Chicken in Coconut Sauce

A recent trip to the nearby oriental supermarket "inspired" Justin to make a dinner. In fact, he was sooooo enthused that he asked when was the next time he will be cooking. Well, today was that day, hehe. What inspired him so much? Well, a can of coconut milk - with a recipe at the back. Sounds good to me! So... here we go!

What you need:
500g chicken breasts/thighs
400ml coconut milk
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 onion, sliced
30g ground almonds
1 tablespoon ground coriander
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon minced ginger
2 stems lemon grass, trimmed and fleshy part bruised
3 teaspoons lemon/lime juice (substituted from 3 lime leaves)
2 curry leaves (substituted from 2 bay leaves)
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt, to taste

What you do:

1. Grind the garlic, onion, almonds and corainder to a fine paste.
   
2. Heat the oil and fry the paste to bring out the flavour. Do not allow to brown.
   
3. Add the chicken, ginger, lemon grass, lemon juice and curry leaves, salt, sugar and coconut milk, and bring to boil.
   
4. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes without cover until the chicken is tender and the coconut sauce has reduced to desired consistency. Serve sprinkled with crispy fried onions.

I don't know what it was - maybe the coriander, or perhaps the coconut milk, or maybe just the whole thing in general (onions and garlic = good!) but this really smelt good while it was cooking. Even for me, who doesn't like coconut in general. Yes, there was a coconut undertone to the aroma, but with lots and lots of other yummy layers. So we were all looking forward to this dish.

But, Justin's face fell when he took a look at the simmering pot. I don't know what it was we were expecting, but the sauce was very very white. Yes, I know. Coconut milk = white, duh! We just thought that maybe it has magically transformed into a creamy brown sauce. Nope. The smell was deceiving. It was a pure white. :(

After an exchange of looks between the four of us, Justin was finally brave enough to try a teaspoon of it - and immediately stated that I would hate tonight's dinner. Fair enough, I already told him that I really don't like coconut. But then, he went on to say that *everyone* wouldn't like tonight's dinner. And we are the house that ate Hadi's Chicken of Death as well as the Chicken Cake. We really didn't believe that anything could be that bad. Not so soon anyway - it's only been a couple of weeks since Hadi's chicken cake :P Everyone else (except me) had a taste anyway, and pronounced it acceptable. Hadi took the liberty of adding more salt (well, chicken stock), before the chicken was finally pronounced okay to serve.

And how was it? I really didn't think it was that bad! It tasted like a watered down version of its smell, a flavour reminiscent of ayam kurma perhaps, although the colour was a bit too milky. (Justin vehemently denied this - he's a big fan of Malay cooking). But overall, it wasn't bad at all, even for a chicken with a lot of coconut in it. In fact, you could barely taste the coconut at all. Apparently, there was a slight bitter aftertaste to it, but I couldn't taste this at all, although everyone else did. Which is weird, because I really cannot stand anything bitter. Oh well.

Justin, however, remained despondent about his apparent "failure", despite a lot of reassurances from the three of us. I'm not sure why. He didn't know what to expect from the recipe either (and I must say, everyone was pretty surprised at how it turned out). So I present the recipe to you all! :) What do you think of it, and maybe any suggestions on modifying a bit? We don't cook Malay food a lot, although to be fair, the can of coconut milk and probably the recipe came from Sri Lanka. I think its pretty similar (in taste) to Malay cooking anyway. And that is one cuisine that I completely fail at! ;)

Quote of the day: The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.

Triple Chocolate Muffins

Anyway, the dessert for today is Triple Chocolate Muffins, hehe. This is another recipe that I've been eyeing but haven't gotten the chance yet. Like most muffin recipes, it sounded really easy and hey... who can resist TRIPLE chocolate? :) So, here we go!


What you need:
300g plain chocolate, chopped
50g unsalted butter, melted
1 egg
350ml milk
375g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
50g cocoa powder
100g caster sugar
100g white chocolate buttons, chunks, chips, etc
Dark brown sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

What you do:

1. Line a (12-cup) deep bun tin with paper muffin cases.
2. Melt half the plain chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, then stir in the melted butter. (I just melted both of them together in a microwave.)
3. Beat together the egg and the milk and stir the mixture into the melted chocolate.
4. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar.
5. Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, then stir in the remaining chocolate and the white chocolate pieces.
6. Using a large metal spoon, gently fold the ingredients together until just combined. Divide the mixture among the paper cases. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the tops, if using. Bake in a preheated oven, 200 C, for 20-25 minutes until well-risen and just firm. Serve the muffins warm or cold.

On a note, the recipe was supposed to make 12 muffins, but I got 18 out of it. Hence the bracketed 12-cup. I stored the rest in the fridge while I was baking the first batch. Not sure if I should have done that, but oh well. Didn't see a big difference :)

Anyway, I finally managed to find baking cocoa, hoho. As a result, these muffins were a much more pleasing brown colour than the last ones. And the brown sugar crust on top was, as usual, fantastic. Made it really crunchy :D Just look at the muffin! Dark brown with golden specks. Beautiful! Hadi doesn't really like it though, so I made some without. Oh well, its up to your tastes, I guess.

Unfortunately, the sugar topping was the highlight of the muffins. The rest of the muffin (to me and Justin) was very dry and tasteless, barely even sweet. The other two found it really good though. Maybe the chocolate pieces were a bit unevenly distributed, but still... the muffin dough minus the chocolate should still be tasty. It is, after all, a big part of the muffin. That was a big disappointment :(

Although, it could be my fault. I made a few mistakes. :P
One, the recipe called for plain chocolate. I did NOT realise this until I was writing the recipe up, and used milk chocolate instead. Less chocolate flavour = possible less flavoursome muffin, I guess.
Two, I added the melted chocolate to cold milk. Yes, AGAIN (melted chocolate into cold cheese in chocolate cheesecake). As you would expect, some of the chocolate solidified instead of becoming chocolate flavoured milk. Might lessen the flavour, as well.
Three, I did not combine it enough. I am paranoid about overmixing muffins (from the first time I tried to make muffins - unblogged, hehe :P), but when I got to the bottom of the mixing bowl, there was a whole lot of flour still at the bottom. Argh, such a novice mistake! This means that there was too much liquid compared to solid in the first 12 muffins, which may have adversely affected the texture.

But anyway...

I definitely much preferred the dough of the double chocolate cheesecake muffins. Those were soft and fluffy. These were fluffy as well, but more crumbly and lacked some taste (unless you had a lot of chocolate pieces in it). They weren't *bad*, just not as good as expected. It might possibly have been because of the silly things I did (or didn't, hehe) do, so this recipe is still worth a try for those of you who are curious. :)

Oh, for dinner today, Hadi decided to make another Honey Chicken roast, only this time he forgot to put in herbs, and instead of mushrooms, he roasted halved onions instead. The rest was exactly the same, so I won't be putting in the recipe, hehe. And yes, I know the chicken looks a bit burnt. He forgot to check on the chicken - it could've used 5 minutes less in the oven. Otherwise, the chicken was still nice and tender, although it could've used some marination.

