Chicken Stew II

This post is a week late! Sorry to those who have been requested and have been waiting so patiently for this recipe! :)

I hope you like it as much as my family does! 

P.S. The chicken stock base is awesome and the best part is that there's probably enough to store some for quick fixes for lunch or the kids' food! 

Chicken Stew II

Ingredients:

• 2 packets of chicken fillet (I bought mine from NTUC) - remove the tendons and cut into bite sizes
• 3 large potatoes, peel and cut into chunks
• 2 carrots, peel and cut into chunks
• 3 sticks of celery, remove the fibers and slice
• 1 pack of white button mushrooms, remove stalk, clean and slice
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 2-3 small chicken carcasses 
• 2-3 cloves garlic, wash and leave peel on
• plain flour or cornflour
• 1 tablespoon butter 
• 1 litre water

Marinade for chicken (quantity is estimated only, go with your instincts):

• 2 tablespoons chicken marinade
• a few dashes of black pepper
• a few dashes of garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• dash of sesame oil

Method:

1. Place the chicken carcasses in a pot of water and bring to a boil. Remove the chicken carcasses and place them in a soup bag together with the garlic cloves.
2. Place the soup bag into a slow cooker together with the potatoes, carrots, celery, bay leaves and water. Cook on high for 3-4 hours. Do the following steps only after this stock is done.
3. Add butter to a pot and melt it. Add diced onions and sweat them. 
4. Add the mushrooms when the onions have softened more or less. If you need to, add just a little stock to prevent the mushrooms and onions from burning.
5. Add the chicken fillet and stirfry with the mushrooms and onion for a minute.
6. Add the potatoes, carrots and celery from the slow cooker into the pot and pour in just enough chicken stock to cover the ingredients. Store the rest of the stock for future use. 
7. Bring to a boil then simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes.
8. Add flour to thicken the consistency of the gravy if necessary and add more seasoning if it's not salty enough.
9. Serve with crusty bread or rice.

Cooking note: You may substitute the butter with oil but it will affect the taste of the stew.

Linking up with:

Just for kids! - Cabbage wrap chicken minis

Here's a simple recipe to share that will make both mummy and kid happy!

Cabbage wrap chicken minis (makes 1 mini)

Ingredients:

• 1 cabbage leaf (depending on the size of your cabbage, you may only need half a leaf for one of these minis)
• 1 thumb-length piece of chicken fillet (you may mince this but I didn't)

Marinate chicken with (just a dash/pinch of each seasoning!):

• oyster sauce
• Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• ground black pepper
• sugar (optional)
• sesame oil

Directions:

1. Marinate chicken fillet for at least an hour.
2. Wash and blanch cabbage leaf in boiling stock or water to make it easier to wrap the chicken (about 5 minutes)
3. Spread cabbage leaf out on a plate and place chicken fillet on it. Wrap the chicken fillet up as you would with a springroll.
4. Place the wrapped chicken on a plate and steam it for 10minutes.
5. Optional: Pour the 'juice' that is in the plate after the steaming into a small saucepan (top up with more stock if necessary), add cornflour solution (mixture of cornflour and water) to thicken into a gravy. Dish gravy over the wrap.
6. Serve.

This is how it looks prior to steaming

And the verdict!:

My little boy had one of these too (he's almost 1!) - but I had to cut the wrap into really small pieces for him to handle.

Omit all the seasonings for children under 1 year old. The chicken and cabbage are naturally sweet so there is no need to add seasoning. :)

Sesame oil ginger chicken (姜丝麻油鸡)

I've never been a fan of ginger and indeed the confinement period after i had Alicia was the time in my life that ginger well, made its presence felt.

Many moons after that, I developed a liking for fried julienned ginger.

Strange, but true.

I never thought that I'd cook ginger chicken in my life, but I did. And it's my latest craze.  :P

Together with a generous amount of sesame oil, this dish just blows me away!


