One of the earliest dishes I tried out at Japanese restaurants was the Chicken Teriyaki. Lightly grilled and basted with the mildly sweet teriyaki sauce, the tender pieces of chicken always go well with steamed rice. Though I’ve seen the teriyaki marinade being sold at the supermarket shelves, I never got around to buying them until a few months ago – now that I have an oven at home.

I never knew that it was so easy to prepare a dish of oven-roasted chicken teriyaki to perfection but that would be a recipe for another day to share with you. For today, let me share with you what I attempted for the first time which resulted in a thumbs up from my wife

Stir-fried boneless chicken with capsicums in teriyaki sauce may be a long name to pronounce but definitely short and easy to cook. Ingredients are simple and cooking time is minimal. I do think that this dish would be better if a couple of slices of onion are included but you won’t be disappointed even if you don’t have it. The capsicums themselves will give a slight robust taste to this dish, not to mention, a crunch to the otherwise tender pieces of chicken.

For the chicken, I chose the whole leg of chicken, completely deboned with skin removed. Breast meat may not be suitable as it is less tender. The skin is removed so that the dish will turn out less oily. Moreover, it would not be suitable to stir fry the chicken with meat intact. If you prefer to have the chicken skin on, roasting would be a better option. I never knew chicken teriyaki was so simple, and this recipe could even withstand the toughest restaurant reviews – it’s that delicious

This is my quick recipe for Stir Fried Boneless Chicken with Capsicums in Teriyaki Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 whole leg of chicken (deboned, skin removed and cut into bite sizes)
• 1 capsicum (julienned)
• 3 cloves garlic (chopped)
• 1 ½ tablespoons cooking oil (peanut, mixed or palm oil)
• 100 ml hot water

Marinade

• 2 teaspoons light soya sauce
• A couple of dashes of white pepper powder
• 1 teaspoon of corn flour

Seasoning

• 1 tablespoon of thick teriyaki sauce
• 2 teaspoons light soya sauce
• A couple of dashes of black pepper powder to taste
• Salt to taste

Method

Season chicken with marinade for about ½ hour before cooking.

Heat wok on high heat till smoky. Add oil, garlic and chicken. Stir briskly. Add capsicums when chicken meat is seared.

Add seasoning and water and bring to boil.

Cook chicken thoroughly and dish up when gravy is reduced.

Serve hot with steamed white rice.

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StirFried Boneless Chicken with Capsicums in Teriyaki Sauce

When I was an undergraduate studying in the UK, you will always find me buying chicken wings almost on a weekly basis because it’s one of the cheapest chicken parts available. Apparently, for non-Asians, chicken wings are mainly for the grill rather than stir-fries. So, it has lesser demand compared to the chicken breast or drumstick.

Here in Kuala Lumpur, and probably other parts of Malaysia, grilled chicken wings are commonly found in Chinese coffeeshop eateries. Amongst the most famous is Wong Ah Wah Grilled Chicken Wings located at Jalan Alor Peel. But today’s post is not about Wong Ah Wah’s Grilled Chicken Wings. Today’s post is about how I finally started to use my brand new oven to cook something for myself whilst looking forward to sharing the same with all of you.

As always, I prefer something  simple and doable. So, this oven-grilled chicken wings recipe only requires ingredients which you can easily find and are likely to be sitting in your kitchen and fridge right now.  Feel free to experiment with the marinade as each person’s taste buds vary. Cooking time needs to be adjusted depending on the size of the chicken wings used and the portions to be cooked. A peek into the oven every 10 minutes to check for doneness would be recommended.

This is my recipe for Oven-Grilled Chicken Wings

Ingredients

• 5 chicken wings (medium size, cleaned and pat dry)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

Marinate

• 1 – 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
• 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 3 tablespoons of ginger juice
• 1 teaspoon light soya sauce
• 1 teaspoon cornflour

Method

Place chicken wings in a bowl and mix well with marinating ingredients. Cover and allow to marinade in the fridge for at least 5 hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 150 degrees celcius.

