Come Dine with Me Special

A few friends over, recipe from Jamie Oliver's cookbook, and recipe from deliciousmagazine and we have our very own 'Come Dine With Me'! Although they make food for total strangers in that TV show, I make food for my friends.


After much deliberation, I decided to serve the very delicious Sticky Chicken with Plums as main course, followed with lemon drizzle cake and fruit cocktail.

Sticky Chicken with Plums

Sticky Chicken with plums was one of my favourite dish and it's my third time making it, perfecting the flavours and balance of seasoning better and better each time.

A dish just nice for the 'summery' weather we are having in October! The chicken pieces were marinated with sweet honey and sharp grainy mustard which enhances the flavours of the chicken.

Sweet and sour plums complete with sweetness of red onions. The bittersweet, aromatic flavour of thyme also intensified the flavours of the chicken dish.

Served with creamy mashed potatoes flavoured with grated cheddar cheese, lots of butter, sea salt and pepper then softened with some milk. Perfect to accompany the sticky chicken.

Lemon Drizzle Cake

I was trying to decide between a rich chocolate-based cake and a lighter-flavoured cake and settled with the Lemon Drizzle Cake. Just nice after a big plate of food, not too rich and the sharpness of lemon-citrussy flavour can be very inviting.

Lemon Drizzle Cake

Poppy seeds and ground almond added to the cake mixture gave different dimensions of flavours to the cake, instead of just being lemony. 

While the cake was still warm, tiny holes were made on top of the cake and homemade lemon syrup was poured onto it, which intensified the lemon flavour of the cake!


Thinking what to serve the cake with, I remembered a very simple yet tasty exotic fruit cocktail I saw in deliciousmagazine months ago. So instead of serving the cake with the usual ice-cream, clotted cream or custard, I used the simply refreshing exotic fruit cocktail!

The fruit cocktail was made with tropical fruits like papaya, lychee and you can even add dragon fruit. All the fruits were diced, then with a squeeze of lime juice, were ready to be served with lychee puree infused (and whipped) double cream and some crushed meringue.

Served with fruit cocktail

A lovely dinner with my friends and I am glad they enjoyed it!