Tomato Chicken

This was a valiant attempt to recreate one of my favorite (or at least what I thought was my favorite) dishes from my childhood :D Which wasn't really all that long ago, you know. So it can't be that hard, right?

Well, I'm not quite sure if I did it right, since I can't seem to recall the flavour. But this is yummy enough for me! And its so simple to make, anyone can make it really :D

What you need:
12 chicken wings
2 onions
Tomato sauce
2 tablespoons tomato puree
2 teaspoons brown sugar
Salt
Ground black pepper
Oil
Water
1 tablespoon cornflour (dissolved in some water)

What you do:

1. I decided to use chicken wings this time, because they happened to be around. But I think any chicken piece would be fine. Just cook the bigger pieces longer. But anyway, first heat some oil in a wok. Add the chicken and brown all over. Add some salt, pepper and tomato sauce, and mix well. At this point, the chicken should be a lovely golden colour.
2. Set the chicken aside. Add some more oil, and stirfry the onions until soft. Add the tomato sauce, tomato puree, sugar, salt, pepper, dissolved cornflour and enough water to make a nice thick gloopy gravy.
3. Add the chicken. Lower the heat and simmer until chicken is nice and tender.

The whole thing took less than half an hour. So nice, especially if you've had a long day (like I have :( ) Unfortunately, Hadi and Justin are out somewhere and are not back yet, so I haven't had some feedback, but I really do think its tasty. :D

I think this can either taste more like Asian cooking if you added sesame oil or some spring onions at the end, or more Italian, if you added herbs such as oregano and basil, and maybe some olive oil. But I was looking for "pure" tomato chicken, so I added none of those, hehehe. I'm thinking Hadi or Justin might take the liberty of doing that themselves though.

The onions made it really nice though. I wouldn't simmer them for too long, otherwise they would just disintegrate into the sauce. I would put more and more onions in it, hehe :D Thankfully, my eyes don't have any problems with cutting onions. Hadi literally cries whenever he does, and shallots make it even worse. o.0

Quote of the day: You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients

Penne with Chicken and Cheese

Hoho, long time no post. Contrary to what that might imply, I have been eating. Way too much, unfortunately. Hadi and Justin have been busy during dinner time this past week, so my meals consisted mainly of Indomie or Tex's Chicken, which are delicious foods in their own right.

And, this weekend, we've been holding open houses! Yay! Friday was at the UWE peep's house. It was sooooo festive! Cucul pun ada, as well as a Selamat Hari Raya sign. Raya songs were blaring, and there were so many happy people in baju Raya! Awww, so nice! The food was impressively delicious as well! Spaghetti (by Memie) and Chicken Briyani (by TJ) as well as another chicken dish and ic e cream for dessert! *drool* They were all very very well done. SO yummy... I ate so much, ahahaha :P Too bad I "forgot" to take pictures.

Yesterday, we held a dinner at me and Hadi's place instead. We didn't have any decorations (except for tealights! ehehehe) or any other festive markers :( Oh well. It started off slow, but soon a full-blown (friendly) argument was going on - and will continue to go on throughout the night. Very fun, ehehehe. Justin's friends joined us this time. The food was prepare d by me and Azriana exclusively, ehehehe. Azriana made her first lasagne! Yay! I also prepared Honey Garlic Chicken which were a slightly modified form of Justin's Soy and Honey Chicken, since I roasted it this time, and added some garlic besides. I was worried that it wasn't going to be favoursome enough, but with enough basting, it turned out really well! The lasagne too turned out well, so I'm sure Azriana is proud, ehehehe. Again, I don't have any closeup pictures of the food, but thankfully, baju kurungs are very loose ;) This picture, I think, captures the essence of the night perfectly :D

But anyway, the weekend is now drawing to a close, so I hope we'll be getting regular nutritious dinners again ;) Today's dish is something that I've made last year, in my pre-blog days, so I thought I'd give it another try. :)

What you need:
3 servings of pasta (about 300g, we used penne)
175h broccoli, cut into florets
4 tablespoons butter
1 onion, thinly sliced
225g boneless skinless chicken (we used drumsticks)
4 tablespoons plain flour
3 cups milk
Cheddar cheese, as much as you like
Parmesan cheese and garlic powder, to serve

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C
2. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to boil, add the pasta and cook according to the instructions on the packet until al dente. Add the broccoli for the last 5 minutes of the cooking time. Drain well.
3. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan and fry the sliced onion until it begins to soften. Add the chicken and fry fently until tender. Add the flour and mix well.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and gradually mix in the milk. Season well, return to heat and bring to boil, stirring all the time. Stir in the drained pasta and broccoli, and a handful of cheese - as much as you want. Tip the mixture into a shallow ovenproof dish.
5. Sprinkle some more cheese over the top of the pasta, and pop into the oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and golden brown.
6. Serve immediately, with parmesan cheese and garlic powder.

