Herb Roast Chicken!

I’ve been contemplating this. for a while.

I want to try to roast a whole chicken. but i have like a mini fear of bones. which is also why i don’t eat chicken with bones – i can’t see myself chewing on the bone to get the meat – it just ewws me.

But… i saw The Pioneer Women’s Herb Roasted Whole Chicken and i really wanted to try to try it out for myself.

and so. i bought a Lilydale Free Range whole chicken one day. Chucked it in the freezer and decided it was time.

Ta-da! My first ever roasted chicken.

I washed and massaged the chicken.. haha. not really, but i was quite rough with it, so i supposed that’s a massage.

I pretty much followed her recipe.

Made my herb mix with sage, rosemary and thyme. Together with salt, pepper and a mixture of butter and olive oil.

After washing the chicken, give is a good wipe down to dry the chicken. I dried it and left it on the counter to dry a little – this is important to ensure you get nice skin.

That’s my chicken after countless washing – in and outside the cavity. I also sniped off the butt – or i think it is the butt. It doesn’t look like a part that i’ve ever seen and it was quite disgusting looking actually – so 2 snips of the scissors and into the bin.

Just before going into a very hot oven. I followed her instructions of 230 degrees. but when i checked the oven.. it was not burning but it was smoking like crazy. and we have a sensitive smoke alarm, so i let the smoke escape slowly and reduced to temperature to 200 degrees instead.

Oh – and see the butt. I stuffed 3 cloves of garlic, half an onion and half a lemon.

 
Hehe.. see the butt.. the lemon is going to pop out soon!

I don’t touch bones remember – so our roasted chicken is always expertly shredded by Fish. He shreds the chicken flesh and i keep the carcass to make chicken stock for another day.

The onions are what we' stuffed in the cavity.

So.. what did we do to the leftovers?

I made a simple chicken mayo and mashed up the garlic which was stuffed into the cavity into the chicken mayo.

Toasted some plain butter croissants, sniped them into half and stuffed the mayo in.

Lunch for Monday!

The chicken was not the most moist – but it had a good subtle infusion of herbs and the flavour can definitely be tasted in the meat of the chicken. 

So, final verdict:

It’s great to eat. It’s simple to cook. Not that difficult to clean the chicken.

So So So… i think i might make this again – but i will keep looking for new recipes to try!

Chicken!

A simple but delicious dinner. and my first concession.

Ha.

Dinner.

a few nights ago.

I took inspiration and recipe from The Pioneer Woman, whom website is great!

It was a simple dish of chicken breasts and pasta with mushroom sauce.

You can get the recipe off her website – she has loads of pictures to go with it.

I’m hungry now looking at the picture. are you?

 
Fried Chicken and pasta with a good serving of mushroom cream sauce. Yum Yum.

Oh.

What’s the concession?

I actually bought light cream this time.

LIGHT CREAM!

yes. i did say i would never buy anything light. but i have. it has like… 48% less fat i think.

Here’s the bottom line:

The light version is definitely not as creamy and thick as the full fat. but it still tastes great. and if i never said, no one would know. i think.

i might continue to use light. but not for everything.

….like whipped cream. i like my whipped cream buttery and flavourful. so no concessions on that yet.

oh. and butter. never margarine.

and fatty meat. never lean. hehe.

well… well….

i’ve gotta go. next post will be on Mizuya. a relatively new restaurant in the city. expensive.. expensive new restaurant.

Cya!

oh. i made brownies on saturday night. yum yum yum yum yum..

Tonight’s Dinner – Italian + Portuguese

For tonight’s dinner, hui wasn’t around, so just me and fish.

and we decided to cook the stuffs that we bought from EQ Farmer’s Market.

 
First Up: Fresh Organic Spaghetti w/ Organic Truffle Cream

AMAZING. I LOVE LOVE LOVE dough. i love the taste of noodles and pasta. and this was amazing. it is thicker and more chewy then dry pasta. It definitely also makes me fuller – i don’t really know why and i don’t really know how to explain it as well.. but it does. and i love the flavour of the noodles.