Sesame oil ginger chicken (姜丝麻油鸡)


*measurements are estimates*


Ingredients:

• 3 chopped chicken thighs, skin removed
• 2 tablespoon heaps of julienned ginger
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cloves shallot, sliced
• a generous amount of sesame oil
• 1-2 tablespoons hua diao jiu
• 1/2 bowl water
• 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

Marinate chicken with:

• 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoons Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• a couple of dashes of ground white pepper
• a few dashes of sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon hua diao jiu

Method:

1. Heat sesame oil in wok. Fry the garlic, shallot and ginger till they turn slightly brownish.
2. Add in the chicken and brown the sides.
3. Add in the water, hua diao jiu and dark soy sauce.
4. Bring the gravy to a boil then turn the heat down to low and simmer for about 25min, stirring occasionally for even cooking - the gravy will have thickened by then. (you can choose to transfer the chicken to a small claypot and continue the simmering there. If you do so, add the hua diao jiu when the claypot's covered (just let it seep in through the sides.)
5. Dish and serve.

*Add in more sesame oil in the process of cooking if necessary. The eventual taste of the gravy should be that of sesame oil and a hint of ginger.

Healthy(? - is it even possible?) curry chicken

I haven't blogged about my cooking in quite awhile, mainly because Alicia's been keeping me busy and I've not had the time and energy to think about new dishes to blog about. :P

Anyway, I realised that I don't have a curry chicken dish in my list so this post is dedicated to it.

I usually use the A1 curry spices but this time I decided to try something new:

This is produced by the same company as the instant paste I used to cook my sambal tunis prawns.

According to the chicken seller, this doesn't yield the normal a-lot-of-gravy type of curry and it's meant to be on the drier side. And the best part about this is that there is no need to add coconut milk to it so it's a healthier option!

I set off to cook this on Friday (and the weather was really perfect for curry that day).... and it turned out yummy, even without the coconut milk! :)

Cooking in progress!:

Curry Chicken

You can't really see the gravy from this angle... :P

Ingredients:

• 3 chopped chicken thighs (skin removed, visible fats removed)
• 3 egg-sized potatoes (skinned and chopped into quarters)
• 2 carrots (skinned and chopped into small chunks)
• 1/2 packet of curry spice (as shown above)
• 1 cup water (about 240ml)

Method:

1. Prepare the ingredients accordingly.
2. Heat wok and fry the curry paste for about 1 min till it's fragrant.
3. Add the chicken in and mix well.
4. Add the water and bring it to a boil.
5. Add the potatoes and carrots and bring the gravy to a boil.
6. Cover wok and simmer on low-medium heat for 20-30min (depending on how much gravy you like and how soft you like your potatoes and carrots). Stir every now and then for even cooking.
7. Dish and serve.

Herbal soup to rid pimples...

I dunno why I've been having little pimples lately - my hubby says those aren't considered pimples coz they're too small, but I hardly have pimples so it really upsets me to see those little spots on my face.

I happened to chance upon this recipe from a cookbook my mil bought and it says the soup helps to rid pimples so I thought oh well, might as well give it a try. What have I got to lose? Hehe. Anyway, the ingredients are rather similar to my ginseng root chicken soup just that the emphasis found in this soup is the Solomon's seal.

See the overwhelming presence of the Solomon's seal? :P

The clear soup after removing most of the herbs which can't be eaten and get in the way!

Solomon's seal (herbal) chicken soup

I didn't follow the recipe exactly - I just used my own estimation... :P

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (skin removed, visible fats removed) - the recipe used black chicken
• 4 large seedless red dates
• 4 dried longan (this wasn't added in the original recipe)
• 40-50g Solomon's seal (yu zhu)
• 10-15g ginseng root
• 1 slice ginger
• 1/2 tablespoon hua diao jiu
• salt to taste
• 500ml water

Method:

1. Blanch the chicken thighs. Remove and place in the bowl for double-boiling.
2. Rinse the herbs and place them in the bowl as well.
3. Add the ginger, water and the hua diao jiu (Note: the hua diao jiu was added only at the point of serving in the original recipe but since I'm still nursing, I decided to add in the wine in the early stage of cooking so that the alcohol content would have evaporated by the end of the cooking).
4. Double-boil the soup for about 1.5h to 2h. (The original recipe cooked the soup on the stove for 1.5h but I decided to double-boil instead).
5. Add salt to taste.
6. Remove herbs before serving for easy access to chicken meat and soup. :)

Alicia loved the chicken meat from the soup as it was sooo tender and sweet. She took a bit of soup too but wasn't so keen - probably due to the slight hint of bitterness caused by the ginseng root.

