Spicy Chicken Salad

Zoe is a new member of the Caring Place Community Kitchen. This is her second time attending this kitchen and she is so courages to share with us two recipes. We certainly need more of such members. Many times, new members are too shy to show off their cooking skills and they always say they come to learn. The recipes she shared with us are Spicy Chicken Salad and Chicken Rice.

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The first recipe, Spicy Chicken Salad is very simple to make and a healthy one too. You can adjust the spiciness according to your preference by using a milder hot pepper paste.

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Ingredients

  • boneless, skinless chicken breast
  • cucumber (Zoe used Japanese cucumber which is seedless)
  • hot pepper paste
  • garlic, minced
  • ginger (divided, sliced and minced)
  • corn syrup
  • sesame seeds

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Hong-Zao Chicken Salad

Vanessa invited Julie to demonstrate in the South Arm Community Kitchen. Julie only comes to the kitchen when she is demonstrating. She is an experienced cook and a great friend of Vanessa. Julie will not say no when Vanessa ask her for help.

Julie made two Taiwanese dishes. The first dish is Hong-Zao Chicken Salas. Hong-Zao is red fermented glutinous rice paste. I personally have not use this ingredient before. We were told that we might be able to find Hong-Zao in T&T or some other Chinese groceries stores.

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The Hong-Zao Chicken Salad was very tasty and Julie made a pretty presentation of the dish. The golden brown crispy fried chicken were arranged on top of a bed of shredded lettuce and garnished with red grapes and cilantro. The Hong-Zao Chicken Salad is served with a home-made dressing of mayonnaise, sugar and lemon juice.

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I’m sure my kids will love the boneless, crispy fried chicken, not so sure about the shredded lettuce though.

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Ingredients

  • 2 chicken legs, deboned and cut into bite-sized pieces
  • 1/2 head of lettuce, shredded
  • 100g yam flour (potato flour)
  • 3 tablespoons dressing (Mayonnaise + some sugar and lemon juice)

Marinates:

  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon Hong-Zao
  • white pepper to taste

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Chicken Stew

This Chicken Stew is Andrea’s grandmother’s recipe. She told us that this recipe has been in the family for a long time. The Chicken Stew is a white sauce stew enriched with red wine. Andrea said she would add in more red wine at the end of the cooking to have a more intense flavour broth.

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Andrea served the Chicken Stew with steamed rice and broccoli. The broth from the Chicken Stew goes very well with steamed rice.

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Ingredients

  • 1 stewing chicken
  • vegetables like onion, tomatoes, cabbage and herbs like parsley, thyme or rosemary for boiling the chicken to make chicken stock
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 3 tablespoons flour
  • 4 cups chicken broth
  • 1/4 cup red wine
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup of cream
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 10 black peppercorns
  • 3 cloves
  • salt to taste

Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Red Cooked Chicken

This blog is for Vienna from HK who raised the question on how to cook chicken in dark soy sauce. I believe its called Red Cooked Chicken.

Red Cooking is a cooking technique where meat is simmered slowly in dark soy sauce, imparting the reddish tinge to the meat. This is a popular cooking technique in Eastern China like Jiangsu, Fujian and Zhejiang. Red Cooking is also known as Red Stewing or Red Braising.

Red Cooking is characterized with the use of its key ingredients like dark and light soy sauce, star anise or five-spice powder, cooking sherry and rock sugar.

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The original recipe calls for 1 whole roasting chicken but I made it with chicken drumsticks only (about half of the recipe) because I have a small family. So, you may adjust the ingredients accordingly if you would like to make it in smaller portion like me.

Ingredients

  • 1 large roasting chicken, about 3 lbs.
  • 375ml or 1 1/2 cups dark soy sauce
  • 375ml or 1 1/2 cups water
  • 125ml or 1/2 cup Chinese cooking wine or sherry
  • 8 large slices fresh ginger
  • 2 whole star anise (about 12 sections)
  • 1 large clove garlic
  • 2 green onions, cut into 1 inch size
  • 2 tablespoons crushed rock sugar
  • 2 teaspoons oriental sesame oil

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Indian Curry Chicken

Sujre is new addition to the Gilmore Church Park community kitchen. As far as I know, she is the first member of East Indian ethnic in this cooking club I attend. This is good because this means that we will now have East Indian cooking demonstrations too. True enough, Sujre made an Indian Curry Chicken and two different types of bread to go with it. I am blogging on the Curry Chicken today and will blog on the bread the next two days.