The cream was rich and delicious. and although it looked like that small little bottle wasn’t enough – it really really is.

and to remind us all: this dish is just $10.

So…. departing Italy…. and onward to Portuguese cuisine.

What we have here… is a piece of chicken breast that we bought from EQ which has already been marinated and lightly crumbed. While cooking, i also brushed on a layer of the Portuguese chilli oil that we bought as well. For me, that was enough, since ours was extra hot – it was enough for me. The chicken was tender and delicious! We also fried up a little bacon, a fried egg and fish’s caramelized onions.

Full Full Full.

Extremely.

Happy.

Did you have a dinner from different cuisines too?

Chicken Teriyaki – Totally Homemade.

A few days ago (as it always is), i decided to make Chicken Teriyaki from scratch.

I realised how easy easy it was. And how much healthier it is and will be.

I cooked it in a Korean Pot. It doesn’t look like your typical teriyaki chicken nor will it have the same texture. The ingredients in a bottle of teriyaki sauce outnumbers the ingredients i used for mine and doesn’t have additives, preservatives etc.

However, i must say that i didn’t do it exactly correctly. You’re suppose to grill while continually basting it in the sauce. I just grilled and chicken and cooked it in the sauce. I will try the other method though and report back. =)

Homemade Teriyaki Sauce (Taken from “The Japanese Kitchen)

1/2 cup Mirin
1/4 cup Sake
1/4 cup Shoyu (soy sauce)
2 tbsp Sugar

Just cook all together. I added ginger and garlic to this mixture as well. You can also add more sake or more sugar depending on what you like.

Chicken

Your choice as to how long you want to marinate the chicken. I marinated the chicken pieces for around 24hrs in the teriyaki sauce above.

I then grilled the chicken – i realised that i should have basted the chicken as well – it slipped my mind.

 
We ate dinner with just some green veggies and Japanese rice. And, the mushrooms that i blogged previously, just simply fried with garlic, soy sauce and sake.

 
I wouldn’t recommend making the chicken the way i made it – i think because of the long long cooking time, the chicken became quite tough.

I will try the correct method and let you guys know if it turned out better. =)

Rice-Cooker Claypot Rice, Scones & Chendol

Tonight’s dinner was Claypot Rice!

It was using a recipe that came with my rice cooker’s manual. The rice cooker that i have here in Sydney is the exact same one as the one back in Singapore.

A few days ago, my dad told me about him cooking claypot rice and tasted good. So, today after thinking for eternity, claypot rice came to my mind.

It was EASY, FAST & SIMPLE.

Basically, it makes use of the casserole setting on the rice cooker.

Directions

Wash 3 cups of rice and start cooking it.

Sliced 300gm chicken breasts/thighs – we marinated it in soya sauce, oyster sauce, cooking sake, a little sugar, sesame oil and white pepper.

Sliced 120gm of lup cheong (dried sausages) – don’t slice tooo thinly because they shrink. Also this way too little, next time i will use 200gm instead

Sliced ginger – also don’t slice thinly esp if you don’t like biting into ginger because they shrink

2 cloves of crushed garlic

• When the rice cooks and beeps, it is the sign to add the ingredients in. I added the ginger and garlic and lup cheong to form the first layer. After that, i added the marinated chicken all over on top. Also, fish said to add more oil, so i added ard 2 tbsp of olive oil. Then continue the cooking process.

We had no vegetables to add to the claypot rice so i just steamed a bowl of corn kernels while cooking the main dish. 

 
This was my bowl after adding dark soya sauce and a little more olive oil. On the top left hand corner, fish made a dipping sauce for the chicken. He’s just really good at making sauces.

It was good, nice and really quite delicious. We finished it all up and had brownies with ice cream for desert.

 
I made scones or otherwise called biscuits. They were really nice and tasted good though i really have to make these again. I’ll try it again with buttermilk and use lesser baking powder.

Guess what’s this?! A huge lump of coconut sugar. We had a huge huge pack of coconut milk and decided that we shall make chendol. I melted the coconut sugar with a little water and while melting, i cooked red beans in water and some of the coconut sugar. After that, i also marinated the red beans in coconut sugar.