For toddler's consumption:

• Tear off the soft chicken meat from the chicken bones for the tot.
• Do not serve too much of the soup as ginseng root is considered to be quite 'cooling'.

Steamed herbal chicken

Just came back from a short trip to Bukit Tinggi not too long ago. I know some of my wonderful friends are waiting for me to update my blog with the photos taken during the trip but I'm still waiting for the photos from my mum's camera to consolidate all the photos before uploading them... :)

Hee... anyway, after all the 'outside' food we ate during the trip, I made sure that I cooked some home-cooked fare for hubby over the weekend. Bought some handmade thick mee sua from Malacca on our way back to Singapore so I just had to try it the very next day... :) Hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed the mee sua soup I cooked on Saturday - sometimes a simple dinner can be so uplifting.

Anyway, I digress too much. You must be wondering what happened to the steamed herbal chicken I was supposed to tell you all about... hee. That was part of Sunday's dinner and I must say that it was pure comfort food (that is, if you are a fan of herbs). It would have been even better had I cooked it with chicken thighs with the bones intact but I only had deboned chicken thighs on hand so I had to make do.

Steamed herbal chicken

Yum... :)

Ingredients:

• 3 deboned chicken thighs (better to cook those with bones intact as I mentioned as the meat will be even more tender)
• about 1 tablespoon sliced dang shen
• about a handful red dates
• 8 dried longan
• 3 pieces huai shan
• 5 pieces dang gui
• 2 tablespoons wolfberries
• 1 slice ginger (julien the slice of ginger)
• 1-1.5 tablespoon oyster sauce
• about 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon hua diao jiu
• dashes of sesame oil
• dashes of ground white pepper

The chinese herbs

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken meat with all the ingredients.
2. Place the chicken meat and all the ingredients on a piece of aluminium foil. Seal the ingredients and place the packet on a plate.
3. Steam for about 40min (steam for at least an hour if cooking with chicken thighs that are not deboned).
4. Serve hot with white fluffy rice.

Marinating in progress

Time to wrap it up!

Waiting for the water in the steamer to boil

Steaming....

It's ready! Fogging the lens...

Can you tell it's really piping hot? :)

There you go... a proper peek into the yummy packet of herbal chicken

Mini Cottage Pies for the tot!

How would you like some of these?

They aren't baked yet though... but don't they look nice?

I decided to bake mini cottage pies for Alicia the other day, but using minced chicken in place of minced beef since I didn't have beef on hand. And just in case you're wondering, the potato I used was a purple one hence the violet hue instead of the usual yellow. :) Hubby actually thought it was yam... lol.

Check out Alicia's response:

Hot!

Help me with it daddy!

Waiting...

Still waiting for it to cool...

hmmm... what does it taste like...

mmmm... not bad...

Fresh out from the oven!

Mini Cottage Pies for the tot

Waiting to be baked...

Makes 10 mini pies

Ingredients:

• 1 red potato
• 1 purple potato
• 3 tablespoons minced chicken fillet
• 1/3 yellow onion (minced)
• 1/2 small carrot (minced)
• 2 tablespoons frozen green peas
• unsalted all-purpose herbs
• unsalted butter

Marinate chicken with:

• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1-2tsp oyster sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• dash of black pepper

Method:

1. Marinate minced chicken.
2. Peel potatoes and cube them. Boil them till they are soft.
3. Mash the potatoes with about 1 tablespoon butter and a pinch of salt.
4. Heat wok and melt butter.
5. Fry the minced onion and carrot till onion is soft.
6. Add the minced chicken. Continue frying so that the chicken doesn't clump together.
7. Add the peas when chicken is almost cooked.
8. Dish up the filling.
9. Fill the silicon mini muffin cups with the filling to about the half-way mark.
10. Add the mashed potato on top.
11. Preheat oven to 200degC.
12. Bake mini pies for 20-25min at 200degC.

