Curry chicken

Having put down curry for a while, I return with much greater confidence handling it. Here is a refined curry chicken, with poached chicken breast, coconut milk and heavy whipping cream, and a new collection of spices. I guess, my skill with poaching has improved. The chicken has become really juicy.

Recipe: Curry chicken (for 2)

Ingredients:
- 1 skinless boneless chicken breast, cut to pieces of 2-3" big
- 1/2 cup meat stock
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas with liquid from cooking
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced
- 2 tp garlic powder
- 2 tp paprika
- 1/2 tp extra hot chilly powder
- 1/4 to 1/2 salt (to taste)
- 1/2 tp coriander seeds
- 1 TB coconut cream
- 1-2 TB heavy whipping cream
- 1 TB vegetable oil

Procedure:
1. Heat the chicken breasts and sliced onion in 1 TB vegetable oil on high heat, until the surfaces of the chicken pieces are cooked. Browning is optional. Do this very quickly to prevent the chicken from overcooking. Add chickpeas (without liquid). Mix. Then add garlic powder, paprika, chilly powder, coriander seeds and salt. Mix well.
2. Boil meat stock and liquid from cooking chickpeas in a pan with a lid. When the liquid is boiling, add in the chicken mixture. Turn heat down to lowest possible. Cover pan and allow to poach for 30-40 minutes. When poaching the chicken, the heat should be so low that there is minimal disturbance to the liquid.
3. Take the chicken out. Turn up the heat to thicken the sauce. When the sauce is reduced to a thick liquid, turn heat to medium. Add coconut cream and stir to dissolve. Return the chicken to the pan to reheat for a minute or so. Then add in the heavy whipping cream. Mix. Serve right away.

This dish tastes so very good!!! In this dish, there is no need for additional sugar because the starch from the chickpea, the whipping cream, and the sucrose in the coconut cream all contribute to a fair share of sweetness.

Chicken in wild rice tomato sauce

I didn't know wild rice can go so well with chicken in tomato sauce. Here is a new attempt.

Recipe: Chicken fillet in wild rice tomato sauce (for 2-3)

Ingredients:
- 2 skinless boneless chicken breasts, sliced very thinly to about 1/8" to 1/4" thick
- 1/2 cup fully cooked wild rice
- 2 tp tomato paste
- 2 TB tomato pasta sauce
- 1.5 cup chicken stock
- garlic powder
- paprika powder
- 4 TB vegetable oil

Procedure:
1. The wild rice for this recipe must be thoroughly cooked until the grains are all wide open. It takes about 40 minutes. Drain any excess liquid.
2. Sprinkle garlic and paprika powders on sliced chicken breasts.
3. Pan fry the chicken in vegetable oil, until both sides are slightly browned.
4. Place the chicken uniformly on a baking pan.
5. Mix tomato paste and tomato sauce with chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Add wild rice.
6. Pour the grain and tomato mixture into the baking pan. The chicken should be half submerged in the sauce.
7. Bake at 300F for 30 minutes or until the mixture boils. Then turn heat off. Allow the sauce to thicken. Serve hot.

Pot roasted beef steak with wild rice and vegetables

Here is a meal for one, specially made for my husband when he comes home late after a long day of labor. I cook the beef by roasting. This is how it is done.

Recipe: Pot roasted beef
Ingredients:
- 1 pound beef round steak, 1" thick
- 1 cup Shaoxing cooking wine
- 1 tp salt
- 5 allspice
- 3 cloves
- 1 small piece of cinnamon
- 1 tp sugar
- water

Procedure:
Put beef round steak in a pot large enough to lie flat. Add water to fully cover. Add all the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil. Then turn heat down to lowest immediately. Allow to simmer for 2 hours. The liquid should have minimal disturbance when simmering. When done, take beef out and allow to cool. Chill in refrigerator until use. Trim off all visible fat before use. Chill the juice of cooking the beef separately for use later.

Recipe: Roasted beef steak with wild rice, vegetable and guinness sauce (for 1)

Ingredients:
- 1 piece of pot roasted beef steak
- 1 small carrot, chopped to small cubes
- 1/4 cup sweet peas, frozen or fresh
- 1/2 cup cooked wild rice (or 1/4 cup uncooked wild rice)
- 1/3 cup flat guinness
- 1/3 cup meat stock or juice of roasting the beef
- 1 tp tomato paste

Procedure:
1. To prepare uncooked wild rice, boil 1/4 cup wild rice in 1 cup water for about 40 minutes on medium or med-low heat, until wild rice fully opens up. Drain of excess liquid.
2. Mix guinness and meat stock and bring to a boil. Add cooked wild rice for 10 minutes on medium heat. Add carrot. Cook for another 5 minutes. Add tomato paste.
3. Reheat the roasted beef steak either in the pot or in microwave oven for a very short time. Do not overheat as it will toughen the beef immediately. Once the beef is heated up, take it out and place on serving plate.
3. Add peas to the pot and boil for a minute. Take out all solid ingredients from the pot and place on serving plate. Thicken the liquid in the pot into a sauce. Pour sauce onto beef and vegetables. Serve hot.

