Pan Fried Chicken Drumsticks with Garlic and Parsley

Now that my husband has decided to restart his slow-carb diet, I need to rethink how I cook and what I cook. What it essentially means is no carbs, no dairy (except butter), and no sugar (but we've come to a compromise/cheat method that I can use a bit of sugar or honey in my cooking where absolutely necessary). This yummy pan fried chicken dish adapted from yumsugar.com, paired it with some vegetables to make a complete meal is one that fits his diet to a tee - no cheating, too!

Serves: 2
Cooking time: 30-40 mins

ingredients
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tbsp butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
6 chicken drumsticks
2 garlic cloves, crushed
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp lemon juice

for the green peas mash

200g frozen green peas
1/2 tbsp butter
1 tsp fresh thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp lemon juice

for the cabbage with sesame seeds

3 tbsp white sesame seeds, toasted / dry roasted
1/4 of a cabbage, shredded
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp of fish sauce

method

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Heat a frying pan over a medium flame. Add the oil, butter and crushed garlic. When the butter is foaming, drop in the drumsticks, and fry until lightly browned all over.

Cover the frying pan and leave the drumsticks to fry gently for around 20 minutes, turning regularly. Add the garlic, parsley and lemon juice and stir to coat the drumsticks evenly. Remove the chicken pieces from the pan and leave the flavours to infuse for a few minutes before serving.

Whilst the chicken is cooking, boil a pot of water. Add peas to boiling water and cook for 5 minutes.

Remove peas from pot and add in the shredded cabbage. Whist the cabbage is cooking, add the butter, 

thyme, salt and lemon juice to the peas, mixed with a 1 tbsp of hot water. Mash the mixture.

Let the cabbage cook for around 7 minutes and drain the water. Add sesame oil, fish sauce, sesame seeds and toss.

Create a bed of mashed peas and cabbage and serve the drumsticks on top of the vegetables.

Finger licking good!

notes/tips: 
Use a pair of thongs to help you in the cooking of the chicken to avoid the splatter of oil. Thongs are something you definitely should have in the kitchen!
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Blot away excess moisture/water from the chicken before seasoning it. This minimises the splatter when the chicken first hits the pan.
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You can easily replace the herbs in this recipe if parsely or thyme are not available or not to your taste.

How to get rid of garlic smell on your fingers

A quick and simple way to get rid of the garlic smell on your fingers is to rub them against your stainless steel knife. Works like a charm. Every time!

Chicken with Cashew Nuts

A very typical Chinese stir-fry dish that is both hearty and nutritious. Not to mention - yummy!

Recipe is adapted from Step-By-Step Asian (Love Food)

Serves: 4-6 (as part of a meal)
Cooking Time: 10 minutes

ingredients
450g boneless, skinless chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp Shaoxing rice wine
1/2 tsp salt
3 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes
2 tbsp cooking oil
4 slices fresh ginger, finely sliced
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into 2.5cm squares
2/3 cup cashew nuts, toasted in oven until browned  (or dry roasting in pan) 

method
Marinate the chicken in 1 tbsp of the light soy sauce, Shaoxing, sugar and salt for at least 20 minutes.

Squeeze any excess water from the mushrooms and finely slice, discarding any tough stems. Reserve the soaking water.

Heat a wok and add 1 tbsp of the oil. Add the ginger and stir-fry until fragrant. Stir in the chicken and cook for 2 minutes, until it turns brown. Before the chicken is cooked through, remove and set aside.

Clean the wok, heat the remaining oil and stir-fry the garlic until fragrant. Add the mushrooms and red bell pepper and stir-fry for another minute.

Add about 2 tbsp of the mushroom soaking water and cook for about 2 minutes, until the water has evaporated.

Return the chicken to the wok, add the remaining light soy sauce and the cashew nuts, and stir-fry for 2 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

notes/tips: 

If you don't have a wok (like me), you can use a large saucepan or deep frying pan to stir-fry in instead. 