This is a very quick and easy dish for dinner. It takes so little time to prepare, I am so impressed! You don't even have to bake it, actually. Just stirring in the pasta, broccoli and cheese into the sauce in the saucepan would be good enough. In fact, that was the way I made it last year, but I decided to modify it a little.

Its also a really nice and warm dish, that is perfect for the upcoming winter nights (Its dark by 5 pm! Not fun!) It looks good! The broccoli gives a nice contrast to the white sauce. And its really delicious too!!! The chicken cook ed in butter is tender and has a subtle flavour. The white sauce is soooo cheesy! It burns quite easily at the bottom of the saucepan though, so make sure you stir really well when making it.

Of course, needless to say, with all the butter and cheese, this dish is quite...heavy. But its so good and easy, I think you won't regret making it. You don't even need to have chicken in it, although its a plus, that. :D

Quote of the day: Hunger is the best sauce in the world

Oh so true... how many things have you eaten while hungry and loved it so much, but when you next eat it, it really wasn't as special as you thought? But at least you've had your moment of pleasure, so I guess that's what counts, right? :D

Marinated Chicken, Japanese-Style (Tori-Nanbanzuke)

We are getting through our dinners very nicely now... Everything seems to have settled down, so all is well... ^_^

So anyway, back to today's dinner. Unlike most marinations, where you marinate BEFORE you cook, in this recipe, you actually cook the chicken before placing it in the marinade. Quite unusual, to say the least. But very very interesting, oh yes. And yummy? Well, why don't you just read on ;)

What you need:
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying
Cornflour, for coating the chicken
400g boneless chicken legs (thighs or drumsticks)
4 eggplants

Marinade:
1-inch piece of ginger
4cm stick of carrot
1-2 dried chillies
4 tablespoons Japanese rice vinegar
41/2 tablespoons Japanese soy sauce

What you do:

1. To assemble the marinade, cut the ginger and carrots into 1-inch long julienne strips. Remove the stems and seeds from the chillies and cut into small pieces. Combine all ingredients for the marinade in a small pan.
2. Cut the eggplants in half, and slice diagonally into 2cm pieces. Soak in water to soften the texture.
3. Preheat the vegetable oil to a low deep-frying temperature.
4. Cut the chicken into 1-inch cubes and coat lightly in cornflour. Deep-fry until golden brown.
5. While the chicken is still hot, place it in the marinade and leave for at least 30 minutes.
6. Drain the eggplant and wipe away the water. Deep-fry and place in the marinade with the chicken.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any eggplants handy, so I had to omit that. Apparently eggplants are quite strong anyway, so I might not like it. Even so, Hadi and Justin really really liked this dish, so it wasn't really anything crucial. Japanese rice vinegar is slightly less strong than Chinese rice vinegar, so do use that if you can. Otherwise, it might overwhelm the rest of the flavours. In this case, everything blended nicely together. The carrots and ginger also absorbed some of the marinade, and possible because of that, the ginger was not as overpowering. You can still taste the ginger though, and that makes it nice. Really nice. It was actually a bit too salty for me, but that was most likely because I seasoned the cornflour with some salt and chilli powder. Force of habit. Even if you don't do it, it should be fine, I think. More than fine. The sauce is strong enough. :)

One thing I didn't like about this recipe is that you have to deepfry the chicken pieces, sigh. Not only am I too lazy to, but it also uses obscene amounts of oil. Sigh, if only you can get chicken nice and crispy without deepfrying. But that's a dream for another day, I guess.

Not that the chicken *was* crispy. Soaking in a liquid for half an hour just gets rid of any crispiness really. Apparently, for better results, you're supposed to marinate it for as long as you can, while the chicken is nice and hot. I dunno what would happen if you didn't, but the chicken absorbed the marinade nicely when I put it in hot (as in, straight from the deepfrying)

But, in the end, the chicken was still very yummy. I'll definitely make this again. Maybe bake the chicken, instead of frying it. If you like your food hot (like I do) you should reheat this briefly over the stove before consuming ;) Or just eat with hot rice :D

Quote of the day: My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people.