The sauce gives the beef the moisture it needs. This dish has a distinctive flavor of guinness. My husband really enjoys it.

Pork chops experiment

In the past few days, I experimented with cooking pork chop first by moist heat, then by dry heat.

Experiment 1: Pork chop boiled and baked

Procedure:
1. Cook the pork chops in boiling water for about 1/2 hour or until they are fully done. The water should be bubbling heavily.
2. Drain the water. Place the pork chop in baking pan. Brush with BBQ sauce. Then bake at 350F for about 40 to 60 minutes.
3. Flip every 10 minutes, or when the sauce on the top side is dry. Apply more BBQ sauce.
4. Done when the sauce has caramelized.

Result:
This gives a very beautiful and flavorful pork chop. However, the meat is extremely hard, almost like jerky. This is due to the boiling and the prolonged baking.

Experiment 2: Pork chop poached and broiled

Procedure:
1. Poach the pork chops in water. First, bring the water to a boil. Then immediately turn down the heat to
the lowest. Allow the meat to poach for 2 hours. The water should be almost without any bubbling.
2. Drain the pork chop of water. Then apply BBQ sauce.
3. Turn oven to broil at 500F or highest. Place pork chop on top rack and broil for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce starts to caramelize. Throughout the broiling, leave the oven door open slightly.

Result:
The flavor of the BBQ sauce stays on the surface of the pork. But the meat is a lot more tender, though not as tender as when it's barely cooked. The meat is fully cooked no doubt.

Conclusion:
The second method seems to give much more appealing pork chops.

Pan-frying pork chop with onions and tomatoes

Here is another pan-fried meat dish that I occasionally just can't resist making because of its lovely taste and smell. Whenever I cook a meal for others who need a meal plan, I always end up cooking something comparable for my family on the same day. This is how I show my husband that he is not neglected.

Recipe: Pan-fried pork chop with caramelized onions and tomatoes

Ingredients:
- 3-4 pork loin chops, trimmed of fat and bones
- 1/2 tp kosher salt
- 2 tp white sugar
- 1 TB garlic powder
- 1 small onion, thinly sliced
- 1 medium ripe tomato on the vine, sliced
- 1 tp tomato paste (optional)
- 1-2 TB oil
- 1/4 cup water or meat stock

Procedure:
1. Mix salt, sugar and garlic powder. Coat all sides of the pork chops with the seasonings.
2. Heat oil in a non-stick pan on high heat until warm. Place pork chops flat on the bottom of the pan, in touch with the oil. Allow the pork chops to sizzle until the meat becomes golden and the sugar starts to caramelize. Flip each piece to brown the other side. At this point, the pan may be sizzling with just a little liquid from the meat. Do not allow the pan to dry out.
3. While the pan is still sizzling with liquid, place tomatoes and onion slices on the pan, in the gaps between the meat. Allow the tomatoes and onions to caramelize and soften.
4. When the pan becomes a bit too dry, add about 1/4 cup of water or meat stock. The liquid should be just enough to cover about 1/4" height of the pan with the meat and the vegetables lying flat on the pan.
5. Scrub the bottom of the pan a little to detach any browned particles. The liquid will take up the color of the browned particles.
6. Turn heat down to medium. Add tomato paste to the liquid. Cover pan with a lid and allow to boil until the liquid almost dry off.
7. Remove the vegetables from the pan and serve on the bottom of the serving place.
8. Turn heat up to med-high and allow the meat to take on the color and flavor of the sauce that is thickening. Then flip the meat to coat the other side. Do not allow the bottom of the pan to burn. Turn heat off before the sauce dries out. Remove pan from the stove and allow to cool before washing.
9. Serve hot.

Initial phase of caramelization:

Thickening the sauce:

Done:

Intense!

Pan-frying chicken breast fillet

One of the challenges I've always faced is to cook chicken breast fillet until tender. Honestly, the tradeoff is really between fat and juiciness. Today I decided to experiment with using more oil. The result was spectacular.

