Baked Roast Herb Chicken with Roast Vegetables

BEWARE!!! - before you continue reading and wanting to try this recipes.. I have to warn you that this dish took bl_0_dy 3 HOURS TO BAKED!!! YES.. 3 WHOLE HOURS IN THE OVEN!!!!.. and its not even a full chicken (but 3/4 chicken cut into quarters..) and I have to drizzled it wif virgin olive oil like every 15MINS!!! Was like swearing of not ever gonna make it again..but HB loves it soo much he kept complimenting it ...and gobbled it all down!! So yeah..worth the effort and heehe guess this will be on dinner menu every now and then! lol..:P so yeah.. for those brave souls out there... SCROLL DOWN....

BAKED ROAST HERB CHICKEN WITH ROAST VEGETABLES - serves 3-4

Ingredients:

* Whole chicken (you can either cut it into 4 pieces like I did or just have it as a whole)
* 12 cloves of garlic (just peeled and smash it)
* 4 big onions (peeled and cut into 4)
* 3 big carrots (chopped abt 2 cm)
* 1/4 pumpkin (chopped into cubes)
* 2 long eggplant (chopped into 2 cm)
* Optional: Celery, brocolli, cauliflower or other veggies up to your taste
* Salt
* Grounded black pepper
* 3 T of honey
* Olive oil
* Garlic herbs
* Chilli powder/crushed dry chillies
* Thyme
* Rosemary
* Dry parsley


I did told you its not a simple recipe... didnt I.. hehe.. but cmon.. look at this nicely roasted chicken... hmm.... tempt your buds huh!!! so scroll down...



Method:

1) Marinade the chicken with all the seasoning ingredients.
2) Brush it with olive oil and honey
3) Put all the vegetable around, over, under the chicken and drizzled it with olive oil and honey, sprinkled some salt and black pepper
4) Baked it under 230 degrees celcius oven.. for 3 HOURS!!! covered with aluminiumfoil poked with holes for the first 2 hours. Be sure to drizzled it with olive oil every 15 MINUTES!! and turning it around once. To get the burn and crunch effect, remove aluminium foil the last 40 minutes.
5) ENJOY YOUR LONG BUT WORTH IT EFFORT... AND MAKE SURE ASK YOUR HB OR CHILDREN TO TRULY COMPLIMENT YOU OR THROW THIS DISH AT THEIR FACE.. HEHE.. JUST KIDDING!!!


Note: I served my baked chicken with smashed roasted potatoes and uses the drizzled leftover and made it into a gravy.. damn delicious !!!

(I know what some of you all thinking.. STOP IT!!!!)

Minced Pork sauted with egg

This is my 'simply created' recipes that can be cooked in less than 10mins. Okayyy.. dun judge the picture.. i know it looked like 'CRAP' hahaha... but believed me it tasted niceee.. just trust me ok.. oh well.. here is the recipe for those who thinks that "you shouldnt judge the book by its cover'... :P

Minced Pork sauted with Egg. - serves 4

Ingredients:

* 250g minced lean pork

* 2 eggs

* garlic (minced) - up to your taste, i like to add a bit more

* small red onion (sliced thinly) - also according to your taste

* 1/2 T oyster sauce

* 2 T soya sauce (more or less, I dont actualy use any measurement)

* 1/2 t salt

* 1 t pepper

* 1 T sweet soya sauce

* 1/2 T thick caramel sauce

* 1 t Sesame seed oil

* 1/2 T chinese white cooking wine

* 1 t cornflour (mix with 1 T water)

* Spring onion (for garnish)

* 1/4 cup water

Method:

1) Fry garlic and onion until lightly browned. Add minced pork, fry for 1 minute

2) add all the sauce ingredient, add water, stir until a bit boiling

3) add eggs , stir until mix

4) lastly add the cornflour and stir.

5) garnish with spring onion and served.

Note: for those that likes a bit of spice, you can add cut chilly to cooking.

Chinese Fried Rice hawkers style..