These mini pies can be frozen and defrosted in the fridge.

Because of the mini size, these can serve well as snacks or even breakfast. Just give more for lunch or dinner! :)

Alicia's response in the beginning was lukewarm and almost disheartening but after serving these little pies to her a few times, she started to warm up to them and eats well now! :)

Braised chicken with potato

I was braising the chicken already and still wondering what seasonings to add... can you believe that? :)

And so this concoction is based purely on what I decided to throw in at the spur of the moment.. teeheehee... and it turned out great anyway - savoury tender chicken meat with melt-in-the-mouth potato bits :D

That's the thing about cooking - just go with your instincts and add lotsa love and the dish will be yummy!

Braised chicken with potato

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (skin removed, chopped)
• 4 egg-sized potatoes (sliced)
• 2 cloves garlic (coarsely chopped)
• 2 shallots (sliced thinly)
• 4 slices ginger
• 2 bunches scallion (cut into 2" segments)
• 1 bowl water
• cornflour slurry
• scallions/ coriander for garnishing (optional)

Seasoning:

• 1.5T oyster sauce
• 1/2T worcestershire sauce
• 1/3T dark soy sauce
• 2tsp sugar
• dash of ground white pepper
• dash of sesame oil

Marinate chicken with:

• Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• oyster sauce
• sugar
• ground white/black pepper
• hua diao jiu

Method:

1. Marinate chicken meat (preferably overnight).
2. Heat oil in a wok. Fry the ginger, shallots, garlic and scallions till fragrant.
3. Add in the potato slices.
4. Add in the chicken and fry till chicken is about half-cooked.
5. Add one bowl water and bring the gravy to a boil.
6. Simmer on low heat for 25min then add in the seasoning.
7. Bring to a boil again before adding the cornflour slurry to thicken the gravy to desired consistency.
8. Once the gravy bubbles, turn off heat.
9. Dish, garnish and serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• Cut chicken and potato into small pieces before serving.

Oyster sauce stir-fried chicken with veggies

I had to make do with this picture because I couldn't find my camera last evening when I wanted to take a photo of the dish, so I had to use hubby's phone. Anyway, I was frantically combing the house for the cam but I just couldn't find it... I began to start worrying that Alicia had thrown the camera into the recycling trash without my knowledge and I had just cleared out the whole bag in the morning. Yikes! Fortunately, hubby managed to find my camera after dinner - Alicia had hidden it in her toy car! What a relief to have found my trusty point-and-shoot cam! But needless to say, I hardly enjoyed my dinner because I thought my cam was gone for good.

What a long preamble... anyway, here's my recipe - it's really simple and healthy but I'd say nothing really much to rave about though... hehe :)

Oyster sauce stir-fried chicken with veggies

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (skin removed, deboned, cut into pieces)
• 6 baby corn (cut into pieces)
• 1/2 red pepper (diced)
• 1/2 Japanese cucumber (diced)
• 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 4 pieces ginger
• 1 bunch scallions (including the whitish portion, cut into 2" segments)
• cornflour solution

Seasoning:

• 1-2T oyster sauce

Marinate chicken with:

• oyster sauce
• hua diao jiu
• Lee Kum Kee Chicken Marinade
• sugar
• a few dashes of ground black pepper
• a bit of sesame oil

Method:

1. Heat some oil in the wok. Fry the ginger and scallions till fragrant then add in the garlic.
2. Add in the chicken pieces and fry for awhile till almost cooked.
3. Add some water.
4. Add in the baby corn and fry for a couple more minutes.
5. Add oyster sauce.
6. Add in the red pepper and Japanese cucumber just before dishing. Just let it fry for a very short while (1-2min) taking the opportunity to mix the ingredients evenly.
7. Thicken gravy with cornflour solution.
8. Dish and serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• Make sure that all pieces of food are small enough for the tot to handle, especially the Japanese cucumber.

