Most Personal Chef Dinners are .... personal... sort of. Not really. Maybe?
We often take pictures of our In-Home Cooking Classes but
not so much for the Personal Chef Dinners.
This group was generous enough to take some pictures for us.
We started off with just one item for a taste test for this dinner.
(We have dinner options where the entire dinner is a taste test
if you choose that option)
Testing your taste buds with Let's Cultivate Food starts off by
viewing 5 different items-- in this case, it was cheese.
You get to taste 5 different cheeses that look very similar and sort of
taste similar but are VERY different at least in where they came from.
As you can see from the picture, you have to figure out which cheese
came from a cow, goat, buffalo, sheep or soy.
In this person's case- they got one correct. The circled 'buffalo' which is
the mozzarella cheese. My sous chef takes care of this portion of
the class and again, he was fascinated by the facial expressions and
head tilts of this groups/ tasting and guessing. It's always interesting
to watch and see how quiet and serious everyone gets trying to
decipher which item is which.
The first dish in this 4 course dinner was the raw tuna and cucumber
skewers. I cut Kirby cucumbers (because I wanted less seeds and a
crunchier cucumber) into little cubes about the same size of the raw tuna
(sushi-grade) that I cut after the cucumber. I cut the cucumbers first
so that I wouldn't have to take the time to wash the cutting board
to save time. (Anytime you have a meat/protein- you want to
wash your cutting board)
For Personal Chef Dinners especially-- it's all about time
management because dinner is served in a timely fashion
like the way it is (or should be) at a restaurant.
The 2nd appetizer for this group was another seafood item- butter
sauteed shrimp on cucumbers with avocado and diced red onions on top.
Both appetizer dishes had
wasabi mayo as the sauce and gluing agent.
The 2nd course dish was the mango slaw lettuce wraps with sweet
and spicy pork belly. Shredded scallions were served as a garnish and
endive pieces as well to be wrapped in as a 2nd option to the pieces
of red leaf lettuce.
I like to take veggies and use them in a way that is not necessarily
the norm. In this case- I used different colored bell peppers and
cut them in zigzag cuts and used them as a bowl.
(The sweet and spicy pork belly was put in the
peppers for this Personal Chef Dinner.
Here is a closer look at the mango slaw. It had cubes of mango,
savoy cabbage, red cabbage, red bell pepper, cilantro, tomatoes and
an easy marinade of rice vinegar, a sweetener, a splash of soy for
some salt and the juice of a lime.
The main entree was the 'World Peace Noodles'
This is a dish I created- starting with the name.
It is a favorite dish among many people. I simply named it
"world peace noodles" because it has many different kinds
of noodles and of course veggies in it.
Have you ever watched a beauty pageant or the scene from
"Miss. Congeniality" with Sandra Bullock and she says that she
really does want world peace. hahaha. This dish has 4 different
kinds of noodles AND they are all stir-fried TOGETHER
AND they get along! WHAT!?? They are different and they
get along? They simply get along EVERY.SINGLE.TIME!
The veggies in this specific World Peace Noodle dish were: snow peas,
celery, carrots, enoki mushrooms, bunapi mushrooms and savoy cabbage.
The noodles were: green veggie noodles (made from spinach and broccoli),
linguine, vermicelli and stir-fry noodles (aka: lo-mein noodles)
The sauce for these World Peace Noodles is super simple.
Drizzle some veggie oil into your saute pan and start with the heartier
vegetables like the carrots and celery to have them cook down.
(I don't recommend olive oil in this dish because it will throw the taste off)
Add the rest of the veggies and drizzle in some soy sauce --
enough to coat the veggies- maybe about 3 TBSP and about a TBSP
of sesame oil. Add about 2 TBSP of sugar or sweetener of your choice.
Toss in a handful of each different kind of noodle.
(You want the noodles to be already boiled and ready to go)
Once the noodles are mixed in with the veggies it's a matter of using
your muscles to toss everything together.
Add drizzles of more soy sauce as you taste it while tossing/mixing
in the saute pan. You can also add more sesame oil but keep
in mind that the sesame oil is being used as a seasoning oil
for flavor and not to fry with.
What's great about this dish is that it's colorful and a little fancier
than a plain ole 1 noodle dish and it's easy and the natural flavor of
the sweet carrots, snow peas and savoy cabbage work really well
with the different kinds of mushrooms in it.
Lastly, the group was served dessert after they finished their main entree.
Because this menu was Asian Fusion friendly and slightly customized
I wanted to make the dessert on the lighter side with fruit rather than a
heavy cake/pie or baked dessert which is more associated with our
other Personal Chef Dinner menus like the 'Italian Indulgence'
or the an 'American Tuscany', 'A Night in Bangkok' and many more!
Again, I like to take everyday things and make/prepare it in a way that
is not the norm. Why did I cut the fruit into cubes and pile them up
almost like a rubics cube or tetris-like?
WHY NOT!?!
Zestfully, Let's Cultivate Food