Quote of the day: Carob is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean evergreen. Some consider carob an adequate substitute for chocolate because it has some similar nutrients (calcium, phosphorus), and because it can, when combined with vegetable fat and sugar, be made to approximate the color and consistency of chocolate. Of course, the same arguments can as persuasively be made in favor of dirt.

Cheese and Tomato Pasta Bake

Aw, we have only 4 people in the house now. It seems a bit quiet, phoo~ But perhaps we'll finally be able to get some work done now, hehe. Before he left, one of our guests was asking whether we ate any beef at all. I answered sometimes, but we haven't really had that many beef dishes (as you might have noticed)

So this is actually our very first beef dish for the term! When making his spaghetti back home, Syukri would easily throw in a kilo of beef. But when beef costs 5 pounds a kilo like it does here, and you're a student...well, you have to be a bit more careful, hehe. But because the butcher's were out of chicken, we had to fork over for half a kilo of beef instead. And what goes better with beef than pasta? :) So...here we go!

What you need:
500g minced beef
2 onions, sliced finely
1 shallot, sliced finely
1 jar (500g) of pasta sauce, pick your favorite
3 tablespoons tomato sauce
1 tablespoon tomato puree
2 tomatoes, sliced
Cheddar cheese, grated
Parmesan cheese, grated
Oil, for frying
Black pepper, for seasoning
Cooked pasta, enough to serve however many people (we had 4 people - 1 kilo! of dried pasta)

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C.
2. Meanwhile, heat up some oil in a wok and fry the onions and shallots until softened and slightly translucent.
3. Add the minced beef and fry until browned.
4. Pour in the whole jar of pasta sauce, tomato sauce and puree. Simmer for about 10 minutes. Season with black pepper, and salt if required
   
5. In an large oven-proof dish, mix the beef sauce and cooked pasta together. Place the tomato slices over the top of the pasta mixture, and sprinkle the cheeses on top.
6. Bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, or until cheese is bubbling and golden-brown.

The boys were extremely enthusiastic about this, just because it has beef in it. It did smell good while it was cooking, I admit, and Hadi stuck his face in the finished dish (well, not literally) and breathed in all the beefy smells, saying how it smells like meat. Um, right. Well, its not like I tell them not to use beef... I say go ahead, but they're usually the ones complaining on how much it costs anyway, hehe.

I thought it was a pretty good dish, considering I only decided to make it on the way back from the butcher's. There were a few things I could've added though - some herbs (Mediterranean mixed, or maybe just basil), some chopped up sausages and salami as well as a sprinkling of olive oil. It could also have used more tomato sauce, I think, since it wasn't flavoursome enough, in my opinion. That said, the boys enjoyed it, if only because of the beef - and the roasted tomatoes! :P

The dish also looked good - the tomato slices made it look very pretty, although I just added it in for fun. :P I left it in the oven a bit too long though, so the top layer of pasta was a bit crunchy, but I like crunchy bits of pasta anyway, hehe. Also, I didn't put nearly enough cheese in it. I thought I put in a lot, but barely tasted it. It might be nice to mix in grated cheese with the sauce and pasta, as well as on top of the pasta. You can never have too much cheese, hehe. ;)

Quote of the day: For centuries, people thought the moon was made of green cheese. Then the astronauts found that the moon is really a big hard rock. That's what happens to cheese when you leave it out.

"Sausages Tonight" Chicken

Today was quite a tiring day, so I don't blame Justin for making this rather simple dish. We spent a LOOOOOONNNNG time at the supermarket, just so he can find some random ingredient to use in his dinner tonight. After a few no-gos, he finally decided to go for a jar of Sausages Tonight - which is basically a sauce to be used with sausages. There were a few Chicken Tonight flavours, but none of them very suitable. So ... Ranch BBQ flavour it is :D Here we go!

What you need:
6 pieces boneless chicken, chopped into bite-sized pieces
Cornflour, for coating
3 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1 jar of Sausages Tonight, Ranch BBQ flavour
Oil, for frying

What you do:

1. Mix the cornflour and bicarbonate of soda together, and coat the chicken pieces with it.
2. Heat up enough oil to deepfry the chicken, and fry until golden brown and crispy.
3. Serve immediately, with warmed sauce drizzled over the chicken.
   

Yes, AGAIN with the bicarbonate! Even though we have absolutely no idea what it does. The chicken tonight was crispy, but that might have been because we didn't simmer it in the sauce at all this time around. Although the texture of the coating was a bit different than usual... I'm just not very sure if the crispiness itself was actually affected. Oh well...

And yes, I know its a very simple dish and just barely a recipe, but I suppose its quite flexible. Just fry up your chicken pieces, and serve with your favorite sauce. Some suggestions I have would be BBQ sauce, tomato, chilli, or even a mayonnaise-based sauce, flavoured with herbs or garlic. Basically anything that goes with fried chicken, hehe.

Since tonight is another simple recipe, let me talk about another Japanese drama - My Little Chef. This show is yet another show about food in case you can't tell, hehe. This time around, the focus is not simple comfort food, like Lunch Queen was, but fancy French cuisine with fancy names. The protagonist is yet another girl, but this time she's the chef. After growing up with a father who specialised in cooking French food, she grew up to be a very talented chef with a unique cooking style - she wants to know the person she is serving, just so she can make a meal especially for them, one that will resonate with their heart strings, or something like that. When she gets the opportunity to open a restaurant, what will happen? Well, I suggest you watch it to find out! ;)

Quote of the day: Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music.

1st Year @ Bristol: Nasi Ayam (Chicken Rice)

Woohoo! The second of my first year dishes has finally come out! This is an easy recipe for Nasi Ayam (chicken rice) but today, I decided to "complicate" it a little, since one of my friends has recently suggested another way to prepare this. Italics denote the extra step. So... here we go!

What you need:
Chicken pieces - preferably something juicy, such as thighs or whole chicken even
Salt
Chicken stock
1-inch piece of fresh ginger, chopped 6 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (kicap manis) 1 tablespoon oyster sauce 1 tablespoon light soy sauce

What you do:

1. Place the chicken pieces in a pot big enough to hold them, and fill with boiling water.
2. Season well with salt and chicken stock, add the ginger and continue cooking over medium heat for about 45 minutes (depending on what pieces you have) or until the chicken is cooked through. Do not overcook.
   
3. *Meanwhile, preheat an oven to 150 C. Combine all the sauces together.
   
4. Once the chicken is done, use the remaining water in the pot to cook rice. Include the ginger pieces into the mix. Top up with more water as necessary, and season well.
   
5. Extra step: While the rice is cooking, place the chicken in a baking dish and baste all over with the soy sauce mix. Place in the oven, and baste the chicken every 5 minutes or so until rice is cooked.
6. Serve chicken and rice with chilli sauce and any leftover soy sauce mix.