Recipe: Pan-fried sweet and salty chicken breast fillet

Ingredients:
- 2 skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut to fillets of about 1/4" thick
- 1 TB brown sugar
- 1 tp salt
- 1 TB garlic powder
- 3-4 TB vegetable oil

Procedure:
1. Mix brown sugar, salt and garlic powder. Coat the surfaces of the chicken fillets with the seasonings.
2. Heat oil in a non-stick pan on high heat until oil is warm. Place fillets on the pan, in touch with oil. Let the fillets sizzle until the sugar on the bottom face of the fillets has caramelized. The pan may still be sizzling with a little water, but not flooded. Flip the fillets to brown the other sides.
3. When both sides of each fillet is browned, the pan may become a little dry and sticky with the caramelized sugar. Do not allow the sugar to burn. Add about 1/4 cup of water (or just enough water to cover no more than 1/4" of the pan with the fillets lying flat). Turn heat down to medium. Allow the water to boil. Cover the pan if desired.
4. When the water has almost evaporated, turn heat up to med-high. Flip the fillets in order to coat both sides with the thickened gravy.
5. Serve hot.

With ample oil when pan-frying, the chicken fillets become really juicy. I guess it might becomes the high heat offered by the oil helps seal up the water in the meat. The oil also creates a better texture to the meat, and allow better caramelization of the brown sugar, which gives a very lovely aroma to the dish. This is one of these dishes that I'd do once in a while, especially on special occasions.

Meat loaf

Reading The Joy of Cooking helps me to be informed about the use of various types of ground beef. According to the authors of the book, amount ground beef, ground sirloin contains about 15% fat, ground round has approximately 20% fat, ground chuck approximately 30%. Ground chuck has the best flavor and is the best for hamburgers, while the leaner ground round can be used for meat loaf and meatballs. Ground meat should always be cooked to the internal temperature of 160F. Uncooked ground meat should be stored for no more than 24 hours in the fridge. That's informative! The following is a recipe adapted from the Joy of Cooking.


Recipe: Meat loaf (one 9"x5" large loaf)

Ingredients:
- 1.5 lb (about 24 oz) ground beef chuck (20% fat, 80% lean)
- 3/4 cup onion, chopped
- 3/4 cup canned pimento pepper, chopped
- 1 cup dry bread crumbs
- 1/3 cup tomato sauce
- 1/3 cup catchup
- 3 large eggs
- 2 tps crushed oregano flakes
- 1 tp homemade dijon mustard

Procedure:
1. Mix all ingredients in a large bowl, kneading until just well blended.
2. Grease a 9"x5" loaf pan with shortening. Fill the pan with meat mixture. Press down lightly.
3. Bake at 350F for about 1.5 hour, until internal temperature reaches 160F.
4. Allow to cool for 15 minutes before serving.

Results:
3:03pm, ingredients to be mixed:

3:06pm, mixing:

3:14pm, texture of the final mixture:

3:20pm, loaf pressed down into pan:

3:59pm, loaf baking in oven, generating a lot of steam:

4:37pm, loaf's look when baked about 40 minutes:

4:40pm, loaf's fat

4:41pm, loaf's temperature when baked 1 hour 10 minutes:

5:01pm, loaf's temperature after returning to oven for another 15 minutes:

5:01pm, loaf's top:

5:04pm, loaf's side after detaching from the pan with a knife:

5:15pm, loaf cooled 10 minutes:

5:16pm, loaf's bottom when turned out:

5:16pm, loaf's bottom stuck to the pan:

5:44pm, loaf flipped:

5:45pm, loaf's burnt side:

Next day, chilled loaf hardened and making slicing easier:

A triple beef hamburger from McDonald's

Few days later, I use the meat loaf to do a wrap of sesame leaves. Take a slice of the meat loaf. Wash about 5-7 sesame leaves. Wrap the leaves around the meat and place it in a baking pan. Pour some tomato sauce into the pan. Use a small saucer to press onto the top of the wrap to secure its shape. Then microwave the wrap for 30 seconds to soften the leaves. Once the leaves are softened, they will stay in good shape. Remove the saucer. Brush some tomato sauce on top of the leaves. Then bake at 450F for 5-10 minutes. The leaves will be crispy while the sauce is hot enough to bubble. Cut the wrap into smaller pieces and serve right away.

