Hainanese Chicken Rice video

Its amazing how he leaves the whole chicken in boiling water and it cooks completely through. 

I am learning here how to loosen up the chicken before cooking, it softens the meat. And interesting how he treats the rice before cooking it. It is the same way I have learnt rice has to be cooked. 

There is a thermomix recipe for chicken rice. It puts the a stock on the bottom, the rice over the stock to cook, the chicken over both so the juices drop into the rice, and a vegetable can be cooked on a top layer if we could fit it all in. What an idea! I don't have a thermomix and I don't intend to get one. But I wonder if this method would work in a pressure cooker. I am thinking this because we have a deep pressure cooker which could hold different layers. After all the preparation, it might take minutes to cook. Just let it come to pressure and switch off. The one thing missing from this thermomix method is the ginger / garlic / onion oil essential to this dish. Perhaps we could use it in the preparation of the rice and let it mix with the chicken and stock through the steam. 

Anyway, the kids love chicken rice. The most important part (not here) is the chilli sauce that goes with it. I'll have to add a how to do that video part later. 

Roast Chicken

I am making a roast chicken for 3 of Nathan's friends and 2 of their mothers. One of them is vegetarian so I am including lots of vegetables for her. This is how I do it:

Menu
Roast chicken
Roast vegetables
Roast vegetables tossed in homemade pesto
Celery and apple salad
Bean salad
Roast Sweet potato

1. Peal and soak potatoes in lots of salted water. I make roughly one potato per person. I have one less (none for Stephen, but I think the children all wont eat their potatoes..)

2. Prepare the vegetables: Peel and chunk organic carrots (this is the only vege I expect the children to eat!), remove stalk from shitake mushrooms, cut zucchini into large chunks, cut red and orange peppers into 2 inch squares, slice naga negi from left over piece. I might add aubergine later??

3. Peel and slice celery for salad. Peel and cube apples. Add raisins. Mix all together. This is a waldorf salad with no mayonaise because Nathan wont enjoy it otherwise (Dressing???? yuckh). I would put walnuts (yum!) but Dylan is allergic to nuts.

4. I also have a sweet potato and a whole head of garlic to add to the roast vegetables.

5. Heat the oven to 180 Celsius and bake the potatoes.

6. Prepare the chicken: poke a fork round a lemon and rub it on the chicken, squeezing gently. Then stuff the chicken with the lemon. Slice 3 cloves of garlic into slivers, make holes into chicken flesh and stuff the slivers into them. Separate the skin from the chicken breast and add garlic to the deepest parts. You may add thyme and butter the same way too. Salt and pepper the chicken, brush a little olive oil to the highest parts of the chicken.

7. Add the chicken breast side down on top of the potatoes. Add the carrots and one head of garlic now.

8. Half an hour later turn the chicken over.

9. Another half an hour add the rest of the vegetables to the roasting dish or into another dish. Try not to overcrowd the dish.

10. When the vegetables are nicely caramilised, the dish is done.

Chicken Curry - Thiru Aunty’s recipe

1 medium sized chicken
2 potatoes,
1 tsp Tumeric
Salt
5 garlic
1 inch of ginger
1 onion, diced
1 stalk of curry leaves
1 green chilli, left whole
1 inch of cinnamon
1 tsp fenugreek
3 cloves
2 cup coconut milk, separated into thin and thick milk
½ cup of curry powder
1 tbsp ground fennel
Juice from ½ a lime

1. Prepare chicken: cut into pieces, wash and leave to drain. Add the salt and tumeric, but you don’t have to mix it in.
2. Prepare potatoes: cut into same size as chicken pieces. Leave it in water.
3. Prepare ginger and garlic: pound in mortar and pestle into a paste. Put it on the chicken.
1. Fry the onion, curry leaves and spices: cinnamon, fennugreek, cloves (cummin, mustard seeds, pepper are optional) in oil till the onion is soft.
2. Add the pieces of chicken with tumeric and salt, pounded ginger and garlic, potatoes.
3. Add the thin coconut milk. Coconut milk is for the best flavour, it can be substituted with milk.
4. Add the curry powder. If you have ground cummin or ground coriander, add this as well for a different flavour).
5. Cook for 20 minutes
6. Check when the chicken is cooked and it tastes well. At the end, add ground fennel, 1 or 2 tbsp thick coconut milk and the lime juice. This is for added flavour, if you are happy when the chicken is cooked, end there.
7. If you didn’t use coconut milk earlier, you don’t have to use it here. Or, if you didn’t use coconut milk earlier, you could use just cream of coconut here.

Yakitori sauce recipe

Yakitori recipe from a forum

Ingredients
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup mirin
1/4 cup sake
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 slice fresh ginger, peeled (1/8 inch thick)
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Directions
1 In a small saucepan, combine soy sauce, sugar, mirin, sake, garlic and gingerroot.
2 Cook over medium high heat 3 to 4 minutes.
3 In a small bowl, blend water and cornstarch.
4 Stir constarch mixture into soy sauce mixture.
5 Cook until thickened, stirring constantly.
6 Strain sauce.
7 Keep at room temperature for up to 24 hours.
8 Refrigerate.

