Showing posts with label Chicken. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicken. Show all posts

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Mushroom Chicken

                       IMG_7947

Aloha! My first post here! My mum went "Nah! Here's the ladle and the wok. The kitchen's all yours". That's how I started cooking. My family had to endured tasteless or super salty food for 2 months, but I managed to get it right after that. And that happened 9 years ago.

Yehhh... so I'm practically a veteran at cooking hurhur. But I don't know any recipes, nor do I refer to any. Too lazy. I'm a veteran at cooking simple and nameless everyday family dishes concocted with whatever ingredients available at that time. Used to cook everyday (*gasp) while I was loafing in uni but nowadays my job only allows me to cook on weekends.

So here's one of my very very simple recipes at home, Mushroom Chicken.

Ingredients (serves 4) :

  1. Quarter chicken, preferably thigh and drumstick part.
  2. Black Shitake mushrooms (5 pieces or more if you like)
  3. A few slices of ginger
  4. Soya sauce, dark sweet sauce, salt and pepper
  5. Chinese rice wine

Method :

  1. Soak the dry Black Shitake mushrooms for around 2 hours till they soften.
  2. Chop the chicken into smaller pieces.
  3. Marinate it with soya sauce, dark sweet sauce, salt and pepper.
  4. Cut the mushrooms into thin slices.
  5. Squeeze out the water from the mushrooms.
  6. Heat up the wok and put in some oil.
  7. When the oil is hot, throw in the slices of ginger and hear it crackle!
  8. Once you smell the aroma of the ginger, throw in the mushroom slices and stir.
  9. Pour in some soya sauce. The mushrooms will soak up the soya sauce and they will give out a nice mushroomy aroma.
  10. Throw in the marinated chicken and stirfry.
  11. Add in some water and close the lid.
  12. Leave it to simmer for around 10 minutes. Open the lid to stir occasionally.
  13. Open the lid and add 2 table spoons of Chinese rice wine and stir.
  14. Off the fire and dish out to serve.

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Baked Chicken Parcels

I live in a pretty nice neighbourhood. We've got a few parks around; trees on the sidewalk; a healthy Botanical Garden just a couple of blocks away and it's all quite breathtaking during autumn. Sometimes I wish I had a dog to walk. Minus the responsibility having to collect it's poop. I'll get Mr. G to do that. :D

My status on Facebook is currently: 'Mable is looking for keen dessert and cake eater.'
It's not that there's anything wrong with the stuff I make. The problem is really about me packing on the extra kilos. I love food but if I'm going to look like Michellin Man, I ain't going to be a very happy monkey.

I hate throwing stuff away. I take after my momma. Actually, come to think of it, both my parents are hoarders. No one throws stuff away. We're like a squirrel family. Anyway, I digress.

Where O where can I find nice people to give my food to?

Here's a two-minute recipe:
Baked Chicken Parcels (serves 2)
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  • 1kg chicken drumsticks
  • 75g oyster mushrooms or shitake mushrooms
  • 3 stalks spring onions (cut into 3cm lengths)
  • Grease proof paper
  • Ginger, thinly sliced
  • Radish, sliced
  • Extra spring onions, sliced thinly, as garnish
Seasoning:
  • 1½ tsp sea salt
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 1 tbsp white or Chinese wine (optional)
  • 1½ tbsp corn flour
  • 1½ tbsp sugar
  • 2 tsp fish sauce
  • ½ tsp pepper
Method:
  1. Preheat the oven at 250°C
  2. Remove excess fat and skin off chicken.
  3. Marinate with seasoning and leave for 2 -3 hours.
  4. Mix in mushrooms and spring onions.
  5. Cut grease proof into 12cm x 15cm. Fold into envelopes.
  6. In each envelope, spoon in 1 drumstick, mushroom, ginger and spring onion.
  7. Bake in baking tray for 40 – 45 minutes.
  8. Serve with fresh radish and extra spring onions.