Stir-fry Okra in Homemade Shrimp Paste (paired with spaghetti)

I wanted a home-cooked lunch for myself last week but only had okra (or lady's fingers) in my fridge. Recalling how my mum used to stir-fry them with dried shrimps and chilli, I decided to make a savoury and thick paste to stir-fry the okra and lay it on top spaghetti to make a simple meal.

Serves: 1 

Cooking time: 15-20 minutes for spaghetti; 10 mins for okra 

ingredients 

Handful of spaghetti
1 medium onion, quartered
3 garlic cloves
2 bird's eye chilli (commonly called Thai Chillies or Chilli Padi)
2 tbsp small dried shrimps
1 tbsp of cooking oil
1 tbsp of light soya sauce
10 medium-sized okra, cut into 3cm pieces

method

Bring a pot of water and some salt to boil. Throw in the spaghetti and cook as per instructions on packaging.

Whilst the spaghetti is cooking, put the onion, garlic, chilli and shrimps in a blender and blend at low speed for about 10 seconds (or until everything is finely chopped). Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok and fry the blended paste for about 3-5 minus, until slightly browned. Season with soya sauce. 

Stir in okra and stir-fry for another 5 minutes (or longer, if you prefer slightly mushy okra). Add a tablespoon of water if the mixture starts to stick to the pan. 

Serve on top of spaghetti or plain white rice or lentils if you are on the slow carb diet. 

Chicken Stir-Fry with Curry Leaves

I'm a fan of one-pot meal as it's easy to handle for noob cooks and it's sufficient for just the two of us at home. However, as my confidence in cooking developed, I grew ambitious and decided to tackle 3 dishes for dinner one day. Chicken stir-fry, french beans in a tomato curry and soup (ginger and curry leaf rasam - a popular South Indian soup). For the last 2 dishes, I closely followed recipes whilst the chicken stir-fry was really a "let's-mix-a-few-things-together-and-see-what-happens" dish. Hence, I was expecting the chicken to be just "so-so", but as it turned out, PJ enjoyed it the most out of the 3 dishes. Because there was no recipe, I'd tried to recall as much as what I did to reproduce the steps below.

Servings: 2-3
Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients

• 400g boneless, skinless chicken breast, pounded and cut into small chunks 
• 1/2 tsp salt 
• 5-6 black peppercorns, crushed 
• Dash of ground white pepper 
• 1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder 
• 1/2 tsp cornflour (optional)
• 2 tbsp cooking oil 
• 3 stalks of curry leaves (around 25-30 leaves) 
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped 
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground coriander 
• 1 tsp paprika 
• 1 tbsp dark soy sauce 
• Dash of light soy sauce 

Method 

1. Marinade chicken chunks with salt, black peppercorns, ground white pepper, Chinese five spice powder and cornflour. Leave in fridge for about 2-3 hours or overnight.  
2. Heat oil in frying pan or wok over medium heat. Fry the curry leaves until very fragrant. Remove and set aside around 15-20 leaves. 
3. To the remaining leaves in the pan, add onions and fry for about 1-2 minutes. Add garlic and fry for another minute. Add ground coriander and paprika powder. Stir through and cook for another 1-2 minutes. 
4. Add chicken and mix till chicken is well coated. Add dark soy sauce and season further with light soy sauce, according to your preference. Stir-fry until chicken is cooked. 
5. Serve garnished with the remaining curry leaves. 

Notes/Tips

• Equal size chunks: Through watching Master Chef Australia, I've come to realise the importance of cutting your meat to equal size chunks (as far as possible). This will help to ensure all the pieces are cooked around the same time. 
• Warm chicken to room temperature on countertop: I usually let my chicken sit on the counter for around an hour before cooking (never more than 2 hours as this will encourage bacteria growth). This helps the meat to cook more evenly and quickly. More really helpful tips on cooking moist, juicy and tender chicken can be found here. 
• Cornflour is optional, especially if you are on the slow carb diet. I only add it to make the meat smoother - something which my mother taught me. 

