Steamed Drunken Chicken Wings with Asparagus & Wolfberries

Steamed Drunken Chicken Wings with Asparagus & Wolfberries, originally uploaded by AuRoRiN & MoOoK.

something quick and easy. result of yet another daily 'invention test'.
fragrance from the wine, ginger, chicken oil and shallot oil is always nice on a cold day.
soup will be a nice blend of veg & chicken taste to it.

ingredients:

• 5-6 chicken wings
• 7-8 stalks of asparagus (skinned, chopped to halves)
• ginger finely shredded
• wolfberries (handful, soaked washed, cleaned)
• fragrant oil (shallots oil)
• pepper
• chinese cooking wine
• salt
• fish sauce/ soy sauce (couple of teaspoon, to taste, optional)

 recipe:

• marinate chicken by rubbing in salt, pepper, fragrant oil (i actually also added just some fish sauce for the 'smell') for about 15-20 min
• put steamer to boil at high heat
• place chopped asparagus at bottom of plate/tray
• add approx enough wine to level of asparagus
• add part of ginger and all of wolfberries to wine
• place wings on top of asparagus, add rest of ginger and wolfberries on top of wings
• steam at high heat for 20 minutes (make sure chicken is fully thawed before steaming. how to know if its cooked? the bones wld have turned white and the bloody parts turned dark)
• drizzle fish sauce/soy sauce (optional) should soup require more 'taste'

Hainanese Chicken Rice

when i was little, i'd get a chicken drumstick on my birthday, even when my folks fell on hard times (i remember when i was about 8.....my mom sat me down with a single plate of chicken rice with drumstick in a coffeeshop. she'd to pay $2.50 compared to just $1.50 for a normal serving of chicken rice then. when i asked if she'd want some, she insisted that it's all for me).

years later i'd a brief stint helping out at my uncle's chicken rice stall in jurong west. not that i was cooking/chopping up chicken, i was simply packing up food, sending out/retrieving plates to/from tables and packing lil balloons of chilli sauce. my uncle never talked about how he went about preparing his chicken (cos there was simply too many competitors in the very same market he was operating from) but i got to hear what people like about their chicken rice and got acquainted with the smell throughout the cooking (i think it's an important experiential lesson as the smell changes throughout the preparation process). unfortunately, he had to wind up his business due to a stroke a few years later. it was only many years on, with much prodding did he tell me how 'white' chicken is done (admittedly i was quite disappointed cos i was actually more keen on knowing how he did his bestselling roasted chicken instead).

avery turned 1 today and while she may be too young to have a drumstick all to herself, i'm glad to serve up something familiar (dadi & mami can have the drumsticks!). of cos i do not have with me the big vats you can find in stalls but i do have a medium 'pong-pong' tall steamer which wld have to do for the occasion. i did get the chicken and chilli sauce right in this modified version of his recipe but the rice is somewhat lacking in fragrance. it's easy to do but tedious.....so here goes......serves 4.

(a) chicken

ingredients

• 1 whole medium size chicken (cleaned of all the blood clots under the spine at the back of the chicken...yah u have to use ur fingers to dig them out)
• pieces of ginger
• cloves of garlic
• 2-3 pandan leaves
• salt (to taste)
  
• pepper (to taste)
  
• 2-3 tbsp chinese cooking wine
• 2-3 tbsp sesame seed oil
• coriander (as garnish)
• cucumber and tomato slices (optional)
  

recipe

• make cuts into 3-4 pieces of ginger (ginger size abt 5 cm each) / smash them
• break 1 whole garlic into separate cloves and smash them (leave skin on)
  
• split pandan leaves into halves and tie them into a knot
  
• rub salt & pepper on the insides of the chicken (abt 2-3 tbsp salt)
• stuff garlic, ginger and pandan leaves into chicken
• rub outer skin of chicken with sesame seed oil then salt (abt 2-3 tbsp salt)
• set aside for at least half an hour
• prepare steamer and bring water to boil at medium-high heat (do not change the heat during the steaming process)
• before putting chicken into steamer drizzle chinese cooking wine onto & into chicken
  
• when water is boiling, place chicken into steamer
• steam each side of chicken for about 15 minutes (yah u gotta flip the fella over)
  
• to see if it's cooked use a test stick and poke thrugh the thigh area (cos thickest there). if blood water oozes out then let it steam for a few more minutes
  
• once cooked, remove and cut/chopped & serve. else keep warm in steamer while u prepare other stuff
  
• DO NOT DISCARD the oily juice from the container
• serve with chopped coriander, cucumber and tomato slices
  

(b) chicken soup (this is for steaming the rice and also to serve as side)

ingredients

• chicken bones/frames
• chicken fat/skin
• soya beans (half cup approx)
  
• 3-4 pieces of ginger (cut/smashed)
  
