Taiwanese 3 Cup Chicken (Samg Bui Gai)

So apparently the '3 cups' in 3 cups chicken is in reference to the quantity of soya sauce, Chinese cooking wine and sesame oil in the dish. Unless you're cooking a banquet for 100 people you just need 1 tablespoon each. Though '3 tablespoon chicken' doesn't quite have the same ring to it does it?

This was super quick to make and it was ready to eat before my rice even finish cooking. So I had to wait around smelling this aromatic dish. Not good on a hungry belly.

Ingredients:

3 Cups Chicken

• 4 chicken thigh fillets (approx 500g)
• 1 red onion, choppped
• 1 red capsicum, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 tsp of chopped ginger 
• red chillies
• Thai basil leaves
• spring onion
• 1 tbsp soya sauce
• 1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1–2 tspn cornstarch
• 1 tbsp peanut/vegetable oil

Directions:

• cut up chicken to bite size, I removed the excess fatty bits
• add cornstarch, soya sauce, cooking wine, sesame oil, ginger and garlic to chicken and mix well
• heat oil in pan/wok on medium heat
• add chopped onion and cook for a little til soften
• add chicken mixture and leave it don't stir for a few minutes
• add chopped red capsicum to pan and stir to make sure the other side of the chicken is cooked
• add red chilies, spring oil and Thai basil leaves a few minutes before serving
• the cornstarch in the marinate would thicken to a nice sauce.

Served hot with white Jasmine rice. yummm

Jamaican Dinner

Yummy Jamaican Brown strewed chicken with red beans and rice

This was the night after the Attica Degustation dinner. And what do you eat after a delicate 5 course dinner?
A hearty, spicy, full of flavour Jamaican meal of course!

This one is a handy, foul-free treat.

Brown stewed chicken with red beans and rice. I also had some left over pumpkin from the previous week's Sunday roast dinner. So here's how you go about getting this easy dinner on the table.

Ingredients

• Chicken pieces
• Onion
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Chili
• Red capsicum
• Green capsicum
• Soya sauce
• Pickapepper sauce
• Ketchup
• Apple cider vinegar
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Thyme
• Sugar

Directions

• Season the chicken with salt, pepper, chili
• Heat up the olive oil in a dutch pot, add the chicken pieces to brown
• Remove the chicken when they look 70% done
• Top up a little more oil if you need and then add the aromatics: onion, garlic and ginger
• Add the capsicums
• Add the seasonings: soya sauce, ketchup, pickapepper and top up with some hot water
• Bring to boil and reduce heat to simmer, add back the chicken and the juices, cover lid
• Add the sugar, vinegar, hot sauce, thyme to taste and reduce the sauce til it's nice and thick and just coating the chicken.

I basically cook all my rice in a rice cooker, never learned to do it any other way.

So I added a drained and rinsed tin of red kidney beans to my washed rice, along with a tin of lite coconut milk (I find the coconut cream too sweet). Long grain rice is best to get that individual grain result. season with a little bit of salt and allspice/mixed spice.

Thai Chicken Larb Salad

Spicy, Salty, Sweet and Sour. It packs a punch of flavours!

I just adore Thai food. The spicy, salty, sweet, sour and fresh flavours are tantalizing to your tastebuds. Though some people might not be fans of fish sauce, but it's ok in moderation.

Here's a pretty quick salad that's something different. I combined a few different recipes and added my own twist to it.

Even my new housemate who hasn't had much appetite of late had 2 servings of this yummy salad.

Ingredients:

• Chicken Mince
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Coriander (including the roots)
• Cucumber
• Green beans
• Basil
• Mint
• Kaffir lime leaves
• Dried chilli flakes
• Fresh chilli
• Bean sprouts
• Fish sauce
• Lime/lemon juice
• Sugar
• Salt
• Peanut oil

Directions:

• Heat oil in wok, add the minced garlic, ginger and coriander roots
• Add chicken mince brown and break into little bits with dried chilli
• Add fish sauce and sugar 
• Add the chopped up green beans and stir until heat through, this is all the cooking done.
• Remove from heat and toss in all the remaining ingredients, all chopped up except the beans sprouts
• You can top it off with some crushed peanuts for the extra crunch but I ran out of peanuts.

Korean Fire Chicken

I was craving something spicy last week when the weather was really crappy. This spicy and sweet dish really lifts your mood.

It was actually quite easy to make, and I did tone down the spiciness just a notch so my flatmate could eat it without dying. Also I didn't have quite a whole chicken. But you can just adjust the spiciness to your taste.

