French Onion Soup and Roast Potatoes

Our dinners at the moment appear to be a bit... random. No one is sure who is cooking... One person says the other person is cooking, and vice versa. Nonetheless, we still manage to have regular meals (if a bit late these days) which is nice. I think dinner is one of the most important meals of the day (though lunch and breakfast are too) because it is at the end of the day, when people can just hang out and relax and catch up with each other. So I am a big fan of dinner (and lunch and breakfast, of course. That goes without saying, hahaha)

After a bit of a debate, it was finally decided that Justin would cook today. Since (again!) the chicken wasn't defrosted yet, something had to be done. Sigh. I miss last year when we lived 5 minutes away from the butcher. So anyway. Chicken wasn't defrosted yet, so Justin decided to make a soup...

What you need:
Chicken pieces
Onions
Garlic
Shallots
Butter/Margarine
Cornflour
Salt/Chicken Stock
Black pepper
Various vegetables, cut up (eg cabbage, carrots)

What you do:

1. Slice up the onions and shallots, and dice the garlic into small pieces.
2. Heat up a wok, and melt the butter over low heat. Add the onions, shallots and garlic, as well as a couple of tablespoons of cornflour.
3. Cook over gentle heat until the onions are soft and slightly translucent.
4. Add hot water and the chicken pieces. Season well with salt, chicken stock and black pepper.
5. Raise the heat until the water comes to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Keep simmering until the chicken is done. (Poke it with a fork. Juices should not be pink)
6. Add the vegetables (if you want) and simmer until tender. Serve immediately.

The basis of this is actually French Onion Soup, which is a nice and simple meal, even on its own. Justin modified it slightly to make chicken soup instead. In fact, this soup base is very very versatile. You can eat it with rice, like we did. Or add noodles, and make it chicken noodle soup. You can vary the veggies you put in, if at all. To give it a more Oriental taste, add a bit of sesame oil and soy sauce and ginger. To make it more Western, on the other hand, add herbs, such as parsley maybe. There's so much you can do with it!

That said, this isn't actually one of my favorites. Oh, it tastes good enough, for sure, but for some reason, I like my food drier. Like chicken goreng *drool* But anyway, make sure you season the soup well. It may seem like a lot of salt, but remember, its going to be diluted in water. If you're watching your salt intake, just don't drink all of the soup. Oh, and make sure you put in the corn flour. This makes the soup nice and thick :D This will much improve the flavour.

Justin also made some roast potatoes, since ours were get ting a bit old. Just cut up some potatoes into small pieces (we had the small ones - Anya potatoes). Slather in some sesame oil, salt, butter and chilli sauce. Pop them into an oven (180 C) and bake until tender and golden - about half an hour for small pieces, longer for large pieces. Quite tasty, though tonight's was a bit too spicy for me. But again, a simple dish to make.

In fact, Justin seems to think that his meals are too simple. I reminded him that our meals just need to be edible, but he wasn't convinced. Oh well...

Quote of the day: Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.

Hmmmmm, so maybe our dinners are not quite as "edible" as I thought :P And how does a pig eat a snake? o.0 And yes, I know the pictures look a bit strange. :P