Karaage Chicken for the kids

Instead of making Sushi and Temaki like we usually do, we made some Tori Karaage (Japanese Fried Chicken) because I have 2 deboned chicken thighs, sitting in my freezer.

Ingredients

• 2 pieces deboned chicken thighs (cut into small pieces/cubes, so it is easy for kids)
• some ginger juice (extract from pounded ginger)
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• dash of pepper and sugar (I omit this)
• 1/2 teaspoon sake (I do not have sake at home, so I used Chinese Wine instead)
• few drops sesame oil
• Corn starch to coat the chicken
• Oil for frying

Method

1. Best to marinate chicken cubes overnight
2. To dust with corn flour, place marinated chicken cubes (a little batch at one time) into a plastic bag that contains flour. Reason is so I do not have to use so much flour at one time just in case of wastage
3. Shake the mixture so that chicken cubes and evenly. Lightly dust off before frying.
4. Fry on a pan on medium heat (I cut the cubes very small, so they cook real fast)
5. Serve with salad, some mayonaise and a cut of lemon if you like

**Some tips to share

• You might wanna deep-fry twice so that the chicken pieces stay crunchy for longer time. How to do that? Just fry as normal, and after complete frying all the chicken, put it through inside wok and give it a rinse with hot oil.
• Instead of using corn flour, another alternative is to use self-raising flour (we use this a lot at home for all our deep fried because its very crunchy!) or potato-starch flour.
• Since I am cooking for the kids, I usually have my chicken thighs deboned before steam or frying. We keep and freeze the bones for our soup in future.

Original Karaage Premix -soft type

But if you are lazy to pound and squeeze the ginger extract (which you should not omit because it would makes a big difference), a good option is to get the Soft Karaage Premix. Do take note that there are 2 types of Karaage Premix, and the one I am using is the soft batter type, in original flavour (the sales girl from Shojikiya told me Pasta Zanmai outlet is using the same one).

Do note that the above tips are solely based on my personal experience and this post is written not related to any affiliate marketing.

Recipe shared by Siew Pheng

Marinade for Chicken

• Light soya sauce
• White rice wine
• Sesame oil
• Abalone sauce
• Dash of paper
• Chicken (I used 3 thighs, deboned)

Pounded Ingredients

• Ginger
• Shallots
• Garlic
• 2 stalk Lemongrass (serai)
• Sesame Oil

Sauce

• Salt
• 1 can Evaporated milk
• Dash of sugar

Method

1. Marinate chicken at least for 1 hour
2. Blanch in hot oil and leave aside  – I skipped this step
3. Saute pounded (or you can also chopped them finely) ingredients till fragrance
4. Add in chicken and seasoning to taste

*Update 9/8/2011: Finally I managed to try out this dish. Instead of just mincing the ingredient, I still prefer to pound them (well, that’s what Kakak is for in the kitchen!)

Verdict: The gravy taste heavenly because of the evaporated milk used plus lots of pounded ginger. Although it is a bit spicy, QQ loves this dish. She put a lot of the gravy on her rice while I just scoop the gravy and eat like that. We love it, and certainly will whip up another dish again soon….Yummy!!!!

Shireen has always mention in her blog, how yummy this dish is. I tried making them myself quite sometime ago, but I only used tumeric and nothing else. The taste was so horrible that I decided to stay away from this dish.

A few days back, she posted again, and I asked my maid if she can make this dish. She said, yes, as she usually makes them at home. Good to have a maid so I have someone pound the ingredients for me

Ingredients we used:

• 1/2 chicken – cut into small pieces
• sugar to taste
• enough water to cover the chicken to let it simmer until dry

Pounded ingredients

• 2 thumb size tumeric
• 8 shallots
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 tsp pepper seeds
• few slices galangal (we did not use this)
• 1 thumb size ginger (we did not use this)
• 2 tsp salt

Preparation

1. Pound all the ingredients above
2. Marinate the chicken pieces with the spices (estimate: 1 hour)
3. Leave the extra aside

Cooking method

1. Saute the extra spice in oil till dry and fragant
2. Add in marinated chicken with spiece
3. Fry till tender
4. Add sugar to taste
5. Add enough water to cover the chicken. Close lid. Once boiled, lower fire and let it simmer (I think it takes about 30mins -1 hour)
6. Once the gravy turns thick, I turn off the gas because I prefer some gravy to go with my rice.

Verdict: Very very yummy, a must try!!  I had trouble removing the yellow stain from my blender and my hands previously. So, the only trouble is to pound them.

So much of influence from the Astro Series ” Little Nyonya”, I am so tempted to learn the Nyonya yummy dishes. I had a chance to taste the Ayam Pongteh when I visited Miche at her home on my last trip back to Melaka. She had even asked her mother to cook up a storm for us, and one of the dishes is the Ayam Pongteh. When I came back, I tried to cook this dishes and it really taste delicious (especially when eaten with sambal belacan), thanks to recipe and tips from Miche.

This is the 2nd time I tried cooking this dish. It taste really nice on the 2nd day so I will cook a bigger pot so that it can at least last for 2 days. Below is my version of Ayam Pongteh.

Ingredients:

Lots of shallots, few pieces garlic, 1Tbsp taucu, 1/2 chicken, 4 potatoes, gula melaka, salt to taste, chinese mushroom (optional)

Method:

1. Fry pounded shallots, garlic and taucu till fragant
2. Add in chicken and then big potato cubes
3. Simmer and once boiled, add gula melaka and some salt to taste
4. Let it simmer till potato turns soft (gravy thicken)

I also add some belly pork cubes prior adding the chicken for additional taste.

Now that my laptop is corrupted, I can have more time in the kitchen trying out more nice dishes. At least no more dark circles under eyes for the time being

1st Birthday Platter for the neighbours

It has been exactly one year since we did birth announcements for our boys. In just a blink of eye, they are already crawling everywhere in the house, waiting for me to celebrate their first birthday.

Since we already did a mass celebration at hometown with family members with cakes and party, we only have a simple dinner at home on their actual birth date.

I marinated some wings (with mixture of oyster sauce, thick and soy sauce) and baked them in my oven. I even baked some small banana cupcakes (should have did some lil egg tarts instead) and did some red eggs, just for the sake of having fun. Since we had extra, I prepared a platter too, as giveaway to the neighbours. Just something so simple and nice

A modified dish from the Salted Egg Fried Prawn or Salted Egg Fried Crab (Ham Tan Hai in Cantonese). It is also very easy to cook.

Ingredients:
Chicken pieces
Steam salted egg yolk
Marinate: soy sauce, oyster sauce, pepper powder
Coating: KFC Flour (I always add some self raising flour so that it taste more crispy

Method:
1.Marinate chicken (best if marinated overnight)
2. Spoon some flour mixture into the chicken and mix well.
3. Deep fry chicken.
4. Remove chicken from oil.
5. Use very little oil to stir fry the mashed egg yolk will you see bubbles.
6. Add in chicken and stir well.

Too bad my mum cannot take this dish as she is having knee pain with a big Plantar Fasciitis bandage.