Recipe: Drunken Chicken

 This is our dinner yesterday. Its a simple to cook using alcohol aka Shaoxing Rice Wine. When we first came here, I've never heard of it before, and never really cooked with it before. But after adding it to some of our stews, its now an official staple in our kitchen, and I always keep an extra bottle. I cook alot with it these days, replacing any recipe that calls for cooking wine with it. Its quite cheap to use too!

This recipe is taking from Rasamalaysia. They have alot of Asian recipes, and I take alot of inspiration from it when I plan for my meals. Have fun with the recipes, and let me know how it goes!

Shanghai Drunken Chicken Recipe Ingredients:
3 lbs chicken, dark meat preferably
2 Tbsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
0.5 oz. ginger, thinly sliced
4 – 6 green onion, white parts only, sliced lengthwise
1 1/2 C Shaoxing rice wine
2 tsp white sugar
Ice cubes and water
Method:
Mix the salt with the two peppers. Rub the chicken all over with the salt and pepper and let it sit for an hour.
Poaching Method:
Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a Dutch oven or large pot, add the green onion bottoms and ginger. Add the chicken, make sure there is enough water to cover the chicken, and return to a boil. Lower the heat to a bare simmer and simmer for 10 minutes. If you’re using a whole chicken, when the water is simmering for 10 minutes, lift the chicken out of the water and make sure the stock in the cavity empties back into the pot. Do that 3 times for a whole chicken. For chicken pieces or leg quarters, gently stir the pot once or redistribute the leg quarters so they cook evenly. After 10 minutes, cover, turn off the heat, and allow the chicken to poach undisturbed until the water cools almost to room temperature.
Steaming Method:
Bring water to a boil in the steamer. Place the chicken in an even layer, scatter the green onion and ginger all over and steam over medium heat for 30 – 40 minutes or until the internal temperature near the bone reaches 165 – 170 degrees F. If the chicken pieces are larger, they will take longer to steam. If any of the pieces are touching make sure to redistribute them in the middle of cooking so they cook evenly.
Mix the ice cubes and water and shock the chicken in ice cold water for 2 minutes. If you poached the chicken, shock it after the chicken has cooled to room temperature. If you steamed the chicken, shock it immediately after steaming.
After cooking, cut the chicken into bite sized pieces, or score the chicken meat with a knife. Put the chicken pieces into a large container. Mix 3/4 cup to 1 cup of the chicken stock (the liquid you poached the chicken in or the liquid that comes out of the chicken after steaming) with the sugar and rice wine. Taste the marinade and add salt if needed. Pour it over the chicken pieces and let this sit in the fridge at least overnight before serving. Serve cold.

Recipe: Easy Peasy Dijon Mustard Chicken that even 5 year olds can do!

This must be the easiest marinade I've ever mixed up for chicken! I bought a bottle of Dijon Mustard after watching Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen.  There was one episode where he questioned the Chef's what were the 5 mother sauces. In my head, I was thinking, Oyster sauce? That's like one of the sauces I use every meal! And maybe soy sauce? What about Hoisin Sauce? I was horribly wrong. They were naming things like tomato sauce, mayonnaise, dijon mustard, and so on. I've heard of mustard, but I can't comprehend how is it a mother sauce, so the next day, when we went out grocery shopping, I bought one home to taste and try cooking with it.

I searched for recipes but I realise I kept lacking some ingredients, like herbs and spices and stuff. I like to cook simple and easy and fast. Minimal effort, maximum taste. Of course cooking can never be "little" effort. I like flavours in my dishes, without having tons of things to complicate the palate. I swapped out the ingredients of recipes I found on online, and I think this one is a keeper! The husband loves it. =)

Recipe: Easy Peasy Dijon Mustard Chicken

Ingredients:
3 chicken drumstick
1 egg white
3 tablespoons of Dijon Mustard
a drizzle of honey


1. Mix the Dijon mustard with the egg white until smooth. Marinate chicken with mustard egg mix. Make sure marinate goes under the chicken skin as well, if you're leaving the skin on. Leave 2 hours to overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 395F. Place chicken on a tray. Reserving the marinate. I like to line my trays with aluminum foil, so its easy to clear up. Set timer to 10 mins.

3. Drizzle honey over the remaining marinate, whisk until smooth and set aside. Once timer is up, take chicken out of oven, and flip it over, and brush with honeyed marinate, put back into over. Set timer for 10 mins. Repeat this for 4 times, or until chicken is well cooked.

Your kitchen is gonna smell good, and you're gonna love biting into it. This will change your view of yucky mustards, if you hated the taste like I did before! As for now, I'm gonna keep finding new recipes for my new bottle of Dijon!

Recipe: Easy & Yummy Teriyaki Chicken

There's only a couple of Chinese restaurants in this little small town that we live in. And even so, the food never ever tastes like what we eat back home. As what they always say, home cooked food is always still the best. When we used to live in Aaron's parents place, they had a maid who would cook the meals everyday, and we were lucky enough to enjoy his mum's yummy recipes everyday.

I never knew how to cook, or how dishes were created. When I started working and preparing towards our wedding, my hours and location at work, forced me to pack my own food to work. It was costly to eat in town, and the food were prepared pretty unhygenically. There were rats and insects all over.

Being here now in USA, we really miss the convenience of the hawker foods. I have to cook our meals, as it takes a 20 minute drive out to get proper food. Every week day, I cook to pack food for my husband's lunch/dinner box, for him to bring to work. I know how hard he's been working, and how tired he is everyday, and I prepare every meal with love hoping it will make him feel better with the yummy food that he puts in his mouth.

Today's lunch box consists of Teriyaki Chicken and Bok Choy with Oyster Sauce.

The Teriyaki Chicken recipe is adapted from:
I have tried several recipes from here and they're all great and easy to cook.. Will update with pictures as I go along.

Recipe: Teriyaki Chicken

1 chicken thigh (you can choose to debone it, but I left the bones on.)
2 tablespoon mirin
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
drizzle of cooking oil

1. Marinate the chicken in mirin, soy sauce, and sugar for 30 mins.
2. Drain, reserve the marinate.
3. Cook the chicken in cooking oil skin side down. When browned, turn and cook the other side.
4. Add 3 tablespoon of water to the reserved marinate, and pour over chicken. Cover and simmer until cooked through. ( about 15 mins)
5. Remove cover, raise the heat until sauce is reduced to a glaze.

You may choose to slice it now, or if you're rough like me, serve it as the whole thigh, and bite into it like a carnivore. ;)

This recipe is only for 1 chicken thigh. I usually cook 1 thigh for each person, so just multiply all ingredients with the number of people eating. The guys pretty liked the chicken I cooked the last time, and I'm sure they'll enjoy it again today.

I apologise for the lousy food presentation, but I only remembered to take a photo of it after packing it into his pyrex containers. I'll try to improve on the presentation part. But its still yummy! ;)