Steamed Glutinous with Chicken and Mushroom (糯米鸡）

Traditionally this dish is eaten strictly during breakfast but I don't see why it can't be a lunch or dinner dish. I tried making this dish a couple times in the past but was not successful in replicating the consistency and taste which I grew up with.

Recently, my good friend over at http://chewsome.wordpress.com/  made this dish and that inspired me to try this dish again. Since then, I cooked this dish twice. I learned a few lessons during the first time and made a few modifications Please check out my friend's blog for the recipe that served as a guide for my own.

Recipe (serves 4-6)

Main Ingredients
1 cup of Glutinous rice 
2-3 pieces of boneless chicken thighs
5-8 pieces of shiitake mushroom

Rice seasoning
Pinch of salt
A splash of soy sauce
1 tsp five spice. (This is the key to a fragrant authentic taste)

Chicken Seasoning
2 tbs oyster sauce (optional)
a pinch of sugar
a pinch of white pepper
a pinch of cornflour or regular flour (This is also key. It will prevent your rice from becoming very oily. Add this only at the end of marination, right before you put the chicken on the rice)
a splash of rice wine
1 tsp thick soy sauce
two splashes of light soy sauce
1 thumb size ginger- grated
a splash of sesame oil

Directions
1. Wash the rice and soak it in water for at least 1 hour.
2. Wash the mushroom and soak it in water also for 1 hour.
3. Cut the chicken thighs into small pieces and add the chicken seasoning. Remember, do not add the cornflour at this point. Marinate for 1 hour in the refrigerator.
4. Drain the rice and transfer it into a steaming vessel, add the juice from the mushroom.
5. Add the rice seasoning to the rice, add enough water until it covers the rice for about 1/2 inches, and mix everything together.
6. Steam the rice for about 30 minutes until the water is almost completely gone.
7. Slice the mushroom into thin slices and lay it on top of the rice.
8. Add the cornstarch to the chicken and put the chicken on top of the mushroom. (This layering is also very important)
9. Steam this for an additional 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked.
10. Garnish with scallions.

My second try is definitely miles better than my first trial. I think the ratio of rice to chicken + mushroom is important, since the taste of the mushroom and chicken are infused perfectly into the rice. I also learned the importance of five spice and cornstarch in my second trial.

Overall, I think I have replicated this dish (close to 80%) the way restaurants in Malaysia make them. Here is a very geeky description: The marinade of the chicken not only provides flavor to the chicken, it travels down and gathers the aroma of the mushroom (hence the importance of layering). This heavenly flavor then travels lower into the rice layer and infused itself into the rice grain.

For my readers who do not have access to ready-made 糯米鸡, I hope you will try out this dish. I am pretty sure you will enjoy it as I enjoyed mine.

Honey Soy Glazed Chicken

My good friend Elsie started her food blog right after I started this blog. Go check it out http://theintrepidbaker.wordpress.com/

I wish I can take stylistic pictures like hers!!!

She posted her recipe for Honey Soy Chicken and I tried making this dish recently.

Here's the recipe (I made some adjustments to the original list, highlighted in red):

8 chicken drumsticks (or wings)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup honey

1 tbsp of red wine vinegar (original recipe asked for 1/2  cup lemon juice)

1 tbsp cayenne pepper powder

1 tbsp paprika powder

1 thumbsize ginger, minced

1 tsp chili flakes (or chili powder), optional

 

1. Mix all the seasoning ingredients and rub it evenly over the chicken.
2. Let this marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes. 
3. Preheat the oven to 375F.
4. Place the chicken into a baking dish (I use Pyrex dish). Make sure it is not too crowded.

Keep the marinating juice


5. Roast the chicken for approximately 40 minutes or until done.

I used a brush to brush the marinating juice over the chicken every 15 minutes.

This is a surprisingly easy recipe to try since I have everything in my pantry except the chicken. The
chicken came out extremely moist, not dry at all, and the juice from the roasting added so much flavor to the chicken. I really like the sweetness of the honey which is balanced by a very small hint of cayenne and paprika.  


Pop quiz time!  