This dish came through big-time for me during my first year, hehe. It was such a simple dish! To keep my chicken warm while the rice was cooking, I would put it in a steamer basket over the rice, hehe. It worked pretty well. :)

The reason I wanted to try the extra addition was because I like the roasted chicken rice from Brunei Chicken Rice (BCR), hehe. Well, the resulting dish wasn't as tender as their chicken, but it was pretty good, I guess. It might have been because I only had chicken drumsticks available. Slightly better than the original recipe, since I usually eat it plain (while other people add soy sauce to theirs). This was definitely more flavoursome.

Maybe I haven't got the exact ratios of soy sauce and oyster sauce yet... The chicken was sweet and everyone else liked it, but it was actually a bit too sweet for me. I might put in more light soy sauce and less of the sweet one next time. (Hadi might complain though :P) Hadi also mentioned that some ginger would be nice. That's a good point, I completely forgot about it, actually. But I added it to the recipe steps, hehe, since it really does improve the taste.

I also had some trouble with the rice. Maybe I didn't add enough water or something, but it turned out slightly hard. Not quite bullet rice yet, but still not that fluffy. Our rice cooker seems to get a bit wonky when we cook a lot of rice, hehe. Also, I didn't season it enough I guess, so Hadi found it tasteless. Everyone else was fine with it though, heh. Just the hard rice was the problem. Oh well, next time improve~! :D

Quote of the day: Happy and successful cooking doesn't rely only on know-how; it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate and needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food to bring it to life.

Herby Honey Chicken

After such a big dinner last night, you would think that we wouldn't be all that hungry today. But, of course, all human beings need to eat and the people in this house particularly love to do so, hehe. Surprisingly, Hadi volunteered to cook today - without any urging even. How nice, because I would have had absolutely no idea on what to cook :P But Hadi managed quite well! So...here we go!

What you need:
Chicken thighs (to serve 6 people)
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs
2 teaspoons chicken stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mushrooms, quartered

What you do:

1. Mix all ingredients except the chicken and mushrooms in a bowl.
2. Pour the honey mixture onto the chicken and mushrooms and stir to coat.
3. Bake ina an oven preheated to 180 C for about 45 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

The mushrooms were just a random ingredient that we had in our fridge (from the roast capon stuffing) that we wanted to use up, so Hadi decided to just put them into the roast. Not such a bad idea, since everyone tucked them in enthusiastically. I am not a big fan of mushrooms, but everyone else loved them. Apparently they were very nicely cooked, and very tender, even though they were brown and crisp on the outside.

The chicken was also very tasty! Slightly herby, but not overpoweringly so. For once, Hadi didn't go overboard with the herbs, hehe. It was sweet, but the salt offset this enough to make a nice balance. :)

From the chicken juices in the pan, Hadi also attempted to make a gravy (as was demonstrated with his friends last night) BUT AGAIN put in too much flour, and the whole thing solidified yet again. But this time around, the gravy actually tasted very good. A concentrated version of the chicken flavour, hehe. It was good while it was warm, but it solidified into a jelly (yes, jelly, I am serious) once cool. Not pleasant at all to wash. :P

Everyone else really liked Hadi's chicken as well. As nice as the dinner was last night, I thought it was missing one thing - rice, hehe. I need my rice fix every dinner. I thought I was the only one, but when people commented that this dinner was very satisfying... well, maybe I am not the only one who needs rice every dinner after all, hehehe.

Quote of the day: We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks. . . . He may live without books,-what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope,-what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love,-what is passion but pining? But where is the man that can live without dining?

Hadi's Birthday Dinner

(Those of you from my Friendster blog, click here to go back)

Like I've mentioned earlier, we decided to "save" a proper birthday cake for Hadi once our guests come. In fact, we actually went and held a proper dinner with the house people as well as some of Hadi's friends. Because it is now Christmas season, turkeys and capons were being sold at the butchers. So we thought it might be a rather neat idea to do a proper roast, hehe. Justin immediately started comparing our menu to the Christmas parties he has been to (although, as I pointed out, this isn't technically a Christmas party...) and was worried about what appetizers to serve instead.

Since I was already busy with the other food, I told him to just make whatever he wanted. But seriously! He only started to worry about it about 5 hours before our guests came! I told them to do some kind of finger food when we were planning this thing, but Hadi didn't want to do anything much, heh. In the end, Justin decided to make a salad, as well as roast potatoes. As for Hadi, well, he really helped me out with the cooking and cleaned up the house as well, hehe, so he wasn't totally jobless. So, here was our final "menu":

Appetizers:
Greek Salad
Roast Potatoes

Main Course:
Roast Capon with Honey
Macaroni and Cheese

Dessert:
Chocolate Cheesecake 1
Chocolate Cheesecake 2 (brought by our guests!)
Tang Yuan

There was a total of 9 people for the dinner, which pretty much maxed out the space available in our little house, hehe. I'll give you a brief overview of the food here, but do check out the recipes for them (if available) as there will be a more detailed "analysis", hehe.

I don't eat "rabbit food", so I didn't have a taste of the salad, but people seemed to like it a lot. I guess it wasn't too bad an effort from Justin, since it took him less than an hour to make it. We cheated and bought ready-to-bake roast potatoes, since Justin wanted to have potatoes with a crispy outing. I wouldn't say they were all that crispy, but they took shorter to cook than if we had used fresh potatoes, hehe, so that was fine.

I was a bit nervous about making the roast capon, since I haven't made whole roast chicken all that often. A few improvisations needed to be made to the basic recipe, but the end result was tender juicy chicken. Yummy~! As for the macaroni and cheese, I have no idea what happened, but the cheesy white sauce didn't turn out well. :( I can't understand that, since I can usually handle white sauce pretty well. It still turned out ok, but not up to standard, hehe. It tasted great, nice and cheesy, but somehow, the cheese and milk precipitated out of the sauce, so the resulting texture was a bit lumpy. So no recipe for that, but I will definitely try to make it again next time. ;)

And yes, you read that right. We had TWO chocolate cheesecakes, one made by me and one by one of our guests, who is apparently an avid baker. A coincidence that we both decided to make the same thing, but I suppose chocolate cheesecake would always be a hit anywhere, hehe. And I suppose its our fault for not informing our guests what Hadi's birthday cake was, but no one was too upset about it, hehe. In fact, the general reaction was..."TWO chocolate cheesecakes?!! Woohoo!" Ahahaha. Another one of the guests also made Tang Yuan, a warm Chinese dessert soup. He served this later on in the night, when it was getting a bit chilly, so everyone definitely appreciated it, hehe. It's a sweet soup with glutinous rice balls in it. The soup was spiced up with ginger and black pepper, while the rice balls lent their sweetness to the soup. They were filled with either sesame paste or peanut paste. Seemed like everyone enjoyed it, especially the rice balls, which were delectably soft, hehe. :)

In the end, there was definitely more than enough food, though there wasn't a huge excess, hehe. Looks like the amount was just right, which is nice. The desserts were more or less sucked up by all the people, while the chicken was scraped to the bone. There were small amounts of the appetizers left, but nothing too major. I'm pretty sure everyone enjoyed themselves, which is fantastic! :D And not just because of the food, hehe. Lots of fun and games and great people. What more could you want on a cold winter's night~? :)

Quote of the day: To remember a successful salad is generally to remember a successful dinner; at all events, the perfect dinner necessarily includes the perfect salad.

