Chinese New Year is not officially over yet. We celebrate it for 15 days, until the 15th day of the lunar calender. So I am still entertaining my guests. Not that I have a lot of guests, though.
Last week, we invited the neighbours – not many, only a few, over for some dinner as we have not had a chance to really socialize.
Today, I invited my lady friends from my Women and Young Women Division to have our meeting in my house and also an excuse to celebrate and what else….. to eat.
Last week we had roast chicken Chinese style.
It was served with my signature chilli sauce and some vegetables.
For desserts, we had shop-bought ones and with a few fruits, it looks presentable. So sometimes we do not have to sweat in the kitchen. Shop bought ones are better, if you are not such a good baker or you are short of time.
For today’s lunch, I cooked braised chicken, well, actually turkey. The reason being that when I went shopping yesterday in an Asian supermarket, the queue for the chicken was too long so I decided to shop at another supermarket. We wanted to go to Asda to get our stuff, but along the way we came across Tesco and we decided to pop in. There were chicken thighs and turkey thighs. So I decided on the turkey as it came boneless, skinless and diced, while the chicken was boneless, skinless and not diced. This time I decided to take the easy option.
We had French beans fried with prawns (for recipe, click here ) and a vegetable stir fry.
As there were vegetarians around, I opted for Quorn Chicken pieces and I just prepared the base for the turkey and took off some to cook the vegie option. So having vegetarians around was not an issue.
The general consensus was they enjoyed the food. I enjoyed it too. This round was more tasty than last Sunday’s. So I am really pleased.
Here is the recipe for the Braised Chicken/Turkey
The original recipe calls for chicken meat. I used chicken thigh. I noticed that when I cooked the turkey thighs. the turkey gave out quite a lot of moisture and I did not use that much water. So you really need to be a bit diligent and look out for such thing.
Braised Chicken/Turkey with garlic, ginger and shallots
Quick Info
Serves: 6-8
Difficulty: moderate
Cost: ££
Time: 10 mins to prepare, 30 mins to cook
Ingredients
1.2 kg Chicken, cut into serving size, or 8 chicken thighs. You might want to remove the skin.
Chopped finely:
3 Shallots or 2 banana shallots
3 cloves Garlic
2 Red chillies, de-seeded, if you prefer less heat
2 cm Ginger
2 tbsp Tow chneow – preserved soy beans – pounded + 2 tbsp of the juice
Marinade:
2 tbsp Oyster sauce
1 tbsp Dark soy sauce
2 tsp Light soy sauce
1 tsp Sesame oil
¼ tsp White pepper powder
2 tbsp Shao shing wine or cooking wine
1tsp Sugar or to taste
Salt to taste
3 tbsp Cooking oil
2 tbsp Corn flour mixed with water.
Garnish:
Spring onion, cut to 2cm length
Chinese celery ( K’hin Chye), cut to 2 cm length
Method:
- Marinade the chicken for at least about ½ hour or overnight
- Heat the oil in a large pot with a cover or a wok.
- Fry the chopped ingredients till lightly browned
- Add in the preserved soy beans and fry till fragrant
- Add in the chicken pieces and stir fry till it changes colour
- Add in about 300ml of water – just enough to cover the chicken. Bring to the boil and simmer till the chicken is cooked, about 15 to 20 minutes. You will need to simmer longer for about 20 minutes if you are using whole chicken thighs. Make sure to test by pricking the thickest part with a skewer or fork and the juice runs clear.
- Adjust seasoning to taste and add more water if you prefer more
- Thicken sauce with corn flour
- Dish out, garnish and serve.