I loved fried rice.. and if you asked me what types of fried rice, I would answer all types.... Im so lucky that in Malaysia, we have so manyy different types of fried rice.. so far, Ive tasted Tom Yum Fried Rice, Thai Fried Rice (yes, there's a different in Tom Yum & Thai Fried rice apparently and some places have a different version.. *scratch head*..), Kampung style Fried Rice, Chinese Fried Rice, Pattaya style Fried Rice, Salted Fish Fried Rice, etc etc.. the lists are endless... and I LOVED EM' ALL...!!!

So yeah, part rice is part of my regular menu whenever Im lazy to cook or have leftover steamed rice from the night before. Today, Ill share my Chinese Fried rice's recipe (hawker's style - A hawker centre or food centre (simplified Chinese: 小贩中心 or 熟食中心) is the name given to open-air complexes in Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore housing many stalls that sell a variety of inexpensive food. )... enjoy...

CHINESE FRIED RICE - serves 4

Ingredients:

* 4 small bowls of Leftover steamed white rice (otherwise, cooked steam rice but dont put too much water)
* 4 Fishcake/Fishballs (sliced into small pieces)
* Longbean (sliced into small pieces)
* Garlic (about 2 T) - minced
* Red small onion (about 2 T) - minced
* Chinese sausage (lap chiong) or BBQ pork meat (Char Siew)
* 1/2 cup of shrimps
* Soya sauce
* Salt/pepper
* a bit of water
* Oil
* 2 eggs (stir in bowl)


METHODS:-

1) Fry eggs until cooked, put aside. Fry chinese sausage/BBQ pork meat until cook, put aside.
2) Fry long beans until half cooked, put aside. Fry fishcake until golden browned, set aside.
3) Fry garlic and onion until golden browned, add rice, mixed well, add water, add eggs, chinese sausage, long beans and fishcakes, mixed well.
4) Add soya sauce, salt, pepper, taste, mixed well, fry under high fire for 2-3 mins.
5) Take out and served with sliced cucumber and extra sunny side Fry egg.

Banana Pancakes served with Vanilla Ice Cream drizzled with Hersley Chocolate sauce ... hmm...

I decided to make Pancakes for Brunch today cos its Sunday and so happen we're staying at home.. Its been quite a while since I had pancakes for brunch and was craving for it badly last nite. Anyway, heres the recipe for that nice fluffy soft Banana fillings Pancakes, I served mine with extra bananas, Vanilla ice cream and drizzled with Hersley Chocolate sauce on top.... ready..... :P

The icecream has melted already before I can take a good pic.. but oh well, still good!!

Banana Pancakes - serves 4 (8 pieces)

Ingredients:

* 1 & 1/2 cups of self raisings flour
* 1/4 t salt
* 1 T baking powder
* 1.5T sugar
* 1 cup milk
* 1 large egg
* 1.5t vanilla essence
* 2 T butter (melted)
* 2 whole bananas (sliced into small pieces)



METHODS:-

1) Mix all the dry ingredients separately in a bowl
2) Mix all the wet ingredients in a different bowl (eggs, milk, vanilla essence) and stir well
3) Pour the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring gently till all mix
4) Pour the melted butter into the batter and stirring for all to just combined.
5) Lastly add the sliced bananas into the batter
6) Pour batter about 2 spoon each making a large circle and cook until all holes started to pop and flip over till just lightly browned.
7) Served with butter on top, vanilla ice cream, extra bananas pieces and drizzled it with maple syrup or honey or in my case, i drizzled it with hersley chocolate sauce....
8) Enjoy a mouthful of pancakes with icecream, close your eyes and go hmmmmm........ (*giggles*)

Crispy Fried Chicken ala Leni (KFC style) :P

Of all the food that I loves (and i loves so many different types of food), I must said that Fried Chicken is definitely in the top 5 of my most favourite food.. and I loves all the different type of fried chicken. In Indonesia, there's just so many version of fried chicken and I loves most of them.. *giggles* anyway, here's the most simplest version of the basic fried chicken that I usually cook for the family.