Greek Salad

From Hadi's Birthday Dinner:


Justin and Hadi love salads. I must say they look nice. So colourful - mostly green but with splashes of other colours as well. Very pretty, but I don't eat things just because they look pretty, ahahaha.

What you need:
Chopped tomatoes
Cucumber
Bell pepper
Red onion
Feta cheese
Olives
Random leafy salads

Salt
Black pepper
Oregano
White vinegar
Lemon juice

What you do:
Cut up the vegetables and cheese into bite-sized pieces, then season with the rest of the ingredients. Justin also added some thousand island sauce.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Justin lifted this recipe out of Wikipedia. Pretty smart, hehe. It turned out great, I think. People kept on saying it tasted yummy, but like I said, I didn't taste it. Hadi said the cheese was amazing. Feta cheese is a Greek cheese which is salted and stored in brine. I forgot to taste it, but it looked very creamy. :)

Right, this is a short one, but hey, its just salad ;) Ahahahaha

Roast Capon with Honey

From Hadi's Birthday Dinner:


Capon, for those not in the know, is a castrated male chicken. Upon losing its sex drive, a capon apparently just sits and eats in the shade and gets fat and plump juicy. We actually wanted to get turkey, since we've never had that before, but it turned out to be slightly too big for our needs. The capon was quite big itself though, definitely not a normal chicken, hehe. Just look at those huge thighs! No one could believe it *was* chicken, until they tasted it, of course. Apparently, turkey tastes different than chicken, but I haven't had turkey, so I can't compare. ;) It was definitely a good choice though. There was just enough for 9 people, and the meat was tender and very very juicy. How did we get it so good? Ahahaha, here we go!

What you need:
1 capon (ours was about 5 kilos - roughly 10 pounds!)
2 tablespoons honey
50g butter

For the stuffing:
2 tablespoons butter
5 sausages, chopped up roughly
2 onions, sliced finely
8 mushrooms, sliced finely
Salt, for seasoning
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs

What you do:

1. To make the stuffing, melt the butter in a wok. Add the sausages, mushrooms and onions and fry until the sausages are browned and the mushrooms and onions softened. Careful not to burn the onions. Season with salt and add the black pepper and mixed herbs. Mix well and leave to cool.
2. Once cool, stuff the chicken with the sausage mix in the body cavity. Melt the honey and butter together. Place the chicken in rack over a roasting pan and spoon over the honey-butter mixture. It will cling to the skin as it cools.
3. Marinate the chicken, uncovered, in a fridge or some other cool place for 24 hours, spooning over any excess mixture.
4. Add some water to the roasting pan (to prevent the drippings for burning) and roast the chicken in an oven preheated to 170 C. Roast for about 20 minutes per pound of chicken, basting frequently with the honey and butter mixture.
5. The chicken is cooked when juices run clear when a skewer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh. Allow to rest 15 minutes before serving.

I've always had trouble with roasting whole chicken, in that some parts of the chicken would not be quite cooked, but the outside is usually quite brown already. To prevent this, I covered the chicken for half of the cooking time, then covered the wings only the rest of the time, to allow the chicken to brown. I also covered any parts that were getting too brown later on in the cooking. The result was an absolutely beautiful golden-brown chicken. Okay, some parts were still a bit pale, but that was my fault. I was too lazy to make more of the honey-butter mix. But the rest was golden perfection, hehe.

I forgot to check whether the chicken was done before I gave up the oven (there was a queue for it, ahahaha - potatoes and macaroni), and was really worried whether it was cooked or not when we started to carve the chicken, but it turned out beautifully moist and tender. (I cooked it for slightly above 3 hours!) The meat was practically falling off the bone, and was so juicy and tender. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to marinate the chicken beforehand, since we didn't defrost it early enough, so the meat was a bit ... well, it tasted like chicken and nothing much, haha. But it was soooooo juicy, that it *almost* didn't matter.

Plus, out of the chicken juices in the pan, one of our guests (the same guy who made the chocolate cheesecake) made a really good chicken gravy. Apparently, you just boil to reduce the liquid, then add a bit of flour to thicken it. It turned out slightly sweet (because of the honey) which complemented the chicken perfectly. Sooooo good!

I read somewhere that to achieve tender roast chicken, you are highly suggested to stuff it. I gave what I used for this particular chicken, but it's up to you really. You can add your favorite ingredients together and see if it will go well with chicken, hehe. I loved the sausages, though they turned a bit of a funny colour, slightly grey. Didn't affect their taste much, but still...well, strange, ahahaha. But we've used other things as stuffing before, usually bread with some vegetables. That turned out fine, but I definitely prefer sausages, hehe.

All in all, this was a pretty good dish. I'm really liked it~! ;) And judging from the leftovers (none!) I hope everyone liked it as well, hehe.

Battle of the Cheesecakes

From Hadi's Birthday Dinner:

I actually wanted to make something else other than something with chocolate in it :P I offered all sorts of cakes, cheesecakes, but Hadi insisted on having the Deep Chocolate Cheesecake. It did look good in the book but... chocolate??? Oh well. I had some good quality dark chocolate on hand, so I thought I might as well. It is his birthday cake after all, hehe. So... here we go!

What you need:
For the base:
4 tablespoons butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
115g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
1 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder

For the chocolate layer:
800g mascarpone cheese
200g icing sugar, sifted
175g dark chocolate, melted

To decorate:
75g dark chocolate, melted

What you do:

1. Grease a 20-cm/8-inch loose-bottomed cake tin.
2. To make the base, put the crushed biscuits, cocoa powder and melted butter into a large bowl and mix well. Press the biscuit mixture evenly over the base of the prepared tin.
3. Put the mascarpone and sugar into a bowl. Add the dark chocolate and mix together until thoroughly combined. Spread the mixture evenly over the biscuit layer. Cover with clingfilm and chill for at least 4 hours.
4. Use the melted chocolate to make decorations. The book suggested making chocolate leaves, but I couldn't find any suitable ones. What I did was place the melted chocolate in a small plastic bag, snip a tiny hole in one of the corners and drizzle random patterns over non-stick baking paper. Once set, peel the decorations of the paper and decorate the cake. Serve immediately.

Once I saw the finished product, my first thought was, "I have outdone myself!" Ahahahaha, yes, I am very modest. The cake looked very plain in the beginning, but the simple chocolate decorations made it look quite fancy! Here's a closeup, ahahahaha.

Unfortunately, I forgot to buy the icing sugar for this. I had to substitute with caster sugar instead, which is still relatively fine-grained, but may have affected the texture a bit. The recipe also wanted the juice of 1/2 an orange as well as rind of 1 orange to be mixed into the chocolate mixture, but several people (including myself) don't like the idea of an orange-flavoured chocolate cheesecake, so I skipped that out. I also used chocolate-covered digestives for the biscuit base, hehe. I couldn't find plain digestives, and also, Hadi insisted. :P

Also, I think the cheese may have been a bit too cold when I added in the melted chocolate, as dark brown chocolate specks were formed in the cake. Doesn't affect the taste at all, but made the cake look a bit freckly, ahahaha. I would suggest warming the cheese up a little, or at least not using it straight from the fridge.