Observation:
1. This loaf does not have the cohesive, bread-like texture I hoped for.
2. The taste of ketchup and sauces is very strong in this loaf, somewhat over-powering the beef. I can also taste the soggy presence of bread crumbs. I make a comparison between the meat loaf and the beef in McDonald's hamburger, and find the latter taste more meaty and less fatty. When I examine the hamburger beef, I am greatly pleased that it's not burnt too. I guess, grilling actually melts away much of the fat, and the chef is so proficient that he/she has done it perfectly.
3. When I baked meatballs, a large amount of fat is drained off the meat. However, with this meat loaf, the fat mostly stays in the loaf.
4. The meat loaf holds together better after chilling. I try to pan-fry the slices of meat loaf after chilling it. Pan-frying does nothing to drain the fat. Instead, the sliced faces get browned.
5. The meat loaf seems to have developed much better flavor after overnight chilling.

Fresh turkey sausages

After my first experiment with fresh sausage, my new concern with it is that it's not fully done. So when I get my next pack of fresh sausages, I decide to let them cook for 2 hours. To minimize damage to casing, I let the sausages simmer in the first 30 minutes. Any expansion to the sausages happens during the first phase of cooking. After that, the sausages keep their shapes. The down side of such long cooking is that the flavor of the sausages is lost to the water.

When the sausages just start to simmer:

Sausages expand in the first 6 minutes:

Sausages start to shrink after prolonged cooking of 2 hours:

Sausages to cool:

After these past two experiments on fresh sausages, I have some ideas about them now. It looks like turkey meat may need less cooking than pork. 

Considering that fresh sausages are to be cooked by boiling, that may explain why they are so heavily seasoned to start off with. Much of the flavor could be lost to the liquid during the boiling.

Fresh pork sausages

A friend of mine introduced me to bulk sausages. She used it in one of her excellent egg casserole recipes. So I went ahead to check out what they are. I bought home some fresh italian mild sausages. It's then that I found out that there are fresh raw sausages that have no additives and preservatives. They need to be cooked within a few days. My new challenge is then to find out how to cook them.

Cooking fresh raw sausages can be tricky because they are big and thick. The casing may burst or burn when cooked too fast. So the trick is to cook it at a low temperature until half done first, then use a second cooking method to add flavor to it. The casing should not be pierced during cooking.

Here is my first attempt. I poach the sausages in stock (some people suggest beer) for about an hour. Then I brush some marinate on the skins and use the toaster oven to broil them for a few minutes until the skins are lightly brown. As it turns out, the sausages are not yet fully cooked inside. It means that I'd need to poach them for a longer time. To make sure they are cooked, I cut the sausages into smaller pieces and microwave them for 1-2 minutes. Fat starts to come out when I do that. It's not a bad idea.

Sweet potato soup

This is a quick soup that tastes pretty good.

Recipe: Sweet potato soup

Ingredients:
- 1 small sweet potato, peeled and cubed
- a few pieces of fried fish cakes
- 1 sausage or hot dog, cubed
- 1/4 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 5 yo 6 green beans, cubed
- chicken or ham stock
- 1 TB spring onion green, finely chopped
- drops of sesame oil

Procedure:
Boil sweet potato, fish cakes, sausage, onion and green beans in stock until soft (about 20 minutes). Then sprinkle spring onion and sesame oil on top. Serve right away.

Steaming meat with a metal dish in a steamer pot

I have been trying out the black bean paste recipe with various meats and various ways of cooking. Today I tried cooking black bean pork in a metal dish, steamed in a large pot. What I discovered is that a metal plate allows steaming to be efficient. However, this way of steaming collects a lot of water vapor in the dish. At the end, I had to drain 3/4 of the liquid, thicken the remaining sauce in a sauce pan, add it back to the meat, and then keep the meat in a warm oven at 150F until it dries out a bit. The meat tends to be quite tender when just out of the steamer. However, it toughens up in the warmth of the oven.

Summer chill-out

Working is hard. When I worked a full-time job, many a times I came home totally exhausted, longing only to be served. Home is to me more than a room to lay my head, and more than a hiding place. It's one little corner in this world with a window that opens into Heaven. Who does not want to come home to be warmly received as king and queen!


Summer chill-out idea: A simple watermelon and mint


Chop watermelon into 2" cubes. Top with mint. Chill. Give it a loving touch before serving.

Green peppers stuffed with succotash

It was out of curiosity that I bought a can of succotash home. Never heard of its name, I was wondering what it was. Then when I opened the can, I realized it's a bean stew. So I had to think of a way to eat it. What came to mind was that the flavor of tomatoes in this succotash may match green peppers. So I boiled the succotash with some rich and ground turkey meat. Then I stuffed it into some green peppers. Here comes my exciting stuffed green peppers.