On another note, IT'S RAYA! At least in the UK. So Happy Raya people! And Happy Advanced Raya to those of you who don't have their Raya yet. Maaf Zahir Batin! Hee~ Do I not look pretty? My official Raya picture! ;) Too bad that I forgot to bake some cookies! Gah! Not that anyone's gonna visit, but it would have been nice. Cookies, drool~~

Braised Chicken Rice

Weehee~ We got a new roasting pan! Its nice and shiny and even has a rack to drain off all the nasty fats! Which, incidentally, can be quite yummy, but oh well...

Anyways, in this dish, Hadi tries to be creative and uses TWO ways to cook his chicken! I think his usage of braise is a bit wrong here, since braise actually means to sear food in fat to brown them, then cooked slowly over low heat in a small amount liquid to develop its flavour and to tenderise them. But oh well. At least it doesn't have Hadi in it...

What you need:
Chicken pieces
Sesame oil
Garlic, chopped finely
Chicken stock
Dried chillies, chopped
Soy sauce

Rice

Basting sauce:
Honey
Marmite
Japanese rice vinegar
Chicken stock
Chilli powder

What you do:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add the chicken pieces, then season with chicken stock, garlic, sesame oil, dried chillies and just a dash of soy sauce.
2. Simmer the chicken pieces until tender, then drain. Reserve the cooking stock.
3. Reduce the stock (by boiling) until its just enough to use to cook your rice with. Better less than more. You can always add more water if its too little. So yeah, cook your rice with it.
4. Heat an oven to very high heat (230 C or more).
5. Brush the chicken with the basting sauce. Place in the hot oven. Baste every 5 minutes or so, until the skin of the chicken is nice and crispy and golden.
6. By this time, the rice should also be done. Serve.

This was quite nice, actually. The rice especially was super yummy, though it could have used more seasonings, maybe a bit of pepper. It could probably also have benefitted by frying the garlic and chillies briefly, before adding them.

The chicken itself was nice and shiny. Any "pasty co lour" which usually comes from boiling chicken was removed by the basting and roasting. That was a good idea that Hadi had, hehe. Basting the chicken just gave it more flavour, which is really needed, since boiled chicken can be a bit bland, no matter how much seasoning you put into it. And cooking the rice with the cooking stock? Pure genius. It was a bit oily though, maybe he could've removed the oil a bit before adding it to the rice. Ooo, and garnishing it with spring onions would definitely not be a bad idea!

Its quite interesting, the way Hadi comes up with his dinners. And most importantly, his dinners are usually more than edible, so that's really good. Sigh, I, on the other hand, follow recipes most of the time. Which anyone can do really...

Quote of the day: When baking, follow directions. When cooking, go y your own taste.

Sound advice indeed. Oh, and it looks like Raya is on Monday, not tomorrow. So...one more day Puasa everyone!

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

Soy and Honey Chicken

Gah, I just found out that you can add new categories. That might be very very useful, but I don't think any of you would appreciate getting 70 emails saying "Ihsan has updated her blog!" just so I can update everything. Two for today is bad enough (I didn't manage to put in Hadi's dinner yesterday). So I'll leave that well alone.

Anyway, due to a slight miscommunication, Justin defrosted the chicken very very late today. But, luckily, we have a microwave! (Call me sakai, but we had no microwave last year :P) In fact, Justin was so inspired that he decided to cook with the microwave! He even had a recipe book for cooking with microwaves. I have no idea where he got that, and I shall not ask.

Now, I've never been a fan of microwaves. They overcook things easily (leading to tough tasteless meat), and often taste quite bland. So again, I wasn't sure on what to think for tonights dinner. But my housemates seem to insist on surprising me!

What you need:
Chicken pieces (we used thighs)
Honey (1 tablespoon)
Soy sauce (1 tablespoon)
Butter (30 g)
- all, again, to taste. the brackets give the amounts given in the recipe

What you do:

1. Combine the butter, honey and soy sauce in a small microwave safe bowl. Cook on 100% power for 1 minute.
2. Brush the mixture all over the chicken. Place the chicken skin side down in a microwave safe bowl. Cook on 100% power for about 10 minutes, basting occasionally with the mixture.
3. Turn the chicken over, and cook for another 10 minutes on 70% power.
4. Stand chicken briefly, before serving.

Since the recipe was actually using a whole chicken, the times are just approximately what we used. Better to be too little than too much, you can always heat it some more, but nothing can save oversooked chicken.