• 1 garlic (no need o smash the cloves. keep skin on)
  
• 2-3 pandan leaves (tear into haves and knot)
  
• (to taste) chinese cooking wine
• coriander (as garnish)
  

recipe

• soak soya beans overnight
• boil everything at medium heat
• sieve out the chicken oil and set aside
• keep it at low heat after the leaves turn yellow

(c) rice (serves 4. approx 2.5 cups)

ingredients

• 2 tbsp blended ginger
  
• 4 tbsp blended garlic
• rice
• chicken soup
• 2-3 pandan leaves
• chicken oil (from chicken soup)
• oily juice from chicken
  
• cooking oil
• salt (to taste)
  
• chinese cooking wine (approx 3-4 tbsp)

recipes

• fry blended garlic and ginger till light brown in chicken+cooking oil
• add in uncooked rice and salt. there must be enough oil to coat all the rice. stir till fragrant but not burnt
• remove from stove and add chicken soup (same as the amount of water for cooking that amount of rice)
• add few tbsp of oily juice
  
• add chinese cooking wine and knotted pandan
• steam in rice cooker

(d) condiments: chilli sauce + sping onion sauce

ingredients - chilli sauce

• blended chilli (no seeds) - 5 parts
  
• blended ginger - 2 parts
  
• blended garlic - 4 parts
  
• blended spring onion (to taste)
  
• chicken oil
  
• salt (to taste)
  
• sugar (to taste)
  
• 1 finely chopped tomato
• lime (optional)

recipe - chilli sauce

• use chicken oil to fry tomato, garlic and ginger (do not brown)
• add blended chilli and stir
• add blended sping onion and stir
• reduce mixture to a thick sauce keeping it at low boil
• add in lime juice, sugar, salt to taste
• you can then set aside the extras and bottle it up for later use

ingredients - sping onion sauce

• blended ginger - 2 parts
  
• blended garlic - 2-3 parts
  
• blended spring onion - 5 parts
  
• chicken oil
  
• salt (to taste)
  
• sugar (to taste)
  

recipe - sping onion sauce

• use chicken oil to fry garlic and ginger (do not brown)
• add blended sping onion and stir
• reduce mixture to a thick sauce keeping it at low boil
• add in sugar, salt to taste
• you can then set aside the extras and bottle it up for later use

as you can see it's the longest recipe i'd written for the blog........

Honey Mustard Baked Chicken

This is a very simple dish cos all i did was to marinate and baked it the next day.
havent been really posting/ writing much cos i've been kindda 'addicted to ebay' (as The Wife puts it quite bluntly). i'm saving my thoughts on dat for another post so here's the recipe.....

ingredients

• 1 x chicken (quartered / chunkily chopped)
• 3 tbsp mustard powder
• 4-5 tsp salt
  
• pepper (to taste)
• honey (to taste)
  
• szechuan / chilli powder (to taste)
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 4 tbsp fish sauce
• olive oil
  
• potato halves (optional)
  

recipe

• marinate chicken with everything above (except the potatoes) & leave overnite
• rub salt, pepper over potatoes & drizzle with olive oil
  
• preheat oven at 180'C and bake chicken & potatoes for 20 mins

& that's that. :)
kindda tasted fusiony but goes well with plain rice too.

Braised (Ginger) Chicken with Mushrooms

This is something that i adapted from my MIL & Wife. Her side of the family adores ginger, period. i ain't brought up eating gingerly stuff so you cld say it's somewhat an acquired taste. of cos there was also the 'compulsory' eating period when pretty much every meal had ginger in it when The Wife was doing her confinement after the birth of Avery (or vinegarish cos of the pig trotters cooked in black vinegar). For this evening, i decided to give it a shot, with a moderated portion of ginger & ginger wine......essentially i'd blended it with a 'chicken in oyster sauce' recipe....so it tasted somewhat in between...sweet, gingery, salty. serves 2-3.

ingredients

• half chicken, chopped
  
• ginger, chopped
• garlic, chopped
• cooking oil
• sesame oil
• water
  
• dark soy sauce
• oyster sauce
• Stone's Original Green Ginger Wine (absolutely necessary, check here for what else you can do with the wine)
  
• sugar (to taste)
• fermented beancurd 豆腐乳 (to taste, optional)
• corn flour
• button mushrooms, quartered / whole dried shitake mushrooms
  
• spring onion (chopped, for garnish)

recipe

• marinate chicken in soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil and set aside for at least 30 minutes
• soak dried shitake mushrooms if you are using them for this dish
  
• brown ginger and garlic
• add chicken and beancurd to the ginger and garlic and fry at medium heat till it turns whitish and u get the aroma from the ginger-beancurd
  
• add water (enough to form lots of gravy but not have the chicken pieces swim in soup), shitake mushrooms (optional), then cover and let simmer at medium heat till it's about 50% cooked
  