CRISPY FRIED CHICKEN

Ingredients:

* 1/2 chicken pieces (cut into small size)
* Oil for deep frying
* 2 egg whites



Marinade ingredients:

* 1 t pepper
* 1 t salt
* 2 cloves garlic (minced extra fine)
* 1 t mixed spices powder
* 50 g maizena flour
* 1/4 t chilli powder
* 20 g flour


METHODS:-

1) Marinade the pieces of chicken in the marinade ingredients, mix well, put aside for at least 1 hour.
2) Heat oil in deep frying pan, coat chicken with egg white then flour, fry till golden brown under medium heat.
3) Serves hot and crunchy with chilli sauce or tomato sauce.

Indonesian recipe - Soto Ayam Ambengan

This is one of my hb's favourite's indonesian dishes. My mum makes it the best and I still cant compete with hers but since my mum cant cook it for us.. I have to learn to cook it, it still tasted pretty good hehe.. except not as original as hers..

In Indonesia, we have so many different type of soto dishes. There's soto daging madura (my favourite..), soto kudus, soto bandung, soto betawi, etc, etc... anyway, here's a description of soto according to the wilkipedia:-

Soto, sroto, tauto or coto is a common dish to be found in various regional variations of Indonesian cuisine. It is a soup mainly composed of broth, meat and vegetables. The meats that are most commonly used are chicken and beef, but there are also variations with offal, mutton, water buffalo meat and pork. The soup is usually accompanied by rice or compressed rice cakes (ketupat or buras). Sotos are commonly differentiated by the meat ingredient in them, e.g. soto ayam (chicken soto) and soto daging (beef soto). Offal is a very common ingredient in soto, and is considered as a delicacy: the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe) and the intestines are all eaten.

This is my version of soto, which is the soto ayam ambengan and is typically can be found almost in all parts of Indonesia.

SOTO AYAM AMBENGAN - serves 4

Ingredients :

* 1/2 chicken

* 2 stalk of lemongrass stalk

* 5 pieces of lime leaves (jeruk purut) - smashed

* 1 litre water

* 2 t salt

* 30g dry shrimps (fried and blend till smooth)

* 3 small red onion (minced)

Spices to be blend together:

* 4 cloves garlic

* 2 cm yellow ginger

* 1/2 t lengkuas

* 1 t pepper

* 4 pieces of kemiri

Compliment ingredients:

* 200 g so hun (soak with hot water for 5 mins)

* 2 stalk of spring onion

* 2 potatoes (cut in small cubes - fried until browned)

* some shallots

* Beansprout - boiled

* Shredded chicken

* Cabbage - cut thinly and boiled

* 4 boiled eggs

* 1 lime (for garnish)

* sweet soya sauce

* chilli sauce

METHOD:

1) Fry onions, lemongrass stalk, lime leaves for 1 min, add the blended spices, fry for 2 mints, add chicken, lightly fry for another 1 min, add water, boiled until chicken is soft (about 30mins)

2) Take chicken out, shred chicken, leave aside.

3) Served with all the compliment ingredients, pour hot soup over it, garnish with shallots, spring onions, lime juices, sweet soya sauce and hot chilli sauce.

Easy Stir Fry Mixed Vegetables

This dishes is extremely simple to make and Im pretty sure any desperate housewives out there can whip up this dishes in a split seconds.. but just for sharing..

Stir Fry Vegetables - serves 4

Ingredients:

* 1 cup Brocolli (cut in small)
* 1 cup Celeries (cut in diagonal long about 5cm)
* 1/2 cup Cauliflower (cut in small)
* 1 Big onion (cut in med size cubes)
* 1 t garlic (minced)
* 2 T oyster sauce
* pepper for taste
* 2 T oil
* 1 t soya sauce
* 1 t cornstarch (mixed with 2 T of water)


METHOD:-

1) Fry garlic in hot wok until slightly browned, add in onion and fry for less than 1 min.
2) Add brocoli and cauliflower (celeries to be add in last as you want that crunchy not soggy taste of celery)
3) Add oyster sauce, pepper, soya sauce and mix well over veggies. Add celery, add the cornstarch mixed with water.
4) Cover with lid for about 1 min to let the sauce simmer.
5) Turn off fire and Served!!

