Chicken Satay Mk2

Hello again! I've been remiss on my posting, but now I'm back.

We had a few leftovers the other night; a garlicky chicken stock from a roast chicken, some pieces of cold roast chicken, and the usual selection of seasonal veggies; so it was time for another chicken satay. Especially as my thoughts have turned to the island of Bali, where LW and I and a couple of good friends from Melbourne are heading in August...

I cooked the rice in the garlic and chicken stock for a rice that was quite delicious, and a wee bit "Heinanese"

I made a salad by finely dicing the tomatoes and cucumber, and then adding some coarsely ground roast cashews. I added parsley (because the coriander has all gone to seed) and Vietnamese basil, & then dressed it with a combination of rice wine vinegar, fish sauce and olive oil.

The chicken was too friable to stay on skewers, so I shredded it and fried it until frispy in hot oil, and then added a satay sauce made from peanut butter and all the usual condiments. In the frying pan it instantly curdled and clung to the fried chicken like a shy toddler to it's mother's leg.

I then served it all up, and within a matter of minutes, it was gone, and all we had left was a delicious aftertaste.

Chicken Satay

Mmm... I haven't made a satay sauce in ages, so, having suggested it for a friend's get-together, I thought we'd have some ourselves.

The sauce has more varieties than Heinz, and mine is different every time. Here's what I did this time:

Sweat finely-chopped onion, ginger and garlic in a saucepan with a little oil, and then, when softened, I added a glug or two of Chinese cooking wine, some soy sauce (light and dark), some oyster sauce, chilli sauce (homemade) and some palm sugar. I seasoned with some ground cumin, coriander and cardamon, and salt and lemon juice. Then, after simmering for a minute or two to get the alcohol out of the wine, I added about 2 tbs of smooth peanut butter and stirred the thick mixture. I then added hot water, a little at a time until the sauce was the ideal consistency. I seasoned more to taste, and that's it! Probably a million miles from an authentic Indonesian recipe, but it tastes good to me!

Meanwhile I cut some chicken breast into thick strips and skewered it and then battered it thin under some cling-film. I placed it on the grill pan and seasoned it with salt, pepper, lemon juice and then sprayed some oil onto it. Of course, I was in too much of a hurry to remember to soak the skewers...

Meanwhile, I made some coconut rice. (1 cup long-grain rice, 1.5 cups watered down coconut cream, salt to taste) Simmer for 7 minutes, then lid on and heat off for 20 min (no peeking).

Meanwhile I laid the table.

Meanwhile, I cooked the chicken under a hot grill (only needs 3 min) and served like so: (note the finely-charred skewers).

Delicious! And filling. I made too much satay sauce, so I will freeze the rest.

salt and pepper chicken

This was one of my favourite takeaway meals when I lived in Glasgow, and I have no way of knowing if it's going to turn out anywhere like my memory of it, because I'm writing this as the deep fat fryer heats up. But I will finish this entry after we have eaten it, and then you'll know. It should be crunchy, frispy and light, and I like to serve it with some fried rice.

Here's what I've done so far:

Marinated some lean chicken pieces (LW prefers breast meat to thigh, so that's what we've gone with. Needless to say, it's free-range & organic) in soy sauce (light and dark), rice wine, oyster sauce, chinese 5-spice, salt, white pepper and an egg yolk. I left the chicken in the mixture for about 2 hours, and then drained it, and coated the pieces in flour. I've kept the marinade, because it might be useful to flavour the fried rice. We shall see...

Meanwhile I cooked some rice, and fried up and egg, softened some finely-chopped onion, and defrosted some frozen peas. I also finely chopped some coriander.

Next up is the frying of the chicken: in the deep fat fryer until perfectly cooked at about 180degC (about 6 minutes) It then goes in a dish I've warmed and covered with kitchen paper in the oven whilst I do the fried rice:

The cooked rice goes in 1st and cooks until the grains start to go translucent. Then I add the other ingredients except the coriander and fry them all up until it's all hot.

Then the coriander goes in at the last minute, the rice is put on a plate and the chicken on top. I added a wee sprinkle of crispy fried onion to complete.

So. How did it compare to my memory from Glasgow?

Well. It didn't taste the same, but it was delicious. I think the Glesga version had a batter around it, and some chilli within, but I shall keep trying. The rice was lovely, and not at all greasy.

One more thing: I really apologise for the poor quality of the photos. I must try to get to grips with the "hipstamatic" app for my camera/phone. Improvements will be in order.

heated-up leftovers

Some of my favourite meals are made from the leftovers from the previous day.

Isn't it enough that you know that? You wanted an example?

OK. Here's what we had last night:

Roast chicken, skirlie, cauliflower cheese. All quite delicious, and plenty left (except for the skirlie; that went very fast).