Here's the ingredients (And I'll try to be more specific with the amounts)

• 1 kg Chicken
• 2 Onion diced
• 4 cloves of Garlic crushed
• 2 tablspoon of Soya Sauce
• 1 tablespoon of Sesame Oil
• 2 tablespoon of Honey
• 2 tablespoon of Sugar
• Pinch of Salt and Pepper
• 2 stalks of scallion/spring onion/ eschallots (Was having this discussion with Squishies what the long green tubes with white bits at the end are called....)
• 1 tablespoon toasted seasame seeds
• 1/2 Nashi Pear
• 1 tablespoon Chili Powder
• 3 tablespoon Korean Chili Paste
• 1 tablespoon of Dried Chili Flakes

Directions:

• Marinate the Chicken with 1 of the onions, 1 stalk of scallion, garlic, soya sauce, seasame oil, honey and sugar for 30 - 45minutes
• In the food processor/blender thingy, add the nashi pear, chilis, honey, sugar, other onion and blitz into a thick red paste - aka Fire sauce
• Brown the chicken in a hot pan with some oil, add the Fire sauce to the chicken and cook until sauce thickens.
• Serve with remainder scallion and scatter the toasted seasame seeds
• Best serve with white rice

2014 Cooking and Eating

I meant to post earlier but then my laptop died O.o and I really couldn't do it properly from my phone, so that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

There's been a few highlights so far:

Firstly Fijian Kokoda, this was one of the food highlights from my trip to Fiji last year, I kept thinking about it upon my return. It was the perfect meal on a 40+ degrees C day.

Fijian Kokoda - Cerviche with Coconut Cream

Ingredients 

• Any Firm fish 
• Celery 
• Spanish Onion 
• Tomato
• Capsicum
• Chili
• Salt & Pepper
• Light Coconut Cream
• Lemon/Lime juice
• Parsley

Directions:
Dice up all the ingredients, add the Lemon/Lime juice to "cook" the fish for 30 minutes, then add in the coconut cream and mix. Top with chopped parsley.

Pan seared Salmon, Creamy Feta with Beetroot Salad
and Orange Sesame Salad

Another dinner I was particularly pleased with was this Pan-Seared Salmon with 2 salads. The Feta was the souvenir from my trip to the Hunter's Valley with some friends at the Smelly Cheese Shop and it is divine! Really lifted the simple Beets and Mint with Feta salad.
The 2nd salad was an orange with sesame salad for some citrus notes to cut through the creaminess and sweetness of the other side. the Salmon was cooked skin side down until the skin was crispy and there's still a hint of the bright pinkness in the middle of the flesh. Perfect!








It's been a while since I made my Jamaican curries and since Mr Shy Guy doesn't eat beef, the usual meat substitute I use is Kangaroo, when I first posted this picture on FB, my Yaardie friends were all slightly horrified (and intrigued no doubt). It was actually really yum, the sweetness of the kangaroo meat added a twist to the usual Caribbean flavours, with thyme, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon and habanero chili for the extra kick - which is what makes it stand out from the other curries.

Jamaican Curried Kangaroo

Tikka Masala Chicken with Raita

 Here's a couple more dinners I made

Sweet potato and Quinoa Patties with Fig Salad

Slow-cooker Venture

Jamaican Stewed Peas before cooking

I do love my slow-cooker, especially during Winter. I often just chuck stuff in right before bedtime and wake up to an aromatic house. Honestly I think the smell wakes me up most of the time. LOL

So I've used my slow cooker over 4 times in the past week and a half, because my cooker is so big, I generally make a massive pot enough to feed 6 people - but there's only me. So I get sick of left overs really really fast. My friends and colleagues at work have been dragged into

tasters of my slowcooking venture. So far I have made Chinese Soups, Jamaican Stew and also an Italian dish.

Stewed Peas ah Ready!

Here's the Jamaican Stewed Peas recipe:
Ingredients

• 2 tins of Red Kidney Beans
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1 ham hock
• 1 pack of gravy beef/chuck steak
• 1 onion chopped
• 3 clove garlic chopped
• 1 tspn ginger
• bunch of spring onion
• bunch of thyme
• Chili (I added lots)
• sprinkle of allspice, cloves, cinnamon
• Salt & Pepper to taste

And basically you just chuck everything in the slow cooker and wake up to deliciousness! This is such a comfort food dish for me and always brings a smile to my face. The authentic Jamaican version would have pigs tail instead of hamhock and also spinners (little doughy fingers that I was too lazy with)

Before: Chicken Cacciatorie

And the other thing I made was Italian Chicken Caccaitore, though it was ok for me. I have friends who raved about this dish, but maybe I used too much liquid and it was too soupy. Even though I left the lid off 2 hours before end.

But the slow cooker is great for Chinese soups! OMG why haven't I been doing this before? I looove soups, my family used to nickname me "Tong Wun" aka Soup Bowl because I would just drink bowls and bowls of soup everytime at dinner. I made Ginseng Chicken soup and also Dried veg with pork bones, carrots and shitake mushroom soup and they were great!

Left Overs and Whatnot

So for the lovely Ms Neverthlands farewell back to the US of A, I made a hasty dinner for a group of us to say goodbye. Lucky it was the Monday after Earth Hour weekend, with plenty of left overs from the bbq we had (which was great fun! Totally doing it again in 2012~)

So I toss some pre-marinated drumsticks in the oven to grill, while I concentrate on pasta that I throw together with whatever I could find in the pantry. Also there's a Waldorf salad - plenty of food for 5.

For the pasta, I had some left over sausages, tomoatoes, parsley, onion, garlic, chili and capsicum.