I had a lot of "volunteers" when I made the cake, hehe. Some people offered to mix the sugar and cheese, while others offered to crush the biscuits. The rest offered moral support. And of course, all my helpers were more than happy to "help" me taste the cheesecake, since I am not really that big a fan of cheesecake and haven't eaten a lot to be able to compare. Or so they said.

When the guests turned up with another chocolate cheesecake, well, what can I say. Everyone was ecstatic, ahahaha. Means they can get bigger portions, ahahaha. There was no shortage of volunteers to judge which cheesecake was better, ahahaha. Hadi pronounced mine the winner, just because it had his name on it, but his friend retaliated by drizzling Hadi's name on his cake with melted chocolate, ahahaha. It resulted in an artsy-looking Hadi, he says, hehe. You can just see it if you squint your eyes. :P So anyway, who was the winner? Well, here's the breakdown. :)

Ihsan's cheesecake:
This was a no-bake cheesecake, which uses mascarpone cheese instead of the more usual cream cheese. Mascarpone is a very creamy cheese which is much milder than cream cheese, tastes almost like thick milk - or cream, ahahaha. Because of this, the chocolate flavour was not overwhelmed at all, and the cake tastes almost like a chocolate mousse - very thick, very creamy and oh-so-chocolatey. On a side note, the chocolate decorations tasted really good. ;)

TH's cheesecake:

This cheesecake was baked and I think used cream cheese as well. Because of this, it tasted more like what I would expect a cheesecake to taste like. There was a subtle chocolate flavour, but the main thing was definitely the cheese - a big plus for all cheesecake fans. ahahaha. He also provided a warm chocolate sauce to go with the cheesecake, which was nice - really added to the chocolate flavour, a big plus. I liked his biscuit base - it was thinner, firmer and tasted better than mine, hehe. His cake's texture was also much better than mine - very very very smooth. Very nice! :D

So which cake was better? Well, there were some on favour each side, hehe. Those who preferred my cake "whispered" to me that they liked my cake better, and I assume that they did the same for the other cake, hehe. The two cakes are definitely very different from each other - one is chocolatey, while the other is cheesy. Just depends on which flavour you like better. :) I am biased, of course, and I like my cake better, but that's just me. :D

Chicken in a Chicken

For today's dinner, Justin did an adaptation of his chicken from last week, Five-Spice Chicken. Justin was really impressed with his chicken, if you can remember. It also got a pretty good response, since it looked quite pretty. Today, however, we have three extra people trying his dish out. Will it stand up to expectations? Hehe, here we go!

What you need:
Chicken thighs (we had enough for 6 people)
Cornflour, for coating
1 tablespoon Sainsbury's Chicken Seasoning
1 tablespoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons chicken stock powder
2 tablespoons white pepper

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 C. Mix all the dry ingredients together.
2. Coat the chicken with the flour mixture.
3. Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

Instead of Chinese five-spice, Justin used Sainsbury's Chicken seasoning instead. This seasoning powder has salt, paprika, onion powder, celery and cayenne pepper in it. The whole point of the Chicken in a Chicken name was because this was CHICKEN with CHICKEN seasoning and CHICKEN stock. Creative people in this house, uh-huh. Tonight's chicken looked as good as its predecessor, hehe. All golden and crisp. It looked almost as good as fast food chicken even! Hehe, what do you think?

As for the taste, I thought it was pretty yummy~ There were no whoops of joy from Justin this time around, but he was probably restraining it because of our guests, hehe. I thought it tasted better than last time's, but that's because I am not that big a fan of Chinese five-spice powder, maybe, hehe.

Our guests were also enthusiastically tucking into their dinners, which Justin was relieved about, I'm sure. He kept on badgering me to check my blog on what he did last time, heh. He claims not to care what he cooks, but he actually really does, hehe.

One thing that soon became apparent though, was that... OUR RICE COOKER IS NOT BIG ENOUGH. At least, not big enough to cater for 6 people - or rather 5 people and 1 Justin, heh. Justin offered to cut down on what he ate, but at the end of the dinner, people were still scraping the bottom of the rice cooker, phoo~ Hadi especially, hehe, since our guests were too polite (or maybe too shy? :P) to ask for more.

What to do about this? Cut down our appetites maybe, hehe. Not very likely though. Use two rice cookers? Maybe, but that'll be such a bother, heh. Serve more courses? Hehe, possible but way too expensive. Sigh, its sad being a student, isn't it? :P

Quote of the day: . . . even those for whom cooking is an oppressive chore or a source of self-doubting anxiety, acknowledge that a meal shared by friends and family is one of the bonding rituals without which the family, society even, can fall apart.

Sweet Ginger Chicken

Hadi likes ginger a lot, I think. So far, he's done about three dishes, all bearing ginger in their titles, including this one. I don't really mind all that much I guess. I think ginger has a pretty good flavour, as long as you don't bite into it, hehe. Although Hadi likes biting into it, heh. Anyway, in this dish, ginger is fried briefly to soften their their flavour, then simmered with sweet soy sauce and chicken to make a ginger-flavoured ayam kicap, hehe. So, here we go!

What you need:
Chicken pieces (we had guests over, so we used a lot this time, heh)
2 inches fresh ginger, chopped finely
4 tablespoons kicap manis (sweet soy sauce)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 cup water, plus extra
1 tablespoon cornflour, dissolved in extra water to make a paste
Sprinkling of cayenne pepper and turmeric, for seasoning
Oil, for frying

What you do:

1. Heat up some oil in a wok and fry the ginger for about 3 minutes, or until softened.
2. Add the chicken and fry briefly, until browned - about 5 minutes.
3. Add the soy sauces and water. Sprinkle cayenne pepper and turmeric and mix well. Simmer over medium-high heat until chicken is tender all the way through - about 20 minutes.
4. Add cornflour paste to thicken the sauce and simmer for about 2 minutes. Serve.

This tasted like a typical ayam kicap recipe, except for the ginger, of course. There was really a lot of ginger in there. Hadi used the sweet soy sauce because well, he likes sweet things. It was quite nice, just very familiar. Typical Hadi recipe, heh. He likes to simmer things, because you can basically forget about it for the next 30 minutes or so.

If I were Hadi, I would've been very nervous, because I don't like cooking for unfamiliar people. I'm always scared that I'll mess up in some way, heh. Low self esteem, that's me. But Hadi handled it like a pro (although he *did* do it a bit late, since everyone was starving very early in the evening, hehe) And he did quite well, I think. I'm pretty sure our guests were happy with the food. :D

It was quite an interesting experience though, hehe. Hadi was cooking for five people, which, in our small kitchen, is quite hard. The rice was just about enough, and we didn't have a table to fit everyone! We had to eat on a towel on the floor. :P How sad... But it was a very social dinner, so I quite enjoyed it, hehe.

