Hainanese Chicken Rice

In Australia we eat approximately 470 millions chicken a year.  That's equivalent to 20 chicken per person per year.  Boss man is someone who is out there to beat that average by miles because he loves to eat chicken.  And out of all chicken dishes, this Hainanese Chicken Rice is his favourite dish.

The chicken is poached gently in water till tender and juicy, the chicken rice garlicky and buttery (optional of course), combined with fragrant special soy sauce and lemony garlic chilli sauce… every spoonful is accompanied with a satisfied: MMMMmmmmmm!!! Even the little toddler knows it’s a special day when mummy cooks this! 

The following is my version- tweaked from many fun attempts =)

Hainanese chicken rice:

Step 1- for poached chicken:

1 whole chicken (reserve 2 T of chicken fat/skin for chicken rice)

Salt

Sesame oil

Cucumber and coriander for garnish

1. Rub chicken with salt and leave for 5 minutes. Rinse.

2. Place chicken in a pot of boiling water, ensure chicken is submerged in water. Partly cover.  Bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium so that water is at a rolling boil. Gently boil for 15 minutes.  Turn off heat completely, cover pot, and allow chicken to remain in hot water for 20 minutes .

3. Remove chicken and immerse in icy cold water for 5 minutes.

4. Drain chicken, and rub into with sesame oil.

5. Reserve all poaching liquid for chicken rice, and soup.

Step 2 - for chicken rice:

3 cups rice

1 T ginger, finely minced (1 thumbsize ginger, reserve 1/3 for chilli sauce)

2 T garlic, finely minced (peel whole head of garlic, and reserve 2 cloves for chilli sauce, mince remaining)

3 coriander roots (reserve top for garnish)

Pinch of salt

1 T butter (yummy but optional :p)

1. Heat wok, fry chicken fat with some oil until chicken fat is slightly browned and fragrant. Add garlic, ginger, butter and fry until golden.

2. Add rice, salt and stir fry for another 2 minutes.

3. Transfer all ingredients into a rice cooker. Add coriander root, pandan leave, and 3 cups of poaching liquid. Press cook.

Step 3 – for chilli sauce:

3 red long chilli

2 clove garlic

1 t ginger

1 pinch salt

1 pinch sugar

1 squeeze from ½ Lemon

1. Blend chilli, garlic, ginger, sugar, salt, lemon juice, into a smooth paste.  Add a little poaching liquid if it’s looking abit dry. Taste and adjust with sugar, salt, and lemon.

Step 4- for special soy sauce:

1.5 T oil

1.5 t sesame oil

4 T light soy sauce

1 T dark soy sauce

1.5T caster sugar

3 T water

1. Heat all ingredients in a small saucepan, until sugar dissolves.

Before serving, cut up whole chicken. Serve with warm chicken rice. Comfort food at its best! Bon appetite!   

Stuffed pumpkin flowers

Have you ever watch any cooking show (Jamie O?  Gordan R?) that teaches you to stuff stuffs in the delicate, paper-thin zucchini/pumpkin flowers and then deep fry them?  Ever wonder why so fancy?  And maybe sounding a bit pretentious?  I thought so too....

But not if you have lots of pumpkin flowers growing like weeds in my vege patch!!!

Growing zucchini/pumpkin was my goal at the community plot this year. These members of the cucurbita family LOVE sun, which was why it was something I can never achieve in my shady courtyard garden.

I harvested some gorgeous yellow pumpkin flowers today- they are the large yellow male flowers- without the baby pumpkins attached. And made stuffed pumpkin flowers for dinner. There were plenty of leftover prawn paste, so I made fried wontons as well!

Boss man and toddler gobbled everything up in 2 seconds. Thank goodness I managed a quick snap before serving.  They are not just fancy but actually tastes great!

Stuffed pumpkin flowers recipe (original version by Luke Nguyen here)

4 pumpkin flowers, stems intact with stamen removed

150g tiger prawns (shelled and deveined)

2 egg whites

1 cup potato starch (or cornflour)

1 T fish sauce

1 garlic clove, finely diced

Sprinkle of dried dill

Vegetable oil for deep frying

Pinch of salt & pepper

1. Pound prawns in mortar and pestle into fine paste. Mix in sprinkle of dried dill, fish sauce, garlic, salt and pepper.