Drizzle baking pan with olive oil before placing chicken wings on the pan. Sprinkle some black pepper powder over the chicken wings (optional).

Bake the chicken wings for 30 minutes or till cooked. To check whether the chicken wings are thoroughly cooked, take a sharp knife / chopstick and pierce through the most fleshy part of the wings till it reaches the bone. If clear juice runs out, it is cooked. If not, cook further.

Once chicken wings are cooked, remove juice from pan. Change oven setting to top grille at 200 degrees celcius and grille chicken wings till desired brownness.

Serve hot.

If desired, the juice which has been removed from the pan can be reduced in a cooking pan with a little cornflour.

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Oven-Grilled Chicken Wings

I’m a tea lover, and would try anything that is made from or with tea. The aroma of tea brings out the freshness of the dish or dessert. It is distinct and definitely exotic as tea is not a common ingredient in food cooking, except perhaps Bak Kut Teh, but that is something else altogether because Bak Kut Teh has more to do with herbs rather than tea.

Everyone knows the individual goodness of tea and garlic. This dish has the combination of both tea and garlic, which gives a tea lover a kick in taste. Chicken drumsticks are slowly simmered to absorb the perfect aroma of tea and garlic. What you get is a uniquely flavoured tender pieces of chicken drumstick fit for the entire family!

This is my recipe for Tea Braised Chicken

Ingredients

• Chicken drumsticks (big sized) – 4 pcs
• 2 cloves of Garlic (chopped)
• 6 cloves of whole roasted garlic (they come with dark brown skin, retain the skin)
• Lipton Tea Bag (or any tea bag) – 2 teabags
• Sesame oil – 1 tsp
• Light soya sauce – 1/2 cup
• 750ml water
• Coriander leaves for garnishing

Method

Wash, discard chicken skin and cut chicken drumstick into 2 portions. Marinade with some salt and sesame oil. Set aside.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in a stainless steel pot, saute chopped garlic till fragrant. Add water & bring to boil.

Add light soya sauce, bring to boil.

Add 6 cloves of roasted garlic with skin intact. Simmer for 5 mins.

Add in chicken drumsticks, simmer for 5 mins.

Add in tea bags, simmer for approx 30 mins in low heat.

Simmer until gravy is reduced. Dish up & garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve hot with steaming white rice.

This recipe is brought to you by our Guest Chef Bits of Taste. Bits of Taste finds herself as a blessed Mummy with a prince & a loving husband. Being blessed with creative skills in the advertising industry, Bits of Taste seeks to recreate artistic looking dishes for her family. See more of her creative pieces at Bits of Taste

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Tea Braised Chicken

Shredded Chicken Porridge is sold by many hawkers in Malaysia, usually by those who also sell Pork Porridge. Oh, by the way, in Malaysia we call congee as porridge. I understand that in the West, porridge refers more to soft food made by boiling oatmeal or other grains. Here, rice is used instead.

Anyway, back to our Shredded Chicken Porridge. When I prepared this batch (which gave me about 5 rice bowl-fulls), I actually worked harder to get a stronger tasting porridge than usual. On that morning, I bought 3 legs of chicken and got it deboned. I boiled the bones for about 1 hour and used the stock to cook the porridge. I only used meat from 1 leg of chicken and kept the other 2 legs for other use. If you are not keen to spend the extra work boiling chicken stock, you can use plain water instead.

The usual condiments to Shredded Chicken Porridge are ginger, chopped spring onions and fried shallots. Just sprinkle them liberally and add a drop or two of sesame oil and you will get a really nice and homely tasting porridge. By the way, if you prefer to have a smooth consistency, I would suggest that you first soak the rice for 15 minutes and drain before cooking it. Once cooked, and before adding anything else into the porridge, switch off the flame and allow the porridge to cool down for about 15 minutes. Then add some water and reboil whilst stirring. You should get really smooth porridge then.

This is my recipe for Shredded Chicken Porridge.