Because of our guests, we decided to show them some parts of Bristol. So, we went all the way to the main university area, just to get a cup of hot chocolate, which we could've gotten at home anyway! It was really cold tonight, almost freezing! It was really foggy as well, which it has been for the last couple of days, heh. Its fun seeing all the fog, something you almost never get in Brunei, hehe. Apparently, the fog in London was worse, but its still nice to have some fog. Its cold, but it feels like you're in an exotic place, hoho. Plus, doesn't the hot chocolate look like it was worth the journey??? Ahahaha.

I'm quite sleepy, so sorry if my post this time sounds a bit incoherent. Until tomorrow~

Quote of the day: This kitchen is closed because of illness - sick of cooking.

Chocolate Mousse (Happy Birthday Hadi~!)

Heh, my sweet "little" brother is finally 20 years old. (And in the same year of Uni as I am??? Grrrrrr!) For those not in the know, Hadi has a MAJOR sweet tooth (as I'm sure regular readers might have noticed...) so when I asked him what he wanted for dinner during his birthday - Justin refused to cook, heh - he immediately replied Buttermilk Chicken! That would definitely be Hadi's favorite dish, all sweet and creamy. I used the version 2 recipe, actually. Like usual, Hadi complained that it was not sweet enough. Though that might be my fault, since I didn't let the sauce thicken long enough. Oopsie~

Anyways, for his birthday cake, I didn't really want to waste a whole cake for the 3 of us (or rather, I really really really don't want to eat a third of a cake myself), so I decided to make individual desserts instead. Some guests are coming over in a couple of days, so Hadi agreed it would be better to save the big cake for then, heh. But anyway, I first offered him either Tiramisu or Creme Brulee but he really couldn't make up his mind. But, when I put in Chocolate Mousse into the choices, he immediately jumped on that one. In Hadi's mind, the only thing better than something sweet is something sweet AND chocolatey.

So... here we go!

What you need:
225g plain chocolate, chopped
6 tablespoons water
30g unsalted butter, diced
3 large eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
55g sugar
125ml double cream
Grated chocolate, to decorate

What you do:

1. Place the chocolate and water in a small saucepan over low heat and melt, stirring until smooth. Remove the saucepan from the heat and beat in the butter.
2. Beat the egg yolks into the chocolate mixture, one after another, until blended, then leave to cool slightly.
3. Meanwhile, using an electric mixture on low speed, beat the egg whites in a spotlessly clean bowl until they are frothy, then gradually increase the mixer's speed and beat until soft peaks form. Sprinkle the cream of tartar over the surface, then add the sugar tablespoon by tablespoon, and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Beat several tablespoons of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen.
4. In another bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Spoon the cream over the chocolate mixture, then spoon the remaining whites over the cream. use a large metal spoon or rubber spatula to fold the chocolate into the cream and egg whites.
5. Either spoon the chocolate mousse into a large serving bowl or divide between 4 or 6 individual bowls. Cover the bowls with clingfilm and chill the mousse for at least 3 hours before serving. Decorate with grated chocolate before serving.
   

I was a bit nervous making this, since its my first proper dessert. I can do cookies quite okay, maybe brownies, but have never been successful in making cakes. Just look at this amazing one my sister made! (With help)And she's only 13! Phoo~

But anyway, I also didn't have cream of tartar, but there were no problems with the egg whites. They were nice and stiff, just like meringues :D I was quite surprised with the recipe actually, it was quite simple. Just needed a lot of bowls, is all. I barely had enough, hehe. I also needed help to spoon the sugar while I was beating the egg whites. But apart from that, everything was easy sailing.

I had a really hard time convincing Hadi to wait for dinner before eating this. (No, I couldn't keep it a secret from him, since it is a small house we have :P with a small fridge) He sneaked out a few finger swipes from the bowl I was making it from (and was instantly happy :P) but managed to keep the rest till later. And it was worth it. Hadi and Justin really loved it (although with the Buttermilk Chicken, we might have had a slight overdose on sugar :P) I never used to eat mousse (just because it had raw eggs in it). But I am obviously less fussy this time, so I tried it - and really liked it~! It was so smooth, so velvety soft and soooo chocolatey. Really really yummy~

Justin found it slightly too sweet, but Hadi? "Too sweet? No such thing!" Ahahaha, now that is a real sweet tooth :P Actually, I have always been worried that Hadi and Justin only like eating what I cook, just because they're not particular about what they eat. But a couple of friends came over just now, and they LOVED the chicken (I hope? hehe) There was a lot of chicken, but they managed to finish it somehow, hehe. I'm glad. The mousse was also met with delight. *Ihsan is HAPPY*

Actually, on going to the dessert section at the supermarket recently, I was kind of...well, depressed is too strong a word. See, one of my friends was looking to make a chocolate dessert, and was ready to buy all the stuff she needed, but when saw it being sold ready-made, she immediately dropped her plans and bought just that instead. So I was thinking, What's the point of baking, when you can buy all these ready-made at reasonable prices???

But today made me realise, I don't cook to eat. Well, okay, I don't cook JUST to eat. I also cook because I actually enjoy it. I like thinking about what to cook (and yes, what to eat) next. I like seeing people with happy smiles on their faces when they eat what I make, hehe. And yes, I like the compliments I get too. ;) So yes, there's still very much a point in cooking, for me. :) On that note, I'll end with today's quote of the day:

Quote of the day: The secret of good cooking is first, having a love of it... If you are convinced cooking is a drudgery, you're never going to be good at it and might as well warm up something frozen.

Chicken with Creamy Tarragon Sauce

hoho, Miz, I managed to find tarragon, finally~! Its a herb usually used in French cooking, apparently. AND I managed to track down a recipe that seems quite similar to Solitude's Tarragon Chicken AND one that sounds yummy enough, hehe. Coincidentally, I also had a pot of cream on hand, so what to do but make Chicken with Creamy Tarragon Sauce (continuing on from my French breakfast, hehe). So... here we go!

What you need:
3 pieces boneless chicken
300 ml chicken stock
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon dried tarragon
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
175 ml whipping cream (I used 160 ml double cream :P)
1/2 tablespoon dried tarragon (or 1 tablespoon fresh)
salt and black pepper, for seasoning

What you do:

1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Place in one layer in a saucepan. Pour over the chicken stock (add more, if needed). Add dried tarragon and garlic.
2. Simmer over medium heat and cook gently for 8-10 minutes, or until cooked.
3. Transfer the chicken to a plate and keep warm. Strain cooking liquid into a small saucepan. Skim off any fat and boil to reduce by 2/3.
4. Add cream and boil to reduce by 1/2. Stir in more tarragon and adjust the seasoning. Slice chicken and spoon over a little sauce.

Solitude's chicken was actually grilled, I think. I decided to cook roast potatoes with this (instead of rice), so I placed the chicken on top of the potatoes for the last 10 minutes of cooking. The potatoes were seasoned with olive oil and mixed herbs, just so you know. This baking actually made the chicken shrink, I think, heh, but the final texture was very tender, and still juicy. Not a problem, except that you might still be a bit hungry after, hehe.