Substitution of vegetable:

any types of vegetable can be used for this recipe. I usually add some carrots for nice colour combination.

Gung Bao Chicken With Dry Chillies

This is one of my favourite dish to make and also a quick one if you want to whip a meal in less than 30mins without fail. Back when I was still living in Perth, theres this one chinese restaurant located in Kardinya, Perth near my house where I reckoned they served the best Gung Bao Dry Chilly Squid... yummm my favourite, very thick black sauce and I liked to asked for my Gung Bao dish to be cook extra spicy... and since cleaning squid is not really my fancy, I did this version in chicken instead.

Some interesting facts about this dishes...(that you might like to know)

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History:

Gung bao dishes are traditionally attributed to the private kitchen of a certain Duke of Bao in ancient Sichuan, whose personal chef was reigning master of gourmet cuisine in his time. It involves first scorching dried red chillies in searing hot oil until they are almost black, then tossing in the main ingredients to 'explode-fry' (bao chao) them quickly in pungent hot oil, and finishing it all off with a savoury sauce.

Gung Bao Chicken - serves 4

Ingredients:

* 1/2 kg of Chicken meat (thigh or breast fillet) - cut in cubes

* 10 dry red chillies (soaked first before cooking)

* 3 cloves garlic (minced)

* 6-8 slices ginger (thinly sliced)

* 3 Spring onion leaves (cut about 4cm)

* 2 T vegetable oil

* crushed peppercorn (about 10 round pieces)

Marinade for Chicken meat - 20mins

* 1 T chinese wine or mirin
* 1 t soy sauce
* 1 t sesame seed oil
* 1/2 t sugar
* 1/2 t corn starch (dissolved in 1 T water)


Sauce to mix:

* 3 T sweet thick soy sauce (thick caramel sauce)
* 1 t white vinegar
* 1 T chinese wine or mirin
* 1 t sesame seed oil
* 1 t salt
* 1 t cornflour dissolved in 1/4 cup water


METHOD:-

1) Place chicken in bowl and pour marinade ingredients over. Mix well with finger (or spoon if you're too grossed out) and leave for 20mins covered in fridge
2) Combine 'sauce to mix' ingredients in bowl and mix well.
3) Heat oil until hot, fry dry chillies, peppercorn, garlic and ginger for 1-2 minutes or until slightly browned.
4) Add chicken and fry quickly until browned/cooked (about 3-5 mins)
5) Add sauce to mix until even and cover with lids. Cooked until sauce is marinade well over chicken.
6) Add spring onion last and served over warm cooked white rice... hmmm.. enjoy!!!



Ps: Dont be alarmed by the long list of ingredients, trust me, its easier than it looked like on writing..!!

Something to share..

Hi all,

Welcome to my world of culinary delight's blogpage where I will be sharing my recipes and photos just for the joy of sharing. The recipes posted on this blogsite will be a mixed of different cultures and heritages as well as some hand me down recipes from my mum who is a great cook and also my mother in law whose also another great cook and oh.. some of my own created version recipe that has been tested through trial and error and by poor hb whom I forced to be my guinea pig after each 'new created ala me' recipes... *giggles*...

I do hope my passion in cooking and baking will helps inspires those to have the same passion as I am.. ohh and also.. this blogsite is dedicated to my lovely lil sis who's always begging me to email her some of my cooking recipes and who has insisted to have the photos of each dishes and a step by step method for dummy cook! *lol* so Sis.. this is for you okay!!! hope it'l be of use to you one day when you become a desperate housewife like me.. *big cheese grin followed by lol giggles*...