2. Take a teaspoon of paste and stuffed gently into pumpkin flower petals.

3. Coat each flower with egg white, followed by potato starch.

4. Deep fry flowers until golden and crisp. Place on absorbent paper towel.

Yummy dipped in sauce (fish sauce + sugar + chilli + garlic + lemon)!

Cauliflower Soup

This recipe by Neil Perry is truly delicious and is a success (Thanks to recipe tip off from mom's group friend!). I'll definitely be making this again and again. It is perfect for cold and rainy days. The recipe below is slightly tweaked for my future reference.

Cream of Cauliflower Soup with Parmesan (For the original recipe, click click!)

1 whole cauliflower, roughly chopped

1 large brown onion, peeled and diced

2 fresh garlic cloves, finely diced

900ml vegetable stock

50g light cream

1 T unsalted butter

2 tsp Dijon mustard

Parmesan cheese, finely grated

sea salt

pepper

1. Heat butter. Add garlic, onion, salt and pepper, saute for 10 minutes.

2. Add cauliflower and sweat over low heat for 10 minutes, until florets are soft and golden (the browning of cauliflower is essential for flavour of soup).

3. Add stock and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered for 15 minutes or until cauliflower is very soft.

4. Process soup until very smooth.

5. Over low heat, stir in cream. Add mustard and cheese in batches tasting as you go. Add more stock if necessary to give the desired consistency. 

6. Serve with warm bread. Enjoy!

ps: Dinner roll in the picture above was a homemade addition from the Boss man. I'll get him to write it up one day =)

Oyakodon

Boss man told me he was craving for Oyakodon, so I quickly googled 'Oyakodon recipe' and tried the first one on the search result!

...and it worked! What would we do without technology these days?

It was yummy and I was surprised how easy it is to make at home (all the ingredients are common pantry and fridge staples!), oh why did I only start doing it now?

Ingredients:
3 chicken thigh fillets, diced
1 onion, sliced finely
1 2/3 C dashi stock
7 T soy sauce
4 T mirin
3 T sugar
4 eggs
steam rice
spring onions
sengiri shoga (pickled ginger)

1. Combine dashi stock, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in sauce pan over medium heat bring to boil.
2. Add chicken and simmer on low heat until partially cooked. Add onion slices and simmer until chicken is just cooked.
3. Lightly beat eggs in a bowl, bring soup to boil, and pour eggs over chicken and onion. Turn heat down to very low, and cover with lid for about one minute, turn off heat.
6. Serve on hot cooked rice in individual serving bowls. Garnish with spring onions and sengiri shoga.

BBQ Honey chicken wings

OK - these are heavenly! This is probably THE dish to bossman's heart (via the tummy). He hehe! It tastes better than KFC, in fact it's so easy to make that it's easier than going out to buy KFC. The cooking time is 20 minutes, the prep time is 5 minutes. can it be easier than that?

Ingredients
2kg chicken wings/wingettes/drumettes
4 T oyster sauce
4 T fish sauce
dash of black pepper
4 cloves garlic, chopped finely
thumb size ginger, chopped finely
4 T honey
2 T olive oil

1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Cover and let marinade overnight.
2  Bake in 200°C preheated oven for 20 minutes until golden brown, turning once.

Part 2: Nasi Lemak - BBQ Turmeric Chicken Wings

Sometimes, the simplest ingredients make the best dishes. Turmeric chicken wings is my favorite go-to recipe for no fuss accompaniment to Nasi Lemak. Absolutely perfect to put on a summer barbeque.

Easy BBQ Turmeric Chicken Wings

Ingredients
1 kg chicken wingettes
1 T turmeric powder
1 t coriander powder
1 T salt
Juice of one lemon
(Serves 6)

1. Marinate chicken wings with all ingredients in a large container overnight.
2. Cook chicken wings on a BBQ until golden brown and cooked through.
3. Serve with coconut rice.

Part 1: Nasi Lemak - Sambal Udang

A Nasi Lemak Feast

We had 40 guests over last weekend for baby ε's 1st birthday, 40!!! I almost went nuts with the overwhelming task of shopping + preparing food for so many people on my own. Luckily everything went smoothly. There were quite a few components to my Nasi Lemak feast, most of them could be prepared several days in advance.

Part 1:  Sambal Udang (Prawns n Sambal Sauce) *
Part 2: BBQ Turmeric Chicken Wings
Part 3: Coconut Rice +  Condiments (Toasted Anchovies and Nuts/ Cucumber slices / Hard boil eggs)
Part 4: Curry Chicken
Part 5: BBQ Satay chicken

Watch out for Part 2 -5 in the next few weeks.