As for the sauce, well, when I first tasted it, I didn't quite like it, but Hadi pronounced it okay when he gave it a taste test. But, when eaten when the chicken, it was actually quite nice. A bit sweet, and very creamy. Hadi and Justin were in love with it, hehe. They kept on estimating how much they would be willing to pay for this in a restaurant. (I believe it was 6-7 pounds, but then again, they're cheapskates :P) Hadi practically licked off the last bits of his plate (as well as mine :P).

In fact, they spooned the extra sauce over the roast potatoes! I admit, those potatoes were a bit tasteless, heh. I hardly ever cook potatoes, and don't know how much to season them with. Also, I think they were slightly undercooked, but Hadi and Justin insisted it was fine, so I let it be. I think they were just very hungry though, since they just came back from the gym.

This was, of course, a French recipe, and being French, it actually had wine in it. I just added extra chicken stock and some sugar though, and it doesn't seem too bad, although its quite a big modification, hehe. I... didn't quite like the sauce though, and I think the chicken might have been better if it was crispy. Maybe pan-frying or grilling it, instead of being simmering it might be a better idea next time, hehe. Then again, Hadi and Justin loved it, so maybe its just me?

Quote of the day: The best way to lose weight is to eat all you want of everything you don't like.

Croque Monsieur

Sometimes, its really hard to get out of bed. Especially now that the days are getting sooooo cold! But one thing that always works (for me) is the thought of a hot hearty breakfast. :D It also helps that I wake up hungry, hoho. I usually stick with the usual, such as toast, or maybe Indomie or Nasi Goreng, if I'm feeling really rajin (hardworking) but today, I decided to go exotic and make a Croque Monsieur, which is a sandwich (originating from France) that has ham and cheese and is grilled. I found it it one of my cookbooks and was been really tempted to make it, hehe. So, here we go!

What you need:
100g Gruyere or Emmenthal cheese, grated (I only had Cheddar cheese available, phoo~)
4 slices white bread, with the crusts trimmed
2 slices of meat (it says ham, but I used chicken salami instead)
1 small egg, beaten
40g unsalted butter, for frying

White sauce:
30g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon sunflower oil
1/2 tablespoon plain flour
125 ml warm milk
White pepper

What you do:

1. Spread half the grated cheese on 2 slices bread, then top each with a slice of meat, cut to fit. Sprinkle with all but 2 tablespoons of the remaining cheese, then add the top slices of bread and press down.
2. To make the white sauce, melt the butter with the oil in a small heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour and stir around for 1 minute to cook out the raw taste. Take the pan off the heat and pour in the milk, stirring constantly. Return the pan to the heat and continue stirring for a minute or so until the sauce is smooth and thickened. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the remaining cheese and pepper to taste, then set aside and keep warm.
3. Beat the egg in a soup plate or other flat bowl. Add 1 sandwich and press down to coat on both sides, then remove from the bowl and repeat with the other sandwich.
4. Preheat the grill to high. Line a baking tray with foil and set asude. Melt the butter for frying in a frying pan over medium high-heat and fry 1, or both, sandwiches, depending on the size of your pan. Add a little extra butter, if necessary, if you have to fry the sandwiches separately.
5. Transfer the sandwiches to the foil-lined baking tray and spread the white sauce over the top. Place under the grill, about 10 cm from the heat, and grill for 4 minutes until golden and brown.

We don't have a grill-suitable baking tray, unfortunately, so I used my toaster oven instead, hehe. Also, Hovis makes this amazing bread with "invisible" crusts, so I didn't bother trimming them off either. Apart from the salami and cheese, those are the only modifications I made to the recipe ;) Yes, I know, that's quite a lot, hehe.

I make a cheese and salami sandwich quite often, but this was a rather nifty dish to try, I thought. But partly because of the white sauce, and partly because our house is just SOOOOO humid, my bread turned out a little soggy :( I might try toasting it very lightly first next time. But but but! That didn't detract from the taste at all! There was a hint of egg, which was nice, but the white sauce was amazing! So cheesy, with lots of white pepper, ah~ *drool* I want more now, hehe. The whole thing was really very creamy and cheesy and oh so good! Hadi took half my sandwich without any urging, heh.

At first I wasn't sure if it would photograph well enough, but it looks quite good, I think. Just look at the melted cheese oozing out, and the creamy white sauce~ And it wasn't all that difficult to make either :D Definitely a great breakfast to start my day, hehe~

Quote of the day: All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.

Spicy Shredded Chicken

Hadi was actually planning to make some kind of roast chicken again, but suddenly decided to get creative and made a very Chinese stir-fry dish instead. In this dish, chicken is shredded and cooked in a spicy soy sauce mixture. :) So... here we go!

What you need:
3 chicken pieces, boneless or not, it doesn't matter

Marinade:
1 tablespoon Szechuan pepper, ground or crushed
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 teaspoons garlic powder (or 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped)
1 tablespoon sesame oil

3 dried chillies, chopped finely
2 shallots, sliced finely
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce (kicap manis)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Oil, for cooking

What you do:

1. In a pot of boiling water, add in the chicken pieces. Cook until tender and cooked through. Drain and leave to cool.
2. With your fingers, shred the cooked chicken into thin strips and place in a bowl.
3. Add the marinade ingredients to the cooked chicken and mix well to combine. Marinate for 1-2 hours, or until ready to serve.
4. Heat up some oil in a wok, and fry the shallots and dried chillies for about 2 minutes, or until the shallots are soft. Add in the chicken, and mix well.
5. Add in the soy sauces and oyster sauce, and mix well. Sprinkle over the sesame seeds and serve.

I actually suggested this recipe based on something my flatmate in my first year used to cook quite often. She was Chinese and cooked a LOT of spicy food, and this was one of the few I managed to have a taste of. :) It was really good, and would be her signature dish in every flat dinner, hehe. Everyone really liked it, in fact. Unfortunately, I neglected to get the recipe from her... Hmm... will have to see if I can track it down.

Anyway, I suggested the basics of the recipe to Hadi and sat back, looking forward to a very tasty dinner. But, as usual, he took the recipe and went completely overboard with it. I mean, okay, marination, fair enough, although it really wasn't necessary, since the chicken would absorb the sauce quite well. He said he tasted some of the chicken and found it slightly bland, so he added more sauce. Fine. But to add light soy sauce, oyster sauce AND kicap manis is, quite simply, overkill!

My flatmate's chicken was a light brown, with lots of green and red specks in it (from the chillies she used). But Hadi's chicken, as you can see, is a very dark brown. I would have just stuck to the light soy sauce, and that's it. But no, Hadi likes his food "strong". Sure enough, the dish was very salty and made our lips "pucker" as Hadi said. Sigh. Oh well, looks like I won't be having that chicken just yet. Although Hadi's dish *was* quite tasty (and very flavoursome!). Just not what I expected.