Did you know that paprika is actually made of different kinds of pepper (Bell pepper, chilli pepper) and it is actually very popular in Hungary?  (according to my Hungarian friend); while Cayenne pepper is made out of just one kind of pepper -- cayenne pepper :)

 

 

Mushroom Chicken

Today's post is on Mushroom Chicken.

I used two kinds of mushroom for this dish - shiitake mushroom and black Chinese fungus a.k.a. wood ear mushroom a.k.a. black cloud ear mushroom.

As for the meat, it is simply chicken thigh meat. Again, my preferred choice of chicken meat. You can find boneless + skinless thigh meat if you are willing pay a premium. I bought bone-in + skin-on thigh meat and did the painstaking work of getting the meat out of the bone and trimming the skin off.


The name of the game is "Think ahead before starting". I made three mistakes while preparing this dish for not preparing ahead of time.

1) Dried Shiitake mushrooms need to be soaked in water for at least 1 hour
2) Dried Chinese fungus expand after you soaked, start with a large cooking pan/pot
3) This is obvious, if the chicken is frozen, allow enough time to thaw completely.

Ingredients
Chicken thigh - about 4 thighs will serve 3-4 people
Dried Shiitake mushroom - one handful
Dried black Chinese fungus - one handful

Aromatics
Ginger - thumb size
Garlic - 2-3 cloves
Dried red chillies (optional) - 2-3 pieces
Szechuan pepper corn (optional)  - a pinchful

Dried Shiitake mushroom and dried black chinese fungus (note: I used a little more for my dish because I cooked a big pot)

See how much the black fungus expanded?

Shiitake expanded too

Ginger, Garlic, Szechuan peppercorn, dried red chillies

Preparation
1. Cut the chicken into small pieces
2. Remove the stem of the shiitake mushroom and discard. Cut the mushroom into smaller pieces
3. Give the black fungus a crude chopping. It does not need to be precise.
4. Chop the garlic, ginger and dried chilles

Cooking
1. Saute the aromatics until the garlic turns slightly yellow
2. Put the chicken into the pot and stir fry. I learn that there is no need to keep stirring the chicken. Let the chicken cook for a little bit before stirring.
3. Add the shiitake mushroom and black fungus
4. Keep stirring and cooking
5. Add a splash of soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and some salt to taste
6. Add a little water into the pot and turn the heat to medium. Cover the pot and simmer for 10 minutes.
7. Serve

Three Cups Chicken

Three cups chicken is a traditional Taiwanese dish. The basic principle is 1:1:1 ratio of sesame oil, soy sauce, and cooking wine. Authentic three cups chicken should have Thai basil but my version did not include Thai basil because I am not a big fan of basil.

Just as the Fragrant Spicy Pork belly, I adopted this recipe from http://wendyinkk.blogspot.com/

Again, this recipe was designed for 3-4 standard servings.

Main ingredient: 1lb of boneless chicken thighs. 

If you haven't noticed, I am a big fan of dark meat and I will continue to champion the use of dark meat. 1lb of meat might seem like a lot but you will be surprise how little meat you get in the end. So again, adjust your portion accordingly.
 

Aromatics:

2 thumb size ginger
2 shallots (original recipe ask for 1 onion)
4 cloves of garlic

1 dried red chilli

Seasonings:
4 Tbsp sesame oil
4 Tbsp light soy sauce
4 Tbsp Shao Xing wine or rice wine
(original recipe asked for 1 handful of Thai basil, leaves only) but I used I sprig of spring onion instead.

Prepping

1.    Cut the chicken into cubes.

2.    Add the soy sauce to the chicken and set aside.

3.    While marinating the chicken, cut the aromatics into pieces.

Holy Trinity!!

Cooking

1.    Heat oil in pan. Add shallots and cook until slightly brown (about 1 minute). Add ginger and cook until golden brown(30 seconds). Add garlic and cook until golden brown (30 seconds). (Tips: I learned that it is essential to keep this sequence because each aromatic cooks at different rate. Shallots/Onions takes a while to breakdown. Garlic cooks the fastest)

2.    Add the dried chilies.

3.  Put in the chicken pieces and cook until meat turns white 

Chicken in the pan

4.  Put in cooking wine and light soy sauce. A small splash of dark soy sauce here will add color. 
5.   Cook in high heat until sauce thickens (about 15 minutes).