Ingredients

• 1/2 rice bowl measure of rice (rinsed and soaked in water for 15 minutes)
• 1 leg of chicken
• 3 cm ginger (julienned – slice as thinly as you can)
• chopped spring onions
• 4 shallots (sliced thinly)
• 1.5 litres chicken stock

Seasoning

• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt or to taste
• 2 teaspoons light soya sauce
• White pepper powder to taste
• A few drops of sesame oil per serving bowl

Method

Bring chicken stock to boil. Add leg of chicken and allow to cook until just done. Don’t over cook the chicken or the meat will become tough. Remove leg of chicken and set aside to cool. Shred the meat with finger tips.

Place rice in pot. Add chicken stock and bring to boil. Once boiling, reduce heat to simmer and stir occasionally until rice grains are cooked (puffed up or broken). Switch off heat and close lid and allow to stand for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, fry the shallots till golden brown and set aside the fried shallots.

Reheat porridge and add some water whilst stirring. Bring to boil until you get a smooth consistency. Add light soya sauce and salt to taste.

Pour onto serving bowls, top up with white pepper powder, sesame oil, some shredded chicken, ginger, spring onions and fried shallots. Serve hot.

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Shredded Chicken Porridge

This herbal chicken soup is sweet. Most herbal chicken soup can be bitter and kids do not like them. This soup, however, is sweet due to the ingredients used. With a combination of American dried fig, red dates, honey dates, gojiberries, dried longan, pei ji and yuk chuk , you can be assured of a sweet tasting soup filled with goodness. This amount of herbs used in this soup are estimates only and do not come under any special recipe from the chinese medicine store.

The herbs used are from top (clockwise) – red dates, dried longans, american dried figs, pei ji, honey dates and yuk chuk. Kei chee is not shown in the picture but you can see them floating on the 1st picture above.

This is my wife’s recipe for Herbal Chicken Soup

Ingredients

• 2 leg of chicken
• 700 ml boiling water
• Salt to taste

Herbs

• 2 pieces American dried fig
• 2 pieces honey dates
• 4 pieces red dates
• 6 to 8 pieces dried longan
• Gojiberries or kei chee (a small handful)
• 5 grammes Pei ji
• 5 grammes Yuk Chuk

Method

Clean the chicken legs and pour boiling water over it. This will help to remove some unpleasant “smell”.

Bring water in double boiler to boil. Place herbs on bottom of a double boiler and place chicken on top of the herbs. Add the 700 ml boiling water and cover lid. Double boil for 3 hours. Add salt to taste before serving.

If you want the soup to be healthier, you might want to remove the chicken skin prior to cooking.

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Double-Boiled Sweet Herbal Chicken Soup

You can give me Curry Chicken with Potatoes anytime and I will gladly savour it. It’s great when eaten with rice and no less delicious when bread is dipped into it. There are many types of Curry Chicken and this is more of a crude home recipe which I experimented with from time to time.

I have always wanted to be able to cook Curry Chicken just like how the Indians do but will just have to make do with a more “Chinese” flavoured recipe for now. I think I will have to pester my Indian colleague for her home recipes.

Meanwhile, this is my own recipe for Curry Chicken with Potatoes

Ingredients

• 500 grammes chicken (thighs are great, chopped into medium pieces, remove skin if you want the curry to be less oily)
• 3 potatoes (skinned, cut into chunks)
• 2 large onions (chopped)
• 5 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1 litre water / fresh milk
• ½ cup curry leaves
• Salt and sugar to taste

Spices

• 2 heaped teaspoons meat curry powder
• 1 heaped teaspoon chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 2 pieces cardamon
• 1 piece star anise

Method

Heat oil in wok and fry potatoes till golden brown. Remove, drain and set aside.

Mix curry powder and chilli powder together in a bowl. Add water gradually whilst stirring to make a thick paste.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a wok / pot and fry onions on medium heat till translucent. Add mustard seeds and continue stirring for 1 minute to bring out the aroma. Add chicken pieces and stir well till chicken is cooked on the outside. Increase to high heat and add water / fresh milk and allow to boil. Just before boiling point, add potatoes, cardamom and star anise, stir well and reduce to medium heat.