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Saturday, May 17, 2008

Food of Love


Mr. G has been away on work for seven weeks and believe you me, I've been feeling deprived on love and affection. I proposed to Mr. G that we should have a weekend with just the two of us. And I thought, why not have a picnic? Mr. G happily agreed. (Of course this is my blog and when I say Mr. G is happy, Mr. G is happy)

Monday was beautiful. Thursday still fine.

Saturday? Damn rain.

But my mother didn't call me a stubborn cow for no reason. No rain's going to spoil my parade. Nu-uh. I want my picnic and I want it today! So even though it was spitting rain, we got up and armed ourselves with green grocer bags and went off to the fresh market.



I love markets. The sights and sounds are dazzling. The taste... ahh... spectacular. As for the day's menu, I settled for baked curry chicken wings, triple decker avocado chicken sandwiches and banana bread pudding.

So this weekend, it's bonus weekend. More recipes and more pictures! And you don't have to thank me, I had an absolutely astounding time.



Baked Curry Chicken Wings (feeds 2)
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500g of chicken wings
2 tbsp of curry powder
1/2 tbsp of cumin
salt and pepper

Let's Cook!
1. Preheat oven to 240c.
2. Marinate chicken with salt and pepper, curry powder and cumin.
3. Rest the wings for 15 mins.
4. Pop it into the oven.
5. Bake for 45 mins. Be sure to check and turn them over after 25 mins or so.



Triple Decker Avocado Chicken Sandwich
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500g chicken fillet
salt & pepper
1 avocado, sliced
2 tomatoes, sliced
lettuce, shredded
one small carrot, shredded
6 slices of bread

Let's Cook!
1. Marinate chicken with salt and pepper.
2. Let it snooze for 15 mins.
3. Pan fry chicken fillet on low-heat flame. Turn after 5 minutes.
4. The chicken's cook when clear juice runs as you slay it with a knife through.
5. Dice the bird into cubes. It looks better in squares anyway.
6. Toast the bread, butter one side, pile as much lettuce as you like, add avocado and carrots.
7. Sandwich another slice of buttered toast on, this time pile on tomatoes and diced chicken.
8. Finish it up with one more slice of buttered toast.
9. Cut the crust off and half the sandwich.



Banana Bread Pudding
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6 slices of raisin loaf
3 eggs
1 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of milk
1 1/2 tbsp vanilla essence
4 large ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon, divided in half
1/2 teaspoon fresh, finely grated ginger root
2 tablespoons Kahlua or rum

The Joy!
1. Cube the bread, put it in a bowl with the Kahlua and milk and allow to stand for 30 minutes.
2. In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, ginger and spices.
3. Mash the bananas and combine all ingredients together.
4. Stir into a lightly greased baking dish and bake at 325 degrees.
5. It's good to go when the edges are golden and skewer comes out nearly clean (same test as for cakes).
6. Cool and serve with whipped cream.

Before I baked, I was more of a... cook. I made breakfasts, lunches and dinners but never, ever, did I bake (unless it came in a box and all you had to do was cheat). As fate would have had it, the main reason why I've shifted into baking mode is because pictures turn out decent in day light. I can't for the life of me, make dinner pictures look good in incandescent light (OK, whatever those orangy mangly lightings are). So, my question to anyone is, how do I take night foodography without big flashy photographer lighting?

(Note: Mr. G and I drove to the beach and sat in the car, looking out into the ocean, munching our sandwiches, sipping on white wine and listening to tracks on his ipod. We sat in each others' company, chatting, enjoying the view and loving each other with chicken juices running down our chin. Ah, what a perfect way to spend a rainy Saturday).