So, tonight, we ate the re-baked cauliflower cheese:

twice-baked cauliflower cheese

A pan of new potatoes, crushed in butter and parsley:

And pieces of roast chicken given a second life by coating them in panko breadcrumbs and frying them until crispy.

mmm, frispy

We thoroughly enjoyed it, until the cows came home. By which I mean the next door neighbour rushed round to say that one of our steers was in her garden. And we've only just had the fences fixed. An hour later we had returned the farm to peace and calm. And the food had gone cold. And LW had lost her appetite. But the dogs didn't mind a bit.

a bit of a dog's dinner (lucky dog)

chinese soup & sandwiches

'Twas the last Soup and sandwiches of the season. Usually we 4 stop the S&S tradition once daylight saving kicks in, but I had one more meal up my sleeve, and unleashed it last night.

Chicken and sweetcorn soup: one of the simplest of all soups, and anyone who enjoyed meals from Chinese restaurants in the UK (and probably elsewhere) from childhood will be familiar with this soup. Here's what I did:
Poach a chicken breast in a litre (or, if you are in the USA, a fifth of a gallon) of chicken stock until cooked through. Take out the chicken and add a tsp (or 1 seventeeth of a cup) of sesame oil, a couple of tsps (yes, yes) of light soy, grate a chunk of ginger and add it, and also a couple of sprigs of spring onion. Simmer and add a can of creamed sweetcorn. Mix up 2 tsps of cornflour and some of the stock to make a paste and add it back to the stock to thicken slightly, and beat 2 eggs and drizzle them into the stirred stock to make fine ribbons of egg. Shred (not chop) the chicken and put it back in the hot stock and serve. This will bring back memories even better than rosemary.

a bowl of soup (reuters library footage)

The main course (the "sandwich") was crispy chinese spiced duck as seen here about which no more needs to be said except that we had 2 ducks for 4 people, and really ate too much. 1.5 ducks would be enough. But that would be unfair to the ducks.

that's not our duck. But it looks similar. Stolen image. Thanks, internet.

Chicken on lemongrass skewers. Not Thai, but sort of.

This recipe, entitled: "chicken on lemongrass skewers" consists of chicken, on skewers, made of lemongrass. Or, put another way, lemongrass skewers with chicken pieces on them.

The chicken is cut into pieces, and the lemongrass stems are cut at an angle and the chicken then forced onto the sharpened stems. I can't be clearer about this. I don't know why I've gone on about it so much already. It's like I'm just digging an ever-deeper hole for myself. I'll stop now.

the chicken. On skewers. Ready to bake.

Then I made a marinade: soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, rice wine, some brilliant kaffir lime infused olive oil (from the Kerikeri farmers' market last week), and grated lemongrass, ginger and garlic. And a little honey. The chicken goes in there for about an hour, and then it's removed and put in an oven dish and baked at 160 deg for about 25min. Then the marinade is added back, and the whole thing stewed for another 10-15 min at about 200 deg to reduce.

Half-way there.

Meanwhile, rice is cooked in chicken stock (1 cup rice, 1.5 cups stock, small salt, in a sealed pan to boil, then 7 min simmer and 18 min rest-perfect fluffy rice (thank you Sara for that recipe- it never fails!) but don't take the lid off until you need it, then fluff it up with a fork.)

At last! I found a green mango for my salad: so shredded green mango, shredded carrot, shredded cucumber, chopped coriander, and crushed roasted peanuts, dressed with some more of the kaffir lime oil, sweet vinegar, and fish sauce.

salady salad

The chicken on the skewers is one of LW's favourites, but I think this may be the best rendition of it yet...

and it did taste good!

soup and sandwiches

It's winter, it's Sunday, it's a tradition...

It didn't take us long to develop some ritualistic eating habits when we arrived in NZ 5 years ago. One that has developed a life of it's own is the Sunday evening winter soup and sandwiches tradition. We are very fond of a couple of friends who live on the other side of Kerikeri. Every other Sunday we alternate venues for the meal, and the scope is huge enough for there to be little repetition of menus. The wine is always in good supply, the fire lit, and the food inevitably hearty, delicious and eventually soporific.

Last Sunday was no exception; our friends made stilton and broccoli soup, and the sandwiches were split baguette filled with rocket and freshly roast chicken. The chicken was a delight as our friends have no oven. They just banked up the wood-burner, and put the chicken into a disposable foil tray, covered it with tinfoil and away it went. Superb! Moist and everything!

We had some very good wines with which to toast the feast; our friends are just back from Waiheke Island, and had brought back some lovely wine from there; the Man O'War Claret-style wine was particularly amazing!

Next Sunday is our turn, and I've some freshly-made snapper fish stock sitting in the freezer; I'm thinking fragrant hot and spicy fish soup (Tom Yum-ish?) and some sort of spring roll... suggestions are always welcome!

Also of note, last Sunday, in the search for culinary heaven, was a demonstration of the legendary Tim-Tam shot! It goes like this:

Make a cup of tea. Take a Tim-Tam biscuit, (I suspect a Penguin in the UK would also work) preferably one of the double choc or the caramel-filled ones, and nibble 2 opposing corners of chocolate coating off. Place one corner in the tea and suck up the tea through the other corner. When tea starts to filter all the way through - double quick!- pop the whole biscuit (which will now be melting and disintegrating) into your mouth in one deft move. You now have a mouthful of molten chocolate, biscuitty goodness and tea. It's surprisingly good, and entertaining, too!

I'm going to try it with warmed Brandy. And then Whisky, and then...