Tsukunhicken Balls
Ingredients for four people: • Minced chicken ··· 450g • Salt ··· 5g • Green onions ··· 20g • Egg ··· 1/4 (Break and lightly beat egg; use 1/4 of mixture) • Starch ··· 1.5g • Seasoning A: Soy sauce ··· 30cc Sake ··· 10cc Sugar ··· 20g Mirin ··· 10cc Ginger juice ··· 10cc • Shichimi pepper ··· as necessary Cooking surface: Grill pan		Method: 1) Mix minced chicken and salt until whitish. 2) Add minced green onion, egg, starch, and ginger juice and mix well with meat. 3) Shape the mixture into meat patties around 3-4 cm in diameter and 2 cm in thickness. 4) Heat oil in a grill pan, brown one side of the meat patties, then the other side. 5) Remove excess oil with cooking paper as necessary. 6) Add seasoning A to the pan and cook it on low heat until sauce thickens and becomes lustrous on the surface of meat.

Nathan's meals

On a good day, this is what Nathan gets to eat.

Dharm's Murgh Marsala Chicken

I first tried this most delicious zesty chicken at my Dharm's house. I finally got the recipe from his blog and have been cooking it at least 10 times a year for the family. It is a guarantee to eat food at home especially with Jun the fussy 5 year old. I am back dating this post to when I first tried it and being close to my description of dinner at Dharms in 2008.

Dharm's Murgh Marsala Chicken recipe is here.

When I make it, I make it as easy as I can. I do cut corners. Firstly, I mix yoghurt, curry powder and chilli powder without the ginger and garlic to marinade the think slices of chicken breast. Chicken breast cooks quickly so I don't have to 'wait till the sauce thickens'

While the chicken marinades on the bench top, I chop the onion and immediately start frying it. with cardamons and mustard seed. I chop lots of garlic and ginger and slice a tomato and some green chilli's. Dried chilli's do when I don't have green ones, I feel it adds to the freshness of the dish. If they are in the fridge sometimes I add kafir lime leaves at this point. When the onions are soft, I add the ginger and garlic, after it is cooking well, I add the tomatoes. I wait for the tomatoes to cook down and add the marinaded chicken.

It is almost finished, just waiting for the chicken to cook and the sauce to thicken. Some coriander leaves or parsley is chopped to add to the chicken to finish cooking. I add this in the pan so the coriander melds into the chicken dish. Then serve.

Serve with rice.

The kids love it.

San Bei Ji

I needed a non curry recipe for some chicken thigh I bought. I also had some basil that needed to be used. I still have ambitions to make pizza ala Sherinkan) So what about San Bei Ji which should be chicken made with 3 cups of sauce: 1 cup sesame oil, 1 cup soysauce and 1 cup chinese wine.

I looked up the web and found some recipes. Google "San Bei Ji".

Jan 2016 update: another Three Cup Chicken recipe from Taste of Hong Kong.

Chicken stir fry with kaffir lime

1 chicken breast, diced
marinade: white pepper, salt, fish sauce
3 kaffir lime leaves, stem removed and julienned
3 spring onions, chopped finely
3 garlic cloves, chopped finely
1 green pepper (or another green vegetable), cut the same size as chicken
sauce: cooking wine, fish sauce, mirin, salt .

1. Mix the diced chicken breast and the marinade ingredients. Set aside while working on the rest.
2. Prepare the spring onions, kaffir lime leaves and garlic. Heat the pan, add the oil and heat.
3. Add the garlic, spring onions and kaffir lime leaves allow to fry for 1 minute.
4. While pan is hot add the chicken and allow to brown.
5. Add the green pepper or another green vegetable. Mix.
6. Add the sauce and scrape the bottom of the pan. Mix.


Chicken with coriander

I like this preparation of chicken, similar to the above but much simpler. It was served to us at the Grape Garden restaurant on Penthurst Road, Willoughby.

2 chicken breast diced
marinade: white pepper, salt, chinese white wine
2 cloves garlic
2 cups of coriander leaves, chopped

1. Marinade the chicken
2. Heat the pan, fry the garlic.
3. Before the garlic turns brown, add the chicken, allow it to brown slightly on one side.
4. Stir fry for 10 minutes until the chicken is properly cooked
5. Throw in the coriander leaves and turn the heat off

Chicken and milk

I call this chicken and milk because I am really like the addition of milk to this dish.

300g chicken drumettes
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup lemon/grape fruit juice
1 slice ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 spring onion chopped into 2 inch lengths
1/2 dried chilli

1. Salt and pepper the chicken
2. Heat oil and fry the chicken till its golden all over
3. Add the milk and fruit juice, then the ginger, garlic, onion, chilli
4. Cook on a slow heat for 30 minutes. The milk and fruit juice will separate, but keep stirring it will come together in the end.
5. Serve with rice