From the water used to cook the chicken, Hadi also attempted to make a chicken gravy thing. He failed. Completely and Utterly failed. Just like last time. This time, he added waaaaaayyy too much salt and flour into the water, and attempted to boil most of the water off. This resulted in a thick mucilaginous .... substance. Hadi and Justin (being "real men") tasted it and tried to pass it off as okay, just a little too salty. But when I tried it... euuuurggghh! It was salty, yet strange tasting. And the texture was just wrong. Definitely not something you would want to eat. And sure enough, no one else touched it after that. By the time we finished dinner, the thing had solidified into a brown gooey mass. Looks like Hadi needs to find yet another way to make gravy. :P Oh well, at least he tried.

Quote of the day: Men like to barbecue. Men will cook if there is danger involved.

Chicken Soup and Melt-In-The-Middle Chocolate Pudding

I've recently finished a Japanese drama called Lunch Queen. As you might expect, its about food, hehe~ Its basically about this girl who is a HUGE fan of lunch, because she believes that a good lunch can make a bad day get better. Of course, its not all about food, hehe. It also has quite a bit of action, romance of course, and even some sad moments, as well as a whole load of comedy. There are some pretty annoying people in there that you feel like hurting very badly as well. That's practically the whole spectrum of human emotions! Hehe. Not only that, its full of pretty people and close-ups of delicious food, a definite watch! :D One of their featured foods is Omu-Raisu, one I haven't mastered well enough yet. I feel inspired to try it again now, hehe. Someday, someday...

Why did I tell you about that? Well, its just to fill up this post, heh. Justin got lazy today and made a very very simple dish that has been done over and over - Chicken Soup. He kept apologising for his lack of imagination, but it wasn't too bad really, heh. And to be honest, we haven't really had it for awhile. I wasn't too hungry though (because I snacked during the afternoon :P Bad thing to do, hehe) In any case, no recipe for today, awwwwww :( I don't even have a nice picture for it, since it doesn't photograph well :( :( :)

For dessert, we had Melt-In-The-Middle Chocolate Puddings from Asda's Extra Special Range. It sounds sooooo good! When you cut open the cake, warm melted chocolate oozes out. Its quite similar to my Molten Chocolate Cake. The picture doesn't do it justice, hehe. One tiny pudding provides a whopping 600 calories! I didn't dare eat it myself, heh, so I split it with the other two. Hadi and Justin really liked it. Hadi was simply ecstatic at how chocolatey it was. The sauce was really chocolatey, but I dunno... I didn't really care for the cake. Hadi thought I was crazy when I said it wasn't chocolatey enough, but maybe the problem here is that it wasn't buttery enough.

But, one good thing is... I have a recipe for this! Muahahaha. I've been meaning to do it, but haven't had the courage to yet. Someday, someday...

But anyway, that's it from me for today. Short, but definitely very sweet, I hope, hehe. Until tomorrow then~ :D

Quote of the day: True strength is the ability to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - then just eating one of the pieces.

Chicken with Spring Onion Sauce

My two housemates have an irrational fear of spring onions. Late last year, in one of our dinners, the spring onions that were thrown in for garnishing tasted very very very bad. Like bangas (expired) soap, if you can imagine that. From then on, Hadi and Justin have refused to use spring onions in their cooking, heh. Whenever I ask them to buy spring onions for me from the supermarket, they always glower at me, so I always change my mind. I finally used it for the first time this year in the Cheese and Onion Quiche - and they accused me of tricking them, since it was "hidden" under the cheese! It didn't taste bad at all! It tastes of normal fresh spring onions, but they claim they are scarred for life.

...

But anyway, from that bunch of spring onions I used for the quiche, I still had quite a few stalks left, so I decided to use it to make this dish. :D Coincidentally, the boys were out for tae kwon do, so they didn't have to see me cooking with it, hehe. So, here we go!

What you need:
Three chicken drumsticks/thighs, boneless

Marinade:
1 inch fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 teaspoons roasted Szechuan peppercorns
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar

Sauce:
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 inch fresh ginger, finely chopped
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon vinegar
150ml chicken stock
1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
3 spring onions, finely sliced

Cornflour, for coating
Oil, for frying

What you do:

1. Mix the ingredients for the marinade together, except for the soy sauce, and grind in a mortar and pestle, until it makes a smooth paste. Add in the soy sauce and mix well. Add the chicken, and rub in the mixture (with your hands) as well as you can. Marinate in the refrigerator for 2-4 hours.
2. After the marination, coat the chicken lightly in the cornflour. Heat one tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok, and add the chicken pieces (in a single layer). Fry until the chicken is golden brown and cooked through - about 10-15 minutes. Place on a plate and set aside.
   
3. To the same wok, add another tablespoon of oil, and fry the garlic and ginger (from the sauce ingredients) for about 2 minutes.
4. Add in all the rest of the ingredients except for the spring onions, and mix well to combine. Simmer for about 3 minutes, or until slightly syrupy. Add the spring onions and simmer for another minute.
5. Add the chicken pieces, and roll to coat in the sauce. Simmer for about a minute or two, or until heated through. Serve immediately. Cut into slices if you wish.

The chicken itself looked very good, even without the sauce. There were little green bits of spring onion stuck within the flour, and looked so tasty, hehe. As always, I wasn't sure whether the sauce would taste nice (scarred from the Honey Garlic Chicken attempt ;) ) but Hadi tasted it and pronounced it okay, hehe. Add the chicken, and voila! Chicken with spring onion sauce :D The boys were surprised at how little time it took (after they came back, that is). I was surprised myself, since I was cooking for less than an hour, which is relatively unusual. Of course, I marinated the chicken this morning, so that's less work, I guess.

The chicken itself was yummy~ Another nice surprise, hehe. The boys really liked it, so much so that Justin even urged me not to take a PhD and open a restaurant, or something, while Hadi suggested doing a catering business in Brunei! HAHAHA. Of course, they weren't all that serious, but its nice to hear they enjoyed it all the same. Even if it DOES have a lot of spring onions.

Then again, when I pointed out to them that see, spring onions are not really all that bad, they did an abrupt about-face and said,"Well, we're still not using spring onions in cooking." Although they don't mind eating it, it seems. After all, the sauce had a lot of spring onion-y taste. But Hadi claimed that the spring onion tasted "a little strange" while Justin (who was, moments ago saying how yummy it was) said that the spring onions doesn't go all that well with the sauce. Maybe they really are (psychologically) scarred from last year's incident, after all? hahaha

Hadi, of course, loved this dish since it was slightly sweet. Not overpoweringly so, though, hehe. Justin was really interested in dissecting what was in the sauce, and was particularly curious about the "role" of the tomato ketchup. What can I say, it was on a whim, hehe. It adds a little depth to the flavour though. (You know how soy sauce always seems a little empty? At least it does to me.) The ginger flavour was a bit too strong for me, but I put a bit too much in, anyway. The boys definitely liked it though. As Hadi ALWAYS says, he likes his food strong. :P (At this point, Justin would crack a "joke" about food going to the gym. Um, right.) Although its weird... When you say spring onion sauce, in my head, I have this image of a green sauce, hehe. Doesn't sound very appetising though :P This one is more of a reddish colour, as you can see from the picture. A much better colour for a sauce, hehe.

Quote of the day: The rule of cooking is, if at first you don't succeed, order a pizza.