About that chilli burn on your hands...

A while ago, I de-seeded small green chillies for the first time in my life (I never had to do it before because my mum took charge of all things in the kitchen).

De-seeding the chillies was simple. What completely caught me by surprise was the burn that haunted me for HOURS afterward.

The chilli burn I had on both hands was excruciatingly painful and for the next 1-2 hours, I tried various methods:

• Soap 
• Oil 
• Ice
• Yogurt 
• Butter 
• Water

Nothing worked at all.

It was only when my husband came home and asked me to try putting my hands in cooked rice. His logic was that the rice will soak up the chilli oil from my hands. And it did work! I had my hands coated with cooked rice and slowly but surely, the pain eased and the burn started to go away.

Ever since then, I've taken extreme care when handling small chillies. I would either wear gloves, or handle the chillies by their top end with one hand, whilst the other hand chops the chillies. I would wash my hands, the knife and cutting board with soap and water immediately after handling chillies.

No more chilli burn!  

Chicken Porridge

Porridge is a staple in my mum's kitchen. We would either have it plain, paired with various stir-fried dishes or just some salty dishes such as salted fish, omelette with preserved radish; or my mum will throw in bits of meat or fish and mushroom to make a complete one-pot meal. The one-pot wonder is also something she cooks when we are sick or nursing a weak stomach (or when we had our wisdom tooth taken out) so you can imagine how porridge screams "comfort food!" for me. As such, when my husband fell sick in Mumbai, I decided to make a one-pot wonder to provide some comfort.

Serves: 2 hungry people 

Cooking time: 1 hr 50 mins

Ingredients

• 10 cups of water
• 250g chicken bones
• 1 medium white onion, halved 
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed 
• 2-3 inch piece of carrot, quartered 
• 2 one-inch fresh ginger, peeled and crushed 
• 10 black (can mix with white) peppercorns, crushed 
• 3 fresh sage/bay/basil leaves (up to your taste) 
• 3/4 cup white rice, pounded 
• 4 chicken drumsticks
• 8-10 white button mushrooms, quartered 
• 2 tbsp fish sauce 
• Grounded white pepper to taste
• Sliced ginger to garnish
• Chopped spring onion to garnish   

Method 

1. Bring water to boil in a large pot. Add chicken bones, onion, garlic, carrot, ginger, peppercorns and leaves. Simmer gently (without breaking into a boil), uncovered, for around 1 hour. According to Keys to Good Cooking, bubbling clouds the stock with tiny particles of protein and fat; gently moving water allows the particles to cluster and either rise to the surface or fall to the bottom. The open pot cools the stock surface, dries the protein scum and begins the concentration process. 
2. Keep chicken bones, ginger and carrots in stock. Remove and discard everything else. Skim off most of the fat. 
3. Add pounded rice to stock and simmer, partially covered, for 15-20 mins until rice is cooked. 
4. Add chicken drumsticks and simmer for 12-15 mins.  
5. Add mushrooms and simmer for another 10-15 mins. 
6. Remove chicken bones from pot. 
7. Stir in fish sauce and pepper. 
8. Serve garnished with the sliced ginger and spring onion. 

Notes/Tips

• Pounding is optional but it really helps to create a smoother porridge. 
• Always pound damp/wet rice: The first time I made this dish, I made the mistake of pounding dry rice. It was an uphill task and took up so much of my time. The second time, I pounded damp rice and it was SO EASY. 
• Stir occasionally throughout the simmering process to prevent scorching at the bottom of the pot. 
• Top up with hot water when mixture becomes too dry for your liking. 
• You can marinate the chicken bones and thighs with some cooking wine (I use hua diao jiu), salt and pepper prior to cooking. I like the marinade to sit for at least 2-3 hours. 
• Basmati rice is used for this recipe because this is the main type of rice in India. Thai jasmine rice (which is what my mother uses) will be beautiful too.