Recipe: Green peppers stuffed with succotash

Ingredients:
- 2 green peppers
- 1 can of succotash
- 1/4 cup uncooked jasmine rice
- 1/2 cup ground turkey or fresh sausage meat

Procedure:
1. Boil succotash with rice and meat until the everything is cooked and the liquid is boiled down.
2. Cut the peppers, empty seeds. Then stuff with the cooked mixture.
3. Bake at 350F until the green peppers are cooked.

Since all the ingredients are already cooked before baking, the baking time is rather flexible. The primary purpose of baking is actually to let the flavor of the stuffed pepper develop in gentle heat.

Peanut sauce

I made a pan-fried chicken fillet and decided to make a peanut sauce to go with it. Here is one that I made from peanuts.

Recipe: peanut sauce

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup shelled roasted peanuts
- 1/2 tp garlic powder
- 1/2 TB soy sauce
- 1 TB sesame oil
- 1 tp brown sugar
- half a fillet of salted anchovy in oil, minced
- 1 tp lemon juice
- 1/4 tp extra hot pepper flakes
- about 1/2 cup water

Procedure:
1. Grind peanuts in a grinder until fine. The peanuts will turn into a paste, like butter.
2. Mix all the ingredients, except water, in a sauce pan.
3. Add water in 1/4 cup each time while heating the ingredients. Mix well until the mixture turns into a paste and starts to bubble.
4. Cool and serve.

Remarks:
To make it the South-East Asian style, I'd need to add about 2-3 TB coconut milk.

Baked "Italian" meatballs

With the need to increase my weight by 10 pounds, i find myself searching for food that is more weighty. What an irony! Anyway, 80% lean ground beef is on sale. So I get 2 pounds, separate them into a pound each, and start trying out two experiments on Italian meatballs. (To be honest, I've never seen such a thing in Italy. But then, by whatever name it goes, it's still meatball.) What I notice is that the ground beef with 20% fat really makes good meatballs. The fat gets drained during the baking, leaving a crisp elastic lump of meat. I also discover that the meatball mixture must be relatively dry. Otherwise, the meatballs may collapse while baking.

Recipe: Baked "Italian" meatballs

Ingredients:
- 1 lb 80% lean ground beef
- 3/8 cup 4C plain bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup 1% milk
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tp onion powder
- 1/2 tp garlic powder
- 1/2 tp sugar
- 1/2 tp salt
- 1 tp parsley flakes
- 1/2 tp oregano flakes

Procedure:
1. Flake ground beef to loosen the meat.
2. Mix bread crumbs with onion powder, garlic powder, salt, parsley and oregano. Then soak in milk. Mix to ensure uniform hydration.
3. Add moistened bread crumbs to beef. Add sugar. Mix well by hand.
4. Add an egg. Continue mixing until the meat mixture is homogenous. It takes a few minutes. Do not over-knead.
5. Use fork to loosen the mixture into small bits. Place a scoop of the mixture in the palm and gently shape it into a ball of 1.5" diameter. Do not press too hard, else the meatball will be too dense and heavy.
6. Since the meatballs tend to shrink and flatten a little during baking, this can be compensated by making the meatballs taller in shape before baking. Place the meatballs on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil. Allow a little bit of space between adjacent meatballs.
7. Bake the meatballs at 375F for about 30 minutes. After the first 5-10 minutes, examine the meatballs. Loosen them from the bottom. Roll them around so that the bottom side is turned upward. Do so every 10 minutes.
8. Fat from the meat will come out. Allow the meatballs to fry in the hot oil until browned.
9. When done, take out of the pan and place on paper towel to drain of excess fat.
10. Freeze when cooled.

Results:

Attempt 1

The mixture:

The meat mixture loosely pressed together into a ball:

The meatballs ready to bake:

The meatballs baked, giving out plenty of fat, and slightly collapsed:

Meatballs done, observe that they have collapsed slightly:

Attempt 2

The mixture has been kneaded more vigorously:

The meatballs are made taller so that they can withstand the collapse in height during baking:

Meatballs baking, flipped to allow more uniform browning:

Meatballs done:

Interior of a meatball:

I'm learning some techniques on baking meatballs through this experiment.
1. To make meat balls, ground meat with some fat (such as 20%) is better than very low-fat meat. Low-fat meat gives very tough meatballs.
2. The meat mixture should be rather dry before baking. Else, the meatballs may collapse during baking. The ratio of ingredients in this recipe is pretty good.
3. Do not roll the meat balls too hard, else they'd become very tough. But do not let the mixture be too loosely held together, else they may fall apart.