* Part 1: Sambal Udang (Prawns in Sweet Sambal Sauce)

Master Sweet Sambal Sauce

Ingredients:
(A) 1 large brown onions, chopped
(A) 2 shallot, chopped
(A) 6 cloves of garlic
(A) 4 long red chillies
(A) 1 T toasted shrimp paste (belachan)
(A) 4 small dried red chillies (seeds removed)
4 T tomato sauce
1 T tamarind puree dissolved in 1/4 cup water
6 T caster sugar
1 T salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil

(The above ingredients yields approx 1 cup, I was catering for 40 people so I quadrupled the above ingredients).

1. Blend ingredients (A) using a stick blender into a rough paste (The traditional method would be to pound it using a large mortar and pestle).
2. Heat oil to medium heat, add rough paste, and reduce to low heat. Cook the paste for 15 minutes stirring regularly until the mixture is fragrant.
3.Add tomato sauce, tamarind liquid, sugar and salt, and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring regularly until red chilli oil appears.

Tips:
(1) When frying sambal, watch it like a hawk and stir regularly. I learnt this the hard way in the past by accidentally burning batches of sambal, one too many times.
(2) I toned down the level of chilli in the recipe. If you prefer your sambal spicy, I suggest replacing the dried chillies with 6 heap tablespoons of chilli powder.
(3) You can cook this days in advance and store it in a sterilised jar in the fridge.

Super Easy Sambal Udang (Prawns in Sweet Sambal Sauce)

Ingredients:
1 brown onion
500 g prawns peeled with tail left intact, diveined
1 cup of Master Sambal Sauce
2 Kaffir lime leaves, rolled and sliced finely
2 t vegetable oil

(Serve approx 8-10. To serve 40, I quadrupled the above ingredients).

1. Heat oil, and fry prawns and onions until prawns start to cook (turn opaque).
2. Add sweet sambal sauce and toss with kaffir lime leaves, let simmer until cooked.
3. Garnish with sliced kaffir lime leaves, and serve with rice/coconut rice

Enjoy the beautiful (to me at least, pungent to some :p remember to close your kitchen doors and air your house thoroughly) south east Asian flavors wafting through your kitchen! ;) 

Christmas Roast Turkey with Ricotta Stuffing

I have always wanted to roast a turkey for christmas. This year, I did it! This recipe from Neil Perry was so delicious with the ricotta and butter rub- only thing was his recipe was for a very very big bird (7.6kg!), so I tweaked the oven cooking time/method to suit the 4kg turkey I ordered.

Ingredients:
4kg whole turkey
extra virgin olive oil
1 small brown onion, finely chopped
8 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup baby spinach
200g fresh ricotta, drained
1 T chopped thyme
1 T chopped flat leaf parsley
90g raisins, soaked in hot water for 5 minutes and drained
75g unsalted butter, finely diced (room temperature)
1 egg
sea salt and white pepper

Serves 6 adults with plenty of leftovers

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Rinse the turkey and pat dry with absorbent paper.
2. To make the stuffing, heat a little olive oil in a frying pan. Add onion and garlic and cook over low heat for 5 minutes or until the onion is soft. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
3. Microwave the spinach in hot water for 2 minute, drain and rinse under cold water. Squeeze the excess water from spinach. Chop coarsely.
4. Combine the onion mixture with the spinach, ricotta, herbs, raisins, and butter in a medium bowl. Add the eggs, season with salt and pepper and mix well.
5. Spread the stuffing between the skin and breast/legs, until it is firmly packed in. Rub the skin with plenty of olive oil and season the turkey inside and out with sea salt and white pepper.
6. Place the turkey on a greased wire rack in a large baking tray, and roast breast side down, on top, cover with greased aluminium foil and roast for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
7. Turn turkey, breast side up, and roast uncovered for a further 20 minutes or until cooked (When tested with a meat thermometer, the internal temperature of the breast should be 74°C and the legs 80°C).

Tips:
1. If the turkey was frozen, start defrosting in fridge at least 2 days before cooking.
2. For gravy, heat up the juices from turkey in a pan with 20g butter, 3 T plain flour, 2 cups of water. Stir and let reduce to gravy consistency. 
3. When seasoning the skin and inside of turkey, rub with ALOT of salt (I used at least 1 Tablespoon).
4. Meat thermometer is essential to make sure the turkey's cooked perfect.