Anyway, again, this recipe was surprisingly tasty, if a bit too bland. The butter didn't quite go with the soy sauce, but it wasn't anything major. We actually used margarine (I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!) but I think butter would have been way too buttery. The main complaint it got was that it was oily. Very very oily. Didn't stop them from dipping the chicken in the resulting gravy, but they complained anyway. Sigh.

I think this would have been better if it was roasted, ins tead of microwaved. It did get a nice glossy sheen, but if it was at least finished in the oven, it would have looked better overall. And perhaps if Justin actually basted the chicken (or maybe marinated it?) the flavour would have much improved. The flavour was good, just not strong enough.

I think in the future, replacing the butter would be a very good idea. It really did not blend in well with the honey and particularly the soy sauce. Maybe with a few drops of sesame oil instead. Make it more Oriental. Roasting it is actually easier (if a bit slower) than microwaving it as long as you marinated the chicken beforehand, as you don't have to pay much attention to the chicken until its done. Unless you want to baste it... But most people don't bother. Pity.

Quote of the day: Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.

Chicken ala Hadi Hantam

When Hadi was throwing together the seasonings for the chicken when it was his turn to cook, I had more than a few misgivings. Hadi always tends to go just a bit over in his cooking. Why add salt OR chicken stock, when you can add both? That kind of thing. So I was particularly surprised on how this turned out, although admittedly, the ingredient list is shorter than his usual...

What you need:
Large chicken thighs (are the best to use, but feel free to use whichever piece you want)
Turmeric
Chicken stock (powdered or liquid, doesn't matter. Not granules though, unless they're dissolved)
Garam masala
Ground black pepper
-everything according to taste, of course

What you do:

1. Mix the seasonings in a medium bowl. Rub it into the chicken.
2. Marinate the chicken in the seasoning for at least an hour. Hadi missed this step out, but I think it would be a good idea.
3. Roast the chicken for about 40 minutes in an oven heated to 180 C, or until the juices run clear.

And that's it! Only three steps, typical of a roast chicken recipe. Hadi actually wanted to call it Hadi's Special Chicken, but there's been way too many dishes with that name, to tell you the truth. Almost everything he wants to call it Hadi's Special Something. In the end, we compromised on having his name in it. Hadi Hantam Chicken? Haha, gives a very different impression.

But anyway, I was a bit doubtful when he used the black pepper, instead of chilli powder, for instance. And when he put in the garam masala, I was openly skeptical. But lo and behold! It actually turned out well. Really really really well. I liked it a lot. Well, it was quite salty, since he went overboard with the chicken stock. But the garam masala blended in nicely with the turmeric, something I never would have thought of. But I never use garam masala anyway... oh well...

It actually gave me a vague reminder of the chicken from CA Mohd back home, though the chicken there is much more flavoursome and soooo much more tender. But the basic flavours were there, so its not a bad start. I heard that for Indian style chicken, you first marinate it in the spices, then fry it with the spices COATED around the chicken briefly, then you roast it some more. Sounds troublesome, but if its worth it... Well, its something to keep in mind, anyway :D

Quote of the day: Never eat more than you can lift

Claypot Chicken Rice

Well, sort of. I don't exactly have a claypot with me. But you can get a pretty decent replica by using a normal rice cooker. Don't be daunted with the length of the ingredient list. This is a pretty simple dish :)

What you need:
3 chicken drumsticks, deboned and cut into small pieces
7 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked in boiling water until soft, then sliced

Rice:
3 cups rice, washed and drained
3 cups chicken stock (+ more water to fill up the rice cooker as needed)
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sugar

Marinade:
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon ginger juice (grate a knob of ginger and squeeze)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon cornflour

Seasoning:
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon chicken stock granules
1 teaspoon sesame oil

What you do:

1. Mix the chicken, mushrooms and marinade. Marinate for about 30 minutes.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a wok, and stirfry marinated chicken and mushrooms until tender. Set aside.
3. Mix the "Rice" mixture ina rice cooker, and cook rice.
4. When rice is done, spread chicken pieces and any juices over the top of the rice, and mix thoroughly.
5. Leave the mixture in the rice cooker for awhile, until the bottom has a brown crusty layer. Serve.

The brown crust is the best. You can leave the step out, but "authentic" clay pots apparently also have a brown crusty layer, hehe. The great thing about it is that you can leave the whole thing in the rice cooker and just serve once you're ready. Very useful for all those late dinners.