Chicken midwings stew

I didn't have much time to take a proper photo of the dish as I was trying to watch over the rest of the food I was cooking on the stove. This will just have to do...

Anyway, we love chicken wings - so does Alicia - so it's no surprise that chicken wings make their appearance quite a bit on our table! :)

Chicken midwings stew

Ingredients:

• 12 mid wings
• 1/2 small red pepper (dice)
• 3 baby corn (cut into chunks)
• 2 handfuls frozen mixed veggies
• 2 cloves garlic (sliced and lightly smashed)
• 2 shallots (chunked)
• 2 slices ginger
• 2 bunches scallions (cut into 1.5-2" length)

Seasoning:

• 2-3T oyster sauce
• 1T dark soy sauce
• 1-1.5T brown sugar

Marinate the wings with:

• oyster sauce
• Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• sesame oil
• ground black pepper
• brown sugar

Method:

1. Heat some oil in a wok. Fry the baby corn, mixed veggies and diced red pepper till cooked. Remove from wok.
2. Brown the chicken wings on both sides then remove from wok.
3. Heat some oil in the wok and fry the ginger and scallions.
4. Add the shallots and garlic. Fry till fragrant.
5. Add the chicken wings and fry for a short while.
6. Add the seasoning and enough water to cover the wings.
7. Bring the water to a boil then simmer for 40 minutes, stirring now and then for even cooking.
8. Add the veggies in in the last 10min.
9. Add some cornflour solution to further thicken the gravy if necessary.
10. Dish and serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• If the tot can handle eating the meat from the chicken wing on her own, there is nothing much to do! :)
• Remove the meat from the chicken wing if the tot is unable to eat it on her own.
• Cut the baby corn into smaller pieces.

Chicken with baby asparagus

It's a really simple dish... the taste is quite ordinary and not outstanding. I would have added red bell peppers if I had them on hand, but I didn't, so the appearance of the dish looks a bit drab. Anyway, it's quite a convenient dish and has veggies and chicken so if you want to save time and effort cooking up another dish, you can try this... with red bell peppers if you can, please. :D

Alicia hasn't had baby asparagus for a long long time so she was quite happy to eat them again last night.. :) She wasn't that keen on the chicken... I guess it's because I didn't marinate them long enough so the chicken bits weren't infused with the overall taste of the dish...

Chicken with baby asparagus

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs, diced (deboned, visible fats removed)
• 1 bunch of baby asparagus (diced)
• 1 clove garlic (minced)
• 1 small red onion (diced)
• water
• cornflour solution (for thickening of gravy)

Marinate chicken (preferably overnight) with:

• 1T oyster sauce
• 1-2T Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• ground black pepper
• 2tsp brown sugar
• 1tsp cornflour

Seasoning:

• 1/2T hoisin sauce

Method:

1. Heat some oil in a wok. Fry the diced onion bits till they become translucent.
2. Add in the garlic and fry till fragrant.
3. Add in the baby asparagus, and some water if it's too dry and the onion and garlic are turning brown too quickly.
4. When the baby asparagus is almost cooked, add the chicken cubes and fry till the chicken is cooked.
5. Add seasoning.
6. Thicken gravy with cornflour solution if necessary.
7. Dish and serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• Make sure baby asparagus is less than 1cm in length. The most tender part of baby asparagus is near the 'spear' so if possible, offer that to your tot.
• Cut chicken meat into small pieces.

Braised chicken wings in hoisin sauce

We had these braised chicken wings last night and Alicia happily ate up two midwings with rice and broccoli served on the side. She must be wondering where mummy has been hiding all the good food from her all this while... lol. Anyway, we've decided to start feeding her table food as long as it's not too unhealthy or extreme in taste. She's been rejecting her porridge so we figured she should be wanting to start on our food and since she's 20.5mths old already, I feel that it's alright that she stops eating baby food. I'm sure there will be some who don't agree that children should eat such food but I think it's really up to the individual. To each his own. My picky one eats - that's all that matters to me. :D

Braised chicken wings in hoisin sauce

Ingredients:

• 1kg frozen chicken wings (cost me only $4.50! and the taste is not compromised in any way)
• 4 slices ginger
• 2 bunches spring onion (cut into 1-2" length)
• 2 cloves shallots (sliced thinly)
• 2 cloves garlic (sliced and lightly smashed)
• enough water to cover my 1kg of chicken wings (it's ok for the tips to stick out a bit from the water)
• cornflour

Marinade for the chicken:

• Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• ground black pepper
• hua diao jiu

Seasoning (amt depends on how much chicken you have and water you add)

• 3-4T hoisin sauce
• 1T oyster sauce

Method:

1. Clean the chicken wings and remove the extremely fatty portions. Marinate chicken for a few hours (I did so overnight).
2. Heat some oil in a wok and fry the ginger till fragrant first.
3. Add the spring onion, shallots and garlic and fry till fragrant.
4. Add the chicken wings and sear both sides (I had to do this in two batches since my wings were fat and huge).
5. Pour enough water to cover the main body of the chicken wings, add the seasoning and bring to a boil.
6. Cover the wok and simmer for 40min on low-medium heat. Stir every now and then for even cooking.
7. Add a little cornflour solution to thicken the gravy.
8. Serve hot with hot fluffy rice.

For toddler's consumption:

• Remove the meat from the chicken wing for the tot if she is unable to handle the chicken wing on her own.

Teriyaki chicken... I finally got it right!

Yes, the title says it all. I finally got the teriyaki chicken the way I want it to taste on my second attempt. This time, I thrashed the previous recipe I used (since it didn't yield desired results), and tried out this one instead and bingo! :D Cooking sake's the key to the taste! lol...

Teriyaki chicken

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (about 340g) - deboned, visible fats removed (you may wish to keep the skin on, but I didn't today)

Poke the chicken meat then marinate it with:

• 2T brown sugar
• 1.5T light soy sauce
• 2T cooking sake
• 4T mirin

Method:

1. Heat oil in a pan.
2. Fry the marinated chicken thighs, reserve the marinade for later use. If you kept the skin on, fry the skin side of the chicken on medium heat till it's brown. If you didn't, just fry till the surface of the chicken is cooked (not reddish anymore).
3. Flip over and continue frying the chicken on low heat.
4. Pour the rest of the marinade into the pan and steam cook (cover the pan) till the chicken is thoroughly cooked through.
5. Remove the cover and cook chicken on low heat till the sauce has thickened (there shouldn't be a lot of sauce left).
6. Slice the chicken if desired.
7. Garnish and serve.

For toddler's consumption:

• Cut chicken into small pieces before serving.

Crockpot chicken stew

Cooked this on the day we went to Sentosa... just chopped everything up (except the chicken) and dumped them into the slow cooker and we were off to Sentosa and I didn't even need to worry about what if I don't have time to prepare dinner when we get home! :) Isn't the slow cooker a wonderful invention? lol...

Alicia's share (I shredded the chicken and cut up the mushrooms and lightly mashed up the carrots and potatoes):

You can serve the stew in this manner for the younger tots.

Crockpot chicken stew

Ingredients

• 3 chicken thighs (deskinned, deboned, visible fats removed)
• 5 big white button mushrooms (remove stem)
• 1/2 large white onion
• 3 thin sticks of leek
• 2 carrots
• 4 small potatoes
• 400-500ml water or stock
• cornflour

Seasoning (after cooking's done):

• light soy sauce
• ground white pepper

Marinade for chicken:

• oyster sauce
• Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• brown sugar
• ground black pepper
• cornflour

Method:

1. Marinate the chicken.
2. Peel the carrots and potatoes then cut them into small chunks.
3. Slice the mushrooms, leek and onion.
4. Place the carrot and potato chunks into the slow cooker first, followed by the leek and onion then the mushroom, chicken and water/stock.
5. Cook on low for 6hours.
6. Remove some potato chunks, mash and return to the stew .
7. Add in the cornflour to further thicken the stew if the stew's not thick enough.
8. Remove toddler's share before adding seasoning.
9. Serve hot with rice.

