Chicken with Hoisin Sauce

This is quite similar, but should not be confused with, Justin's Sticky Hoisin Chicken from last year. Sigh, looking at those old pictures make me miss our last year's house... Though that's not saying that our new house is worse, I like it much better, I think :D Plus, it definitely feels safer. Anyway, back to the food... With hoisin sauce being the main ingredient, it can't really be all that different, but this dish is quite distinct anyway.

What you need:
3 chicken drumsticks
2 shallots, sliced thinly
3 dried chillies, sliced - increase if you want it spicier
1/2 inch fresh ginger, chopped finely
3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon cornflour, plus more for coating around the chicken
1/2 cup of water (or as much gravy as you would prefer)
Ground black pepper
Oil for cooking

What you do:

1. Heat some oil in a wok and sitfry the shallots, dried chillies and ginger until fragrant. (It smells so good!).
2. Add the hoisin sauce, 1 tablespoon cornflour and the water. Simmer until nice and thick and gloopy.
3. Coat the chicken in more cornflour and add into the wok. Simmer until tender. Season with black pepper.

I actually prefered last year's Sticky Hoisin Chicken. It seemed much more flavoursome compared to this. Maybe Hadi's "hypothesis" that the hoisin sauce "matures" is quite valid. :P This time around, it was just salty. Well, tasted like hoisin sauce, but mostly salty. The thick gravy was good though :D Although maybe that was why it was less flavoursome, since its so much more dilute.

It might have been better if Justin had deboned the chicken, but he was too lazy to do it. Even though drumsticks are so easy to debone :( Well, he said that he wanted it whole, because it was going to simmer in a gravy anyway. Since we limit ourselves to only one piece of chicken nowadays (ahem, destitute students :P) we try and have as much gravy as possible to have with the rice. Or maybe cook some veggies, but we haven't done that in awhile. Gosh, it sounds so sad :P

But its quite alright really. Two pieces of chicken with a lot of rice can be overkill sometimes. Its nice to have some space left ... for dessert! ;) Haha. Today, we had crème brûlée, which is just posh speak for a custard thing with brown sugar caramelised on top. These were store-bought, and they tasted quite good. Too sweet for me though. Gave me a brief sugar high throughout the washing up, which made it more pleasant actually, haha. Its probaby the same as crème caramel, only here, the caramel is liquid. I tried making crème caramel once, but I don't think I'm experienced enough yet. Oh well, at least people actually ate it.

Hmmmm, as the dinners get simpler, I seem to have less to say :P Or mayeb its just that the recipe today is relatively simple. But I shall not waste my space, haha. Let's talk about the weather! Everyone in UK does that ;) Nowadays, its quite cold (here in Bristol, anyway). It only started being cold the very next day after they predicted that this winter would be one of the warmest in, like, 3 decades, or something. So much for predicting the weather... Of course, they are just saying that this is a cold snap, but wearing your winter coat the very day after it was too warm to wear a coat at all? I thought these things happened gradually. It HAS to be more than a coincidence :P

Quote of the day: Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.