There are some ingredients missing, since I couldn't find them (like Chinese sausage, garlic oil, salted fish, etc...) But the dish is none the worse for it. I haven't tasted a real clay pot chicken rice dish, but this version is definitely more than edible. But, if you can, sprinkle chopped spring onions and garlic oil before serving. The sausage should go with the chicken, while the salted fish should go with the rice. Oh, and just in case, the mushrooms contribute a major part to the taste of the dish, so do put them in. If you're in UK, you can probably find them in an Oriental supermarket, and if you're in Brunei, even easier. Just any old supermarket would do ;) They're a bit strong, I admit. But some people love them, though I can't stand the actual mushroom myself. The hint of their taste is more than enough for me. Put in more if you like it, less if you don't.

I've actually made this a couple of times before. My usual problem was that my rice cooker wouldn't behave and would switch off the cooking once I put in the chicken, even if its not quite done. In order to remedy this, I put in the chicken once the rice was cooked already, and just seasoned the rice seperately. This worked quite well, I thought.

Hadi thought that my first time was better though, since it was much more flavoursome, though the rice was still mushy. The second time, Justin made it, but I tihnk he was missing a lot of ingredients, or something. Personally, I prefer the version this time, though I didn't do anything different, just the time I put the chicken in. Oh well... I guess there was more sauce to cook the rice in, the first time round. But I really really like it this time. It tastes really nice, and its so easy! Defnitely something I will make more often these coming days.

Quote of the day: I like rice. Rice is great when you're hungry and want 2000 of something.

Sunset Chicken and Veggies

Haha. Poetic name, no? Anyway, Puasa not withstanding, my sungkais here have been less than satisfactory. A lot of eating out, quite a bit of indomie as well. Sigh. Seems like I haven't had a proper dinner since I came back! How depressing.

Our new kitchen is really nice, if a bit small. Its got a lovely large oven (which I can't wait to use to make cookies, or something! so nice!) and a breakfast bar, which the other two were simple ecstatic about. One of my main complaints is that since we don't have a dining table yet, we have to eat all our meals there. Since *someone* refuses to get a low dinner table (akin to those Japanese dinner tables in all those dramas/animes ;) ) and we don't really have space for a dinner table AND chairs, I doubt we would be getting one anytime soon... A pity, really.

Anyway, it seems like our schedules have all stabilised a bit now, so I look forward to regular dinners ;) We start off with a really simple one here...

What you need:
Chicken thighs
Ground turmeric (kunyit)
Tomato sauce
Salt
Sugar
Chilli powder

What you do:

1. Mix everything (except for the chicken) according to taste until you get a nice smooth paste. Your chicken can be very tomato-ey or very kunyit-y, depending on how you want it to taste like.
2. Make slashes into the flesh of the chicken thighs with a sharp knife. Rub the paste from above into the chicken, especially into the cuts made in the chicken.
3. Marinate for as long as you can. One day if possible, at least half an hour if you're short of time.
4. Sprinkle as much (or as little) chilli powder over the chicken.
5. Bake in an oven preheated to 180 C for about 40 minutes to one hour, or until the chicken juices run clear.

I gave this chicken its name due to the lovely golden colour (yes yes, I know its blurry) it gets from the turmeric and chilli powder. This is actually an adapted recipe from our family "cookbook." Its been known with various names, particularly "Ayam Bakar Kuning". But I think my name for it now is much nicer, haha.

This is a particularly versatile dish, I think. The actual ingredients can be varied to your taste (although, of course, turmeric is the main component) and it can be cooked in various ways, as well. We have the baked one here, but it can also be fried, braised, etc etc etc (at least, I'm pretty sure it can, hee ~)

This was one of the recipes from Brunei that I made sure to remember, since I really like it. I can't quite get it the same though, since the chicken was not quite as moist as I remember. Well, the chicken itself was tender, but the skin was slightly dry. Weird... oh well... Oh, and for added flavour, you could add asam jawa (or tamarinds) to your marinade. I think that would be quite nice.

But but but! Chicken was not my only dish tonight! I also cooked (coz Hadi insisted) a dish of vegetables! It was relatively simple: chopped up cabbage, carrots and broccoli simmered in oyster sauce (and a bit of water) until they were soft, then drizzled with sesame oil. I don't dare go exotic with vegetables yet, since this IS my first time cooking veggies. But it didn't turn out too bad, actually! Even I ate it, which is saying something! True, I didn't have that much, and I didn't dare touch the broccoli, but its a start! Soon, I'll be a regular rabbit! Hee~

Quote of the day: Food is an important part of a balanced diet. ;)