Allow to simmer for 30 minutes to an hour (as you start simmering, add sufficient water / milk to cover the top most part of chicken). Add curry leaves, sugar and salt to taste 10 minutes before serving.

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Curry Chicken with Potatoes

Last weekend, I was looking at my bottle of Hoi Sin Sauce and wondering what I shall do with it. With 3 chicken drumsticks available in the fridge, I decided to give the chicken a marinade and try out something new. It turned out tasty, albeit slightly charred due to the frying process. I have a feeling that the sugar content in the Hoi Sin Sauce caused the quick charring of the chicken. Perhaps, I did not coat the chicken enough with corn flour.

Anyway, the use of garlic gives the chicken a unique fragrance (unless you find garlic repulsive, which some do) which my daughter enjoyed very much. I had never seen her eating so much meat at one go! I would recommend this dish as a good finger / snack food or as an accompaniment to either rice or pasta.

This is my recipe for Garlic Hoi Sin Chicken

Ingredients

• 3 large chicken drumsticks (deboned)
• 4 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
• Oil for deep / pan frying

Marinade

• 2 tablespoons Hoi Sin Sauce
• 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon of white pepper powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of light soya sauce

Method

Clean chicken and pat dry with kitchen towel / napkin. Marinade chicken for at least 3 hours. The longer the better.

Before frying, dust chicken with corn flour. Heat up oil and deep fry or pan fry the chicken using high heat till browned. Remove from oil and set aside.

Cut fried chicken into bite / smaller pieces. If chicken is still not cooked (reddish flesh), return chicken into oil and fry for another minute or two. As the chicken is now cut into smaller pieces, any uncooked bits will be cooked in a short period of time. If you fry it too long, it will not be juicy or tender anymore.

Clean the wok and heat up 1/2 tablespoon of cooking oil. Add garlic and saute till aromatic (but before turning brown) – this should take a couple of seconds only. Add chicken, stir well to coat chicken with garlic and dish up when garlic starts to brown.

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Garlic Hoi Sin Chicken

Ayam Sioh (Chicken in Spicy Tamarind Sauce) is a variant of Duck Sioh (Itik Sioh). This dish is essentially a sour and sweet based stew with a strong hint of tamarind juice (asam jawa) and ketumbar (coriander) spice. I have a feeling that this dish is a Baba-Nyonya Peranakan dish but I stand corrected. Anyway, I was introduced to this dish by my mother-in-law a couple of years back and took a liking to it due to its appetizing taste.

Thankfully, my lovely wife has inherited her mother’s recipe and over the weekend, decided to cook up this dish for Father’s Day lunch. We could not finish the dish as we used 1 whole chicken but we are not complaining because the longer this dish keeps, the tastier it gets. For better results, duck is preferred as the meat is “tougher” to withstand the marinate using tamarind juice. If you can’t find duck, try using “village / kampong” chicken or free-range chicken.

This is my mother-in-law / wife’s recipe for Ayam Sioh (Chicken in Spicy Tamarind Sauce)

Ingredients
1 whole chicken (approximately 1.5 to 2kgs, chopped into large pieces)

Marinade (blend together)

• 200 grammes shallots
• 3 tablespoons ketumbar (coriander) powder
• 225 grammes tamarind (asam jawa) mixed with 350 ml water (squeeze the juice and remove tamarind seeds)
• 10 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 tablespoons dark soya sauce
• 1 heaped teaspoon white pepper powder

Method

Wash chicken pieces thoroughly. Marinade chicken overnight or for at least 10 hours.

Transfer chicken and marinate to heavy bottomed aluminium saucepan and boil for 20 minutes over a moderate heat.

Turn the chicken pieces, reduce heat to low and boil for another 20 to 30 minutes or until chicken is very tender.

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Ayam Sioh (Chicken in Spicy Tamarind Sauce)