Little Kitchen 4

Today hosting activities is pack. I am having friends from London over tea and then hosting birthday celebration for another friend at night. My hosting style is small crowd to make it more personal and to suit the small space I have. Tips for hosting is always prepare the menu, table and ensure the conversations are flowing...

For Azlin and Irish, the menu will be mee goreng. Starter is roti canai (instant) with curry. The key to mee goreng is the you need to add in a bit of dried shrimp when you blend the onion, garlic, ginger and chilis. While frying these into the wok, always put in some oyster sauce. I usually pour in a bit of fish sauce (just few sprinkle). Note: Fish sauce is predominantly used in Thai cooking. I love pad thai so I this gave me idea to sprinkle some into the mee goreng..:)

Mee goreng still in the wok

Mee goreng garnished with fried prawns

 While waiting for Irish and Azlin to arrive, I started to work on the menu for Eli's birthday dinner. Meatballs are prepared according to the recipe given to me by my dear friend Mimiejoe. All you need is minced beef, parsley, black pepper, onion, garlic, bread crumbs and a pinch of salt.
 

The ingredients to make meat balls

Frying the meatballs

Meatballs in the tomato sauce, all ready to be served

Once all the food is ready, I can finally set up the table for the coming guests. The first guests arrived at around 4pm.

We were having food, chatting, gossiping, updates about all there is in life. The left just before 6pm for me to prepare for the next session. My next hosting session is birthday dinner for a dear friend Eli (which I prefer to call Elliot) 

For this occasion, I have decided to use the tea collection from Portmeirion as we will be having birthday cakes. 

From the pot...

Into the dining table..

The birthday girl looking so happy!!

 

I really enjoyed myself hosting. As part of the experience is when the guests enjoyed themselves too. Therefore it is important to ensure that the food are good too as food is always the main thing in our Malaysian environment. The challenge is always to control what we eat... tough!!
The guests left at around 11pm. I have to admit hosting is not easy especially when it comes to cleaning up work after the event. There is no help as I do not even own a dishwasher...
But then again in life, when you do something that you're passionate about you will be willing to do everything... If only I could make this as a job then life would be more fulfilling...