the easiest dish for this session. You can use store bought spaghetti for this as well but we decided to make our fettuccine from scratch. Here is the fettuccine recipe we used.

Ingredients
1 cup flour, sifted
1 egg (Grade A)
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions
1. Beat the egg lightly with the water and olive oil.
2. Make a well in the pile of the flour and add in the egg.

3. Slowly mix the egg with the flour.
4. Knead the dough until it is smooth, firm and dry. Add more flour bit by bit if it is not dry or firm enough. (If it is soft and sticky, it will stick to your pasta maker and it is not an easy task to take out the dried pasta from the pasta maker)
5. Divide your dough into a few balls and roll the dough to your desired thickness. First roll the pasta a few times using the thickest setting. Then, roll in the thinner setting once each until you reached your desired thickness. (For example, after 10 times rolling at 0, you roll once at 1, once at 2 and once at 3 if that is your desired thickness)

6. Roll the pasta through the pasta cutter.

And here is the Aglio Olio recipe:

Ingredients
1/5 cup Anchovy fillets
7 dried chillies, chopped coarsely
7 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/5 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped

300g squids, boiled with a pinch of salt and tamarind juice

Fresh pasta / half a packet of store bought pasta
Freshly ground black pepper to taste


Directions
1. Cook pasta until al dente (No more white spot, firm enough to bite yet cooked). Drain immediately (so it won't continue to cook in the hot water).
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet and cook the garlic and dried chillies until it speaks.
3. Add in anchovies and stir until anchovies are cooked.
4. Add in the cooked squids.
5. Toss in pasta and stir until well mixed.
6. Add parsley and black pepper. Adjust salt and pepper to your taste.

I love this dish the most! I heard it's a hit among the partners as well :)

Session #1: Dessert - Pavlova

Believe it or not, it was the first time all of us had a taste of a pavlova. We had never seen a real one, let alone saw one being baked but we baked it anyway. It was not that hard but it was not easy either as we did not know if the eggs were over beaten or were they still under beaten. Had to call my cousin in Aussie and BBM her the pic to ensure we were on the right track.


Anyway, here is how we made this pretty pavlova. It was originally from allrecipes but we changed here and there where we deemed fit.


Ingredients
4 egg whites
2 cups white sugar (original recipe asks for less but most websites called for 2:1 for eggs and sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 teaspoon cornstarch
1 can whipped cream
strawberries for decoration

Directions:


1. Beat the egg whites until stiff but bot dry. Gradually add in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat until thick and glossy. Overbeaten egg whites lose volume and deflate when folded into other ingredients. Be absolutely sure not a particle of grease or egg yolk gets into the whites (this is very IMPORTANT). 

2. Gently fold in vanilla extract, lemon juice and cornstarch.
3. Spoon mixture on the baking tray (we used non-stick tray instead of parchment paper as per original recipe). Working from the centre, spread mixture toward the outside edge, building edge slightly. This should leave a slight depression in the center.

4. Bake for 1 hour at 150ºc in a preheated oven. (DO NOT open the oven door before it is done, else it will collapse and become a pancake instead ;p  After it is done, let the oven door slightly ajar and let it cool in the oven)

(We baked for more than 1 hour hence the brown colour. It should be white. Noticed the bubble? We thought the existence of the bubbles means that it was not done yet but we were wrong. The bubbles were cooked and not soft.)

5. Spray the whipped cream on top of the pavlova and decorate with fresh berries. (It was a big MISTAKE to use canned peach as they are wet though we have already strained them. It melted our whipped cream. And make sure the room is cool enough too)


The pavlova was very sweet! I was told it is meant to be sweet so maybe we should have stick to 1 1/4 cup sugar as per original recipe. But if you have enough berries, it should complement the pavlova well. Ours was not enough. But I still love it to bits! 


P/S: Some part of the pavlova reminds me of the honeycombs in the Crunchie bar.

Session #1: Drink - Lemonade with Mint

Ingredients
3 medium sized lemon
1/2 lemon for decoration, sliced
4 tablespoon of sugar
1 sprig of mint
3-4 cups of cold water
1/4 hot water

Directions
1. Use the juicer to extract the juice from the lemons.
2. Dilute the sugar with hot water and add in the lemon juice into the pitcher.
3. Add in cold water and refrigerate for about 1 hour. You may add ice cubes if you want to serve immediately.
4. Add in the mint just before you serve.




Perfect for a hot day. Personally, I like it if it is more sour so I may add 1 or 2 more lemons. I think if we blend the lemonade with ice cubes, it will make a perfect ice blended lemonade for a very very very hot day :)