• add more dark soy sauce and oyster sauce to taste, if necessary
  
• add 5 tbsp of ginger wine, cover and let simmer till chicken is somewhat cooked (approx 5 minutes)
  
• turn to low heat, add more ginger wine and sugar to taste, let simmer for another 5-8 minutes
• when u are happy with the taste, add in the corn flour to thicken the gravy and stir in the mushrooms. DO NOT overcook the mushrooms so that they retain some degree of crunchiness
• when it's ready to serve, add in chopped spring onion
  

Grilled Chicken Wings

i prefer grilling over frying. cos it's probably healthier, easier to manage and clean up (always hate to have to think about how to recycle the leftover oil from frying). all you need to do is marinate, line the grilling tray with aluminium foil, turn up the heat and chuck the whole darn thing in.

Am putting this up cos my sis's asking for the recipe. there're probably 1 gazillion methods to go about doing grilled wings so it's not something terribly exceptional but i wld say it tastes better than those u can get at a certain 'grilled chicken franchise'. always something useful & fast to have around when it's your turn to churn up some finger food for some birthday potluck thingy.

ingredients

• 10 wings
• sesame seed oil
• chinese cooking wine (i used shaoxing wine...actually any alcohol shld do. i'd done it with beer and stout before)
• ground pepper
• fish sauce
• dark soy sauce
• sugar
• szechuan powder (i used this. got it in a bottle from Woolworths)/ mild curry / chilli powder

recipe

• marinate wings with all of the above ingredients
• set aside for no less than 30 min
• preheat grill at 120'C
• line wings on tray and grill for about 8 minutes on 1 side
• flip over when side is nicely crackling and slightly burnt. grill for another 8 minutes
  
• remove from tray when cooked, serve with condiments
  

Braised Whole Chicken

My folks are here for a week of visiting. i can't help be think that their focus is not the sites that melbourne offers but Avery. i certainly hope that they'd have a good time here despite being stuck at home most of the time (cos BB's resting/sleeping).

I made them braised whole chicken based on (meaning i made some adaptation) my mum-in-law's recipe for dinner. 2nd time doing it but according to The Wife it's as good as her mom's (yipee). i had always preferred braised soy chicken to roast chicken. i remember that my dad used to tabao the Cheung Kee Soy Chicken from Upper Cross Street in Chinatown for dinners. there're 2 shops that sell similar chicken along the street i think. while this is not anywhere near their standards....it's not too bad i reckon.

This recipe serves 4 and takes up at least 50 min to prepare & cook.

ingredients

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 chopped onion/ 5 chopped shallots
• 1 chopped chilli
• 5-6 cardamon pods
• 2 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• dried orange peel (about 2 x 50 cent size is good)
  
• 5-6 slices of ginger
  
• white pepper (whole) handful (to taste)
• ground pepper
  
• 5-6 cloves of chopped garlic
• dark soy sauce
• light soy sauce
• salt
• sugar
• 1-2 cup water
  
• oil
• hard boiled eggs (optional if you want to make braised eggs)
• taukwah/taupok (optional...darn i wish i had some)
  

recipe
step 1

• scald chicken with boiling water
• rub salt on chicken and marinate whole chicken with pepper, dark soy sauce & light soy sauce
• set aside for at least 30 mins. turning occasionally so that the skin gets the pigment from the sauces.
  

step 2

• fry the chopped onions,/shallots+garlic, ginger until the onions are soft & fragrant. do not brown the onions cos you don't want to have a burnt smell/taste
• add in spices. fry for a short while until you can smell the spices then add half cup water
  
• add dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, sugar to form a thick gravy. stir occasionally. taste if it's ok. it should taste fairy salty but light, with tinge of spiciness
• add marinated chicken to gravy in wok. keep heat at medium
  
• rinse the gravy on chicken occasionally and scoop some spices into the chicken
• close wok and simmer this side of chicken for 5 mins
• after 5 mins turn over and rinse the other side with gravy occasionally and let simmer for 5 mins
• repeat this process for at least 20-30 mins depending on size of chicken. taste gravy and add salt/sugar/dark/light soy sauce to taste. add additional 1/2 - 1 cup water if gravy is drying up. be careful that you do not burn the gravy
• once cooked (use satay stick to poke the thigh/breast area. if no bloody ooze come out then it's cooked but 30 mins is way enuff), cut/chop & serve
  

step 3

• if you r braising eggs, use a toothpick to prick the hardboiled eggs before adding them to gravy
• rinse the eggs with the gravy and turn them around so as to get an even coat of brown
• do the same for the taukwah. make sure that you scald the taupok before adding to the gravy.
  

leftover gravy?
fret not, use it to sirfry veg/ simply drizzle over a plate of dry instant noodles n you've have a wonderful snack!