19 Sep 21 (Sun) - Pandan Leaf Chicken (Gai Hor Bai Toey)

Bought a pack of two bunches of pandan leaves last weekend because I was trying to root them for growing. However, I wasn't successful. So left with the leaves and I had to find ways to use them. Didn't have ingredients to cook dessert with them and didn't want to buy a lot of new ingredients just for that. The next best option was to cook pandan leaf chicken, a dish that I used to see in one of the Facebook cooking group.

Searched the Internet for a recipe and found one by Spice N' Pans. It seems easy enough except I didn't like the part where I need to fry the chicken with oil. So searched the Internet some more and found one published by Women's Weekly that uses the oven-bake method. Decided to combine both by using the recipe by Spice N' Pans while using the cooking method by Women's Weekly.

I have most of the ingredients on hand. So yesterday went to the market to buy two chicken breasts, young ginger and coriander. I didn't manage to buy young ginger though so had to use the regular old ginger. Came back home, cut and blend the ingredients to make the marinate. Left the chicken to marinate in the fridge while I did housework. Only started to wrap the chicken at 1pm but I was done by 2pm. Left the wrapped chicken in the fridge overnight and oven-baked them today.

I could smell the fragrant from the pandan leaf chicken while they were being baked inside the oven. The result was pretty good, not too dry even though was oven-baked. The lemongrass and coconut milk from the marinate plus the pandan leaves made the chicken very flavourful. 

Made the dipping sauce and ate with the fried kway teow that I had cooked earlier. Yummy!

14 Sep 2021 (Tue) – Ruby Grapefruit Sorbet

 Acquired the taste for ruby grapefruit recently, after buying three last month to make fruit peels enzyme. The fruit is tangy and sweet at the same time while the peels yield better results than orange peels when comes to making fruit enzyme.

Therefore, I bought another six last weekend to make more enzyme. So, what should I do with the flesh of the fruit then? Since the weather has been rather hot and humid lately, I decided to make sorbet instead. 

Ingredients (Makes about 3/4 pint)

150ml water

180ml grapefruit juice (squeeze and remove pulp)

110g white sugar

1/2 tbsp grapefruit zest (from 1 grapefruit)

Method:

1.  Combine water and sugar in a saucepan over medium high heat.

2.  Bring to a boil and stir until sugar dissolves.

3.  Remove from heat, add zest and set aside to cool.

4.  Once cool, sieve the mixture to remove the zest to set aside.

5.  Add grapefruit juice, some zest from previous step, stir and cover.

6.  Refrigerate for a couple of hours until thoroughly chilled.

7.  Once chilled thoroughly, put in the freezer.

8.  Remove from freezer after 1 hour to churn using a fork.

9.  Repeat the step for another 3-4 times and store in the freezer until ready to serve.

This sorbet is by far the best that I have made. The tanginess and sweetness was just right. When eaten with a bit of grapefruit juice and flesh, was really refreshing. This will be my go-to sorbet from now on.

11 Jul 2021 (Sun) - Hobak Jeon (Pan-fried Zucchini)

It has been a while since I blogged. The COVID-19 situation and the pro-long work-from-home arrangement killed my mood to blog or do any creative cooking.

Since last year, I have been watching