This was our dinner – i think last friday. It was just a simple simple dinner of baked beans, fried spam, leftover soup and onion egg. The three of us LOVE fried onion eggs.

After cooking onion eggs a few times, i’ve realised that the best onions to use and still the big brown onions. I tried it with big red onions which work as well but the onions when cooked tend to turn grayish – so i still prefer using the brown onions. Also, it requires an amount of oil.

Firstly, i fry the onions in oil with a little salt and let it sweat and softened and brown a little. In the eggs, add a good amount of soya sauce. Then just pour the beaten eggs over the onions and wait till it fries and browns – the difficult part comes in the turning of the eggs!

Anyway, i really had fun making all these dishes and sometimes it really is very difficult in thinking of dishes to cook for dinner. Hope you guys are having a way easier time!

Hungry for…..Chicken Parmigiana!

Tonight’s dinner was relatively quick but much washing up and trouble.

                            Not the prettiest picture – i know..haha

Ok..Here the recipe goes..Really simple.

Ingredients (Serves 3)

600gm Chicken Breast
1 jar of Bertoli Grilled Summer Vegetables Pasta Sauce
Mozzarella (As much or as little as you like – Fresh, packaged..whatever)
1 egg
Panko Breadcrumbs

Directions

The chicken breasts i bough were from Lilydale – Free Range Chickens. There were 2 breasts but they were relatively large and fat so i sliced each into half and got Fish to pound them to thin the breasts out.

In a baking dish, pour the jar of sauce into it and even it out.

In 2 shallow dishes, crack an egg in one and the breadcrumbs in the other. First, i seasoned the chicken with just salt and pepper. Heating an amount of oil in the frying pan, then taking a piece of chicken, dipping it in the egg then the panko breadcrumbs then into the hot pan. Do this with each slice of chicken. When they’re cooked, place them into the baking dish on top of the sauce – overlapping if necessary.

Easiest part – Sprinkle as much mozzarella as you like over the top and send it into the oven on around 220 degrees for around 10 minutes – till the top cheese is bubbly and brown and the sauce bubbles a little.

Enjoy!

To go with this, and since i had a few potatoes lying around – i had brushed potatoes which means it came with soil on it – so i washed it all yesterday and peeled off the skins.

I decided to make wedges.

These are really simple too. I just sliced the potatoes into wedges, rubbed chilli powder, BBQ seasoning, salt and pepper and olive oil onto them, then into the oven they go around 220 degrees for around 20 minutes or so. I think i added too much chilli powder..haha..

Have Fun Cooking and Eating!

Dinner dinner and more dinner…

Well..we’re very much into cooking our dinners these days and here’s what we had for the past 2 days!

Days Days Ago

We cooked chicken bake rice. Using a can of Campbell’s Chicken Soup. Smoked Chicken. Corn Kernels. Bits of Carrots. Herbs. Seasoning. Breadcrumbs.

Yesterday

We had a relatively not so healthy meal. We had baked beans fried with spam and corn kernels.

I also cooked a simple soup with just corn and carrots. It was naturally sweet and relatively nice and light.

And..homemade roasted potato chips!

Just these with plain rice cooked in our new rice cooker!

Today

Today was a little more elaborate. Fish marinated chicken thighs and we roasted them in the oven.

We had loads of potatoes left over from yesterday..so we roasted them today.

Since we also had carrots left over from yesterday, Fish roasted them with small tomatoes and marinated them with Italian vinaigrette.

The chicken was relatively moist and had a real good flavour. We reckon that tonight’s dinner only costs us around $10. Also, we weren’t tooooo full.

I made barley water too!

Have a great dinner!

Lunch!

On a lighter note..

I am supposed to be making lunch today. I'm making Chicken rice! Using my rice cooker. Fish is in charge of buying the roasted chicken and peeling it.

I'm cooking the rice and little bits of stuffs. I'll leave the chilli making to him too! =)

Post the pictures and the recipe i will be using later! =)