Friday, May 16, 2008

One Pot Rice

Have I ever mentioned that I'm lazy? No? If you haven't noticed, I've only been cooking really simple dishes. It doesn't take more than 30-45mins time for me to prepare and cook a meal. ;)

There are also days when I'm really really lazy, where I don't do any cooking at all. However, it doesn't mean that I'll eat out. I just need to prepare some easy ingredients and simply throw everything into a rice cooker and let it cook for me! *lol*

So, on one of those days, a recipe like this comes in handy:

One Pot - Chicken Rice
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Ingredients (for 2 persons)
- 1 cup of Rice
- 1 Chicken breast fillet
- 8 dried chinese Mushrooms
- 1 stalk of Spring onion
- 1 small piece of Ginger
- Garlic
- Soy sauce or salt
- Oyster sauce
- Sesame oil
- Dark soy sauce

Method
1. Wash and add 1 cup of rice into a rice cooker
2. Cut chicken fillet into bite size pieces
3. Marinate chicken pieces with soy sauce or salt
4. Chop garlic finely
5. Cut ginger into thin slices
6. Cut mushrooms into slices (make sure you soak the dried mushrooms much earlier)
7. Add chicken, garlic, ginger and mushrooms into rice cooker
8. Add water - the usual amount for 1 cup of rice + extra (adjust accordingly to the additional ingredients)
9. Add salt or soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil + dark soy sauce and mix everything thoroughly. (I added according to my own estimation - no fixed measurements here)
10. Turn on the rice cooker and let it do its work while you enjoy your favourite tv programme, book or food blogs!
11. When it's cooked (you can smell it!), add finely chopped spring onions and serve!

*Note: It might take a little longer than usual to cook because of the extra stuff you've added to the rice. By the way, you can also stir fry the chicken and mushrooms with garlic, ginger and the sauces before you add them to the rice cooker, that is if you're not lazy and want the chicken to have more flavour. You can even add some veges to it if you want a more balanced meal (I take the spring onions as my vege! *chuckles*). Feel free to improvise on it. There are no fixed rules for cooking! ;)

The result:

I call this the one pot rice. :D It's simple yet tasty and filling. Although I might get lazy sometimes, I still managed to add another post to this blog! *grin* Looks like I'm not that lazy after all! or maybe I've started improving! ;)

Quote of the day ~ You will see it when you believe it~

Friday, May 2, 2008

Curry Makes My Day

Being a Malaysian, one cannot live without curry! Or maybe it's just me. ;) I've been having a meal of pipping hot curry every other week, be it curry chicken, curry laksa, katsu curry or anything curry. It always feel good to have a warm plate/bowl of curry meal, especially on a cold weather day here in Melbourne.

I still remember the first time I attempted to cook curry chicken. It was a disaster. First of all, I bought the wrong curry powder. I didn't know there's so many different types of them! Next, I used a little too much of it. *blush* No prize for guessing what happened to the dish. *bluekz* Amazingly, it was still edible in the end! hahaha. But my tummy didn't feel like having curry for the next few weeks. Lesson learned.

Recently, I went shopping at the local asian grocery and came across a packet of ready made chicken curry paste. The brand was Tean's Gourmet and it was made in Malaysia. ;) So it has to be good! Craving for curry, I had decided to buy it and test power in my kitchen. Again, I didn't have a recipe for the dish, but this is what I did:

Curry Chicken
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Ingredients (for 2 persons)
- 1 Chicken breast fillet (cut into bite size pieces)
- 4 medium sized Potatoes - medium size (cut into cubes)
- 10 Tofu puffs (cut into halves)
- 1 packet of Tean's Gourmet Chicken Curry paste (bought from the asian grocery)
- 1 can of Ayam brand Coconut milk
- Garlic
- Soy sauce or salt

Method
1. Marinate chicken pieces with soy sauce or salt
2. Finely chop garlic
3. Fry garlic till fragrant
4. Add chicken and stir through together
5. Add curry paste and let it simmer for awhile
6. Add potatoes and tofu puffs
7. Add a little bit of water and let it simmer till the potatoes are soft and chicken pieces are well cooked
8. Finally, add coconut milk and stir through gently
9. Turn off heat and let sit for a few minutes
10. When it's done, serve with rice or bread!

Anyway, this was the result of my experiment:

What do you think? ;) Thank goodness for the invention of ready made curry paste! Now I can enjoy curry whenever I feel like it! I highly recommend Tean's Gourmet Chicken Curry paste. It's yummy! Try it yourself today! :)

Quote of the day ~ Worry is a waste of imagination ~