6. I slowly added incremental amount of starch water (wheat flour/corn starch + water) to speed up the thickening process.
7. Serve.

Voila. Final Product

Chicken Satay

Satay is a national dish in Malaysia and I have not met a single Malaysian who does not like satay, unless they avoid it for health reasons. Satay is simply a dish where marinated meat are cooked on open fire and served on skewers. Think “kebabs”. The two most common meats are chicken and beef but, in some places, you can find venison and rabbit satay, both of which I have not tried. There are four main components to a successful satay dish:

a)  Selection of meat --- it has to be dark meat such as chicken thighs/legs. White meat such as breast is simply the wrong meat to use if you want an authentic satay dish.

b)  Marinade --- very important component.

c)  Cooking method --- cooking on an open flame such as charcoal yields the best result because of the “charred” effect. Baking or pan-searing is the next best option albeit a poor substitution

d)  Peanut dipping sauce --- there needs to be some “heat” which is balanced by sweetness.

Chicken Satay (www.rasamalaysia.com)

Many restaurants in New York City, especially Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, serve satay as appetizer. Most of the places that I tried failed in one, if not more, of the main components listed above. Frustrated with not finding a satay dish that I am satisfied with, I have decided to take things into my own hand since I now have access to an outdoor grill.

One of the Malaysian cuisine blogs that I turn to from time to time is www.rasamalaysia.com. The author of the site has provided a stellar list of dishes and the recipes are usually tried, tested and improved.

Bellow is the recipe from www.rasamalaysia.com. The red color words are mine

Chicken Satay Recipe

Ingredients:

4 chicken legs and thighs (preferred) or 4 chicken breasts (boneless and skinless) (please, no chicken breast). I used chicken wings (approximately 10) because it cook faster.

Spice Paste:

1 teaspoon coriander powder (I use ½ tablespoon instead)
2 stalks lemongrass, white parts only  (very important ingredient, you must not omit this)
6 shallots (peeled)
2 cloves garlic (peeled)
4 tablespoons cooking oil (I used close to 1/3 cup, I find that 4 tablespoons of oil is insufficient to make a paste)
1 teaspoon chili powder (I used ½ tablespoon because I like my satay to have some heat)
2 teaspoons turmeric powder (kunyit)  (This is an essential ingredient. Although its main purpose is to provide the distinct yellow color on satay, I believe turmeric provides flavor that I don’t know how to describe. I used 1 tablespoon)
4 teaspoons of kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) (another essential ingredient. The sweetness of the dish brings out the flavor. I used 2 tablespoon)
1 teaspoon oyster sauce (I personally think this is optional)
Bamboo skewers (soaked in water for 2 hours to avoid burning)

Bellow is the method, with my own modification noted in red letters

As a recap, the recipe asked for 4 chicken legs/breasts cut into small pieces but I used 10 chicken wings and grilled it whole.

Method:

1.  Grind the Spice Paste in a food processor. Add in a little water if needed. (I added a splash of soy sauce instead of water to add flavor).

2.  Marinate the chicken with the spice paste for 10-12 hours (or overnight).

3.  Thread the meat onto the bamboo skewers. I thread the wings onto the bamboo skewers. It takes some practice to straighten the wings on the bamboo skewers

4.  Grill for 2-3 minutes on each side. Serve. (This cooking time is just a guide. The time varies depending on the intensity of your heat source. Grilling takes practice, you can read up on the tips/techniques on the internet)

      The last component of this dish is the peanut dipping sauce. Since I did not make this sauce to go along with my satay chicken wings, I will simply provide you with the link to the recipe. Rest assured I will report it here when I make the sauce.  Satay peanut dipping sauce recipe http://rasamalaysia.com/malaysian-sataynow-with-peanut-sauce/2/

My version of Chicken Satay with whole chicken wings

      I am tremendously surprised by how good the chicken wing tasted. This dish received high praises all around from my food-testers. The crispy slightly-charred skin, the tender meat and the aroma, oh yes, the aroma, hit me off my socks. This is EXACTLY how satay smells and tastes like back home. It has been two weeks since I made this dish, the experience of eating the chicken wings still lingers in my memory, hopefully my food-testers' mind too. Can't wait to make satay again while the weather still permits.