Alicia's response was rather lukewarm again... I think she may not like the taste of leek so the next time I shall try to remove it and add maybe tomatoes instead.. :D

For toddler's consumption:

• Serve as shown in picture above for young tots.
• For older tots more accustomed to larger chunks and more textures, simply cut the potato and carrot into smaller pieces and tear the chicken into bite-size pieces.
• If your tot is fond of mushrooms as well, cut the mushrooms into small bits to prevent choking.

Easy Chicken and Mushroom Crockpot Meal

I've been ill again (since last Friday but am almost fully recovered) so haven't been cooking much - and if I have, it's just simple, convenient food. Today since I had to bring Alicia to JG for class, I knew I won't have much time to prepare dinner since it's usually quite late by the time we get home and she finishes lunch and takes her nap. So I decided to prepare a crockpot meal and after pondering over what should go into the pot, I finally came up with this (served over cooked pasta):

Easy Chicken and Mushroom Crockpot Meal

Ingredients

• 3 skinned, deboned chicken thighs (visible fats removed)
• 10 white button mushrooms (my favourite!) (remove stem and cut into half)
• 2 leeks (cut the white segment into about 3cm-length parts)
• 1/2 large white onion (chop into large chunks)
• 1 can of cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can of cream of mushroom with roasted garlic

Method:

1. Place the leek and white onion into the crockpot first.
2. Arrange the chicken thighs on top of the leek and onion.
3. Place the mushrooms on top and pour the two cans of soup in (without diluting).
4. Cook on low for 8hours.
5. Serve over hot pasta with a generous topping of Italian herbs.

My first attempt at teriyaki chicken

Our simple dinner last night

I tried making my own teriyaki sauce for the first time yesterday... but it didn't turn out to be what I expected... rather disappointed... but it was still quite tasty - just that it didn't taste really like teriyaki sauce...

I was referring to this recipe for the sauce, but when I tasted it, I thought it was too salty so I started adding water since I saw another recipe which added water... maybe that was why it tasted different... hmmm... oh well. Will try again!

I referred to this recipe for the teriyaki chicken recipe.

Chicken Stew

Chicken Stew

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (skin removed, chopped)
• 1 carrot (cut into chunks)
• 1 big potato (cut into chunks)
• 1 small red onion (sliced)
• 1 clove garlic (minced)
• 1-2 cloves shallot (sliced finely)
• ground white pepper
• 1 tsp chicken Bovril
• 300-400ml water/ stock (or enough to cover the ingredients)
• 1-2T unsalted butter
• 1 can button mushrooms or fresh white button mushrooms (optional - I didn't add these today as there was too much food already!)

Marinade for chicken:

• about 2T Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade
• about 1T oyster sauce
• 1tsp sugar
• sesame oil
• ground black pepper

Method:

1. Clean the chicken and remove all visible fats.
2. Marinate the chicken overnight or at least for a few hours.
3. Melt the butter in a wok.
4. Fry the onions till limp. Add in the garlic and shallots and fry till fragrant.
5. Add in the chicken and fry for awhile.
6. Add in the carrot and potato chunks.
7. Add the water/stock (enough to cover the ingredients).
8. Bring the stew to a boil then simmer on low heat for 45min.
9. At the 20min mark, take out half the amount of potatoes and mash them then return them to the stew - optional step: only if you like the stew more pasty
10. Add the pepper and the chicken Bovril.
11. Continue to simmer the stew for another 25min or until stew thickens.
12. Dish and serve hot.

I'm a fan of chicken stew and my hubby says this dish just grows on him... the more he eats it, the more he finds it flavourful! Do try it! :)

And to make this a one-pot dish, just add some of your favourite greens and there you have it! My personal favourite vegetable to add to this stew is the Chinese cabbage (wongbok). 娃娃菜 is another alternative :) (Aside: Here's a recipe using 娃娃菜). A note about adding veggies to this dish: you'd probably want a less pasty dish with veggies around, so just don't go mash the potatoes and you may need a bit more water/stock. :)

For toddler's consumption:

• Simply cut the chicken, potatoes and carrots into smaller pieces!

