Singapore chicken is an easy dish to make and its super yummy. You start off by making a dark “Kepop Manis” sauce with dark soy sauce, molasses and brown sugar. It’s so quick and easy and delicious. Begin by heating oil in a wok until hot. Add a sliced onion until they are slightly browned. Add chicken and chili and stir-fry further until the chicken starts to brown.
Add sugar then add the kecap manis sauce and water and continue to cook until chicken is cooked and the sauce starts to thicken.
Stir in the lemon juice and mint.
Serve with steamed coconut rice and a steamed snow peas.
This dish is from my favorite Italian cookbook Frankies Spuntino. Making cavatelli was a first for me, and I have never made pasta with ricotta cheese, but there it is. It’s difficult to work with the dough, but I did my best. In the book the authors say that this is the most popular dish on their menu. That is good enough for me, and I LOVE brown butter sage sauce so it was an easy call. The recipe calls for hot italian sausage coins to accompany the brown butter sage sauce. To make the sauce, you first pre-cook the sausages, then cut them into coins. You brown the coins on both sides with some butter. Once browned, you set them aside and add butter and sage leaves to the pan. While the butter is browning you boil the pasta for about 4 minutes then drop them into the pan with the sausage, the pecorino romano and some white pepper….serve with a pinch of Italian parsley. I can absolutely see why it’s the most popular dish on their menu!
We went full Thug Kitchen on this one. Their intro is the best version: “Part soup, part chile, Pozole is a hearty dish you can trick out with a fuck ton of toppings.” Thug Kitchen is my go to vegetarian recipe book. He has done a great job of making vegetarian food taste wonderful.
You start with chili, I used several, toast them, soak them and eventually blend them with garlic and cocoa powder. The meal begins with an onion and a pile of (pressed) firm tofu, the garlic chili paste and the water the chili soaked in, hominy, zucchini and broth along with salt, oregano and peri peri spice, all of which cooks down for about 30 minutes. Finished with a little maple syrup and the juice of a lime , its served with cabbage, radish green onion and cilantro. Absolutely delicious.
We are always open to new versions of Peperoni Pizza. This one got our attention because instead of pineapple, which offers a little acidity and sweetness, this one uses pickled jalapenos and hot honey to offer sweetness, acidity and heat! In addition, they ramp up the heat with red pepper flakes. Our version used a tomato sauce we spiced up with Tapatio sauce, mozzarella cheese, fresh cut pepperoni, chopped pickle jalapeno, fresh mozzarella and hot honey. It a was pretty delicious version of pepperoni pizza, and one we will take on again with pepperoncini as a variant!
We made a wonderful peanut based chicken stew last week from Equatorial Guinea that left us with some leftovers. I started with the peanut sauce and ran it through the food processor for a while before the chinois and oh my, it was silky smooth. I also had a whole bowl of chicken broth left over that carried that equatorial spiciness and flavor. We had porkbutt in the freezer and so we opted to do Pap and Gravy with porkbutt instead of beef ribs. I started by searing the porkbutt in the dutch oven, then added two quartered onions and 5 quartered tomatoes to the pot and topped it off the peanut sauce and the chicken broth. I brought it to a boil and left it to simmer all day. It had reduced by half and the sauce was beginning to thicken when I turn it off. When I make sour pap, I use a quarter cup of white vinegar to a cup of cornmeal, and bring it to the consistency of play-dough.
This was probaly the most delicious version of this dish I have ever made! Absolutely moreish.
Freshly made, pico de gallo is a fabulous accompaniment or even a great appetizer with good corn chips, The secret is to get the ratios of tomato, onion and jalapeno peppers just right. You need ripe Roma tomatoes, a large jalapeno and a medium white onion along with a few limes. Once made, the mixture needs to meld together for at least a couple of hours for it to taste great. What makes it work, are the knife cuts. Make sure all the tomatoes are cut to about the same size, same with the onion and finely cut the jalapeno and the cilantro. Add about a teaspoon of salt and about half a teaspoon of pepper, then squeeze limes till you get the flavor just right, then cover and refrigerate. Enjoy!
One of our go to-easy-to-put-together-quickly meals is Gringo Tacos. What makes them so moreish is that they capture the way tacos are great finger food, but with a hard shell, quick ground beef with taco seasoning, and several sides to “build your own”. I like to make a fresh pico de gallo to go along with it. The real secret is to not over bake the taco shells!
Ingredients:
Ground beef with taco seasoning
Lettuce
Avocado
Ground cheese
Chopped red onion
Salsa
Sour cream
Pico de Gallo: The secret is to let it come together before you eat it. Overnight in the fridge is excellent!
There is so much to like about Thai flavors. This soup leverages them all. It’s an easy brothy soup that is two parts, the marinade for the chicken, and then the broth. I marinaded the chicken in bite size pieces, although the recipe does not call for that. You use boneless skinless thighs that you lay on a bed of jasmine rice when you serve. This is a broth heavy soup where the broth does most of the work. It’s so delicious and so moreish and so easy. Definitely one of the contenders for “The best version chicken soup”. It’s pretty easy to make, you just need the right ingredients. The other thing about Thai food is that its HOT and makes your hair sweat! You can ramp up the heat with that Thai chili sauce and add an extra serrano pepper or two. But the sweetness and tanginess of the coconut broth with lemongrass and a touch of lemon juice to finish it is so moreish. I used a little fish sauce and a touch of rice wine vinegar to ramp up the umami. After you marinade the chicken, you sear it in a pan, make sure the sauce caramelizes, then set it aside for serving.
For the chicken marinade:
Boneless chicken thighs
Crushed pepper
Grated garlic
Grated ginger
Grated lemon grass roots
Chilli oil
Soy sauce
Red chilli sauce
Lemon juice
Honey
Oyster sauce
Red chilli flakes
Olive oil
For the broth
Olive oil
Onion petals
Thinly sliced ginger,
Green chillies
Spring onion whites
Kafir lime leaves
Lemon grass roots, crushed
Lemon grass greens, roughly chopped
Water
Coconut milk
Salt
Lemon juice
To serve:
Jasmine rice
Spring onion greens
You put a pile of rice in the bowl, top it with the chicken, if you do not marinade in bite size pieces, then cut into bite size pieces. Top with the broth and the green onions, add chili sauce and a little lime juice, sit back and enjoy!
We LOVE this dish. Fresh pasta with pesto is just amazing. First I make the best fresh pasta, and normally let is dry out a bit on the day by making it early so it has the whole day to rest. Then, i boil the chicken breast for about 5 minutes before I take it out and slice it. It goes back in the boiling water to get rid of all the pink. I toast pine nuts, and I am ready to go. I make sure the water for the pasta is salty, and bring it to a boil. I drop the pasta, and while its coming back to temperature, I begin to slowly heat the pesto. To make sure it does not stick to the pan, I drop a ladil of pasta water in the pan and mix together along with the sun dried tomatoes and a healthy pinch of red pepper flakes. As it comes to temperature, I test the pasta. It needs to be el dente, and because it’s fresh, it takes no more than about a minute or two at a boil. I move the pasta from the water to the pesto pan and begin to mix it all. I turn it up a little so make sure it continues to cook and come together. I dish the pasta leaving sauce in the pan and drop the chicken into the pan to pick up the sauce, then I dish the chicken. I finish with pine nuts and parm. It’s delicious!