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The Indian Curry Chicken was excellent. It has a hint of sourness from the yogurt. The roti (Indian flat bread) is a perfect complement for dipping the curry sauce. This dish is flavourful with the usage of Garam Masala spices but not spicy hot.

I had never really figured out the differences between East Indian curries vs South East Asian curries. I think they are:

  • East Indians uses yogurt to make the curry gravy while SE Asians uses coconut milk
  • East Indians uses tomatoes as an ingredient while SE Asian does not
  • SE Asian curries are almost always spicy hot while East Indian ones are not always so

What do you think … is my perception correct? Can you identify other differences?

Anyway, here is the recipe for Sujre’s Indian Curry Chicken.

Ingredients

Marinate ingredients:

  • 1 whole chicken, cut up, remove skin
  • 1/2 cup plain yogurt
  • 1 tablespoon garlic paste
  • 1 tablespoon ginger paste
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
  • a pinch of saffron

Other ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon Garam Masala
  • 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 3 fresh tomatoes, crushed or 1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 3 fresh onions, finely chopped or 3 to 4 tablespoons fried onions
  • 2 potatoes, peeled, cut into 1″ chunk and fried
  • a bunch of cilantro

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Garam Masala is basically a mixture of ground up spices. It is usually made up of green cardamon, brown cardamon, cinnamon stick, black pepper, clove and cumin. For convenience, you may just buy pre-packed Garam Masala. However, Sujre showed us the real way to do it with the real raw ingredients.

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Skewered Chicken

Yvonne made two dishes in the South Arm Community Kitchen. Yvonne is an experienced cook. She worked in many places before like Pizza place, factory which supplied food concentrates to restaurants, etc. She also attended cooking schools in her early days in Vancouver. She is a lady with many talents.

One of Yvonne’s dishes is Skewered Chicken. She served the Skewered Chicken on Fusilli pasta and accompanied with Skewered Sweet Peppers which has been briefly fried.

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Yvonne is a person who emphasized on presentation. She presented her dishes with garnishes using cucumber, tomatoes, blood orange and lemon. It certainly made the dish more appealing.

Ingredients

  • 2 lbs of skinless and boneless chicken thighs
  • 1 bunch of fresh rosemary or substitute with 1 teaspoon of dried rosemary
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 tablepoons honey
  • 1 tablespoon Mirin or rice wine
  • 3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 tablespoons of cornstarch

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Oven-fried Parmesan Chickens

Jean’s second dish is a very kids friendly dish. It is Oven-fried Parmesan Chicken. I know, Arkensen will absolutely loves this dish as he loves fried chicken and Parmesan cheese.

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The Oven-fried Parmesan Chicken is a wonderful dish for picnic. Its not messy and transports well after the chicken is chilled and kept in an insulated container with ice packs. You may even use this to make chicken burgers with some mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuces and sliced onions.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup refrigerated or frozen egg product, thawed, or 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 cup fat-free milk or milk of your preference
  • 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 3/4 cup fine dry bread crumbs
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano, crushed
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 5 pounds meaty chicken pieces, skinned (breast halves, thighs, and drumsticks)
  • 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
  • Snipped fresh oregano (optional)

Jean used boneless and skinless chicken thigh which is more flavourful and moist.

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Click on the link below for the instructions.

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Spicy Sesame Chicken

Heidy shared two dishes in the South Arm Community Kitchen at the last cooking class in 2006. She made Spicy Sesame Chicken and Avocado/Papaya Salad.

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The Spicy Sesame Chicken is marinated with lots of flavourful spices and sauces and deep fried until golden brown and crispy. Kids will love this for sure. Making this is easy but I guess the most challenging part is gathering all the required ingredients.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 lbs chicken thigh meat (deboned)

For marinating:

  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon brown sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon chicken powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon spicy bake mix
  • 1 tablespoon Vietnamese chili sauce
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  • 1/2 tablespoon wine
  • 1 tablespoon fish sauce
  • 1 tablespoon vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon egg white
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
  • 2 tablespoon sesame seeds

For coating:

  • 5 tablespoons flour
  • 5 tablespoons cornstarch

Click on the link below for the instructions.

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