Braised Chicken

I was trying to replicate the braised chicken that I like to eat from the food centre stall downstairs and it was, according to my hubby, 80% alike to the one sold by the stall. Personally, I felt that I could have put less dark soy sauce (coz the colour's much darker than the stall's). My hubby feels that I could have made it a little sweeter and was 'grumbling' about how I'm always so stingy with the amount of sugar I put in my cooking. Hehe...

Braised chicken

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (skin removed, chopped)
• 5 shallots - sliced thinly
• 3 cloves garlic - minced
• 3cm ginger - peeled and smashed
• 1/2 tablespoon dark soy sauce (I put 1 tablespoon but I think 1/2 is enough)
• sugar to taste (this is the part that my hubby said I could have done better)
• sesame oil
• cornflour
• water/stock

Seasoning (for the chicken):

• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons hua diao jiu
• 1 tablespoon chicken marinade
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• a few dashes of ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon cornflour

Method:

1. Clean chicken thighs and remove visible fats.
2. Marinate the thighs with the seasoning overnight preferably.
3. Heat some sesame oil in a wok.
4. Stir-fry the garlic, shallots and ginger in the wok.
5. Add in the chopped chicken thighs and fry till chicken is almost cooked.
6. Add water/stock to the wok, almost covering the chicken pieces.
7. Bring the water/stock to a boil on high heat then turn to low heat and simmer for 20min.
8. Add in the dark soy sauce and sugar to taste.
9. Add in cornflour solution to thicken gravy slightly.
10. Serve hot.

Chicken Skewers

Alright, I'm not sure whether this is considered a Chinese or Western dish. But heck. Who cares what it's supposed to be called when it tastes great and is superbly easy to make?

Chicken Skewers

Ingredients:

• 3 chicken thighs (deboned, skin removed)
• 1 medium red/yellow/green capsicum
• 1/2 can canned pineapple or fresh pineapple cut into cubes

Seasoning (for the chicken):

• chicken marinade
• BBQ sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• hua diao jiu
• ground black pepper

Method:

1. Remove visible fat from chicken thighs and cut into small pieces.
2. Marinate the chicken with the seasoning (overnight).
3. Cut the capsicum open, remove the the seeds and cut it into pieces (similar to the chicken).
4. Skewer the chicken and capsicum pieces, using satay sticks, alternating the two.
5. Pour leftover marinade on the skewers.
6. Preheat oven to 220degC.
7. Place skewers on baking tray and bake at 220degC for 10min.
8. Remove skewers and place on plate.
9. Serve together with pineapple slices/ cubes.

Baked chicken wings

This is definitely one of our all-time favourites! For that matter, I don't know anyone who doesn't like chicken wings! They are simply irresistable!

Anyway, I love these baked chicken wings not just because they taste marvellous. The main attraction about this dish is that it's super convenient to prepare, so on days that I feel lazy to whip up a feast, chicken wings are the way to go! Well, after yesterday's feast, today I'm taking a break from cooking the tedious stuff and here're the chicken wings we had for dinner!

Baked Chicken Wings

Ingredients:

• 10 medium-sized chicken wings (I don't like to use the huge ones as I feel that the meat is too thick and the marinade doesn't really get through all the way)

Seasoning (for chicken):

• chicken marinade


• sugar


• oyster sauce


• hua diao jiu


• sesame oil


• cornflour


• ground black pepper

Method:

1. Wash chicken wings thoroughly.


2. Marinate chicken with the seasoning (preferably overnight).


3. Preheat oven to 200degC.


4. Bake chicken wings at 200degC on 1 side for 15min.


5. Remove from oven and turn the chicken wings to bake on the other side.


6. Bake at 200degC for 15-20min.


7. Remove from oven and serve warm.


8. Do not leave the chicken wings in the oven too long after they are done as the heat will continue to cook the chicken wings and the meat may be tough as a result.

This is definitely a dish that full-time working moms should have on their list of dishes to cook as the chicken can be prepared the night before and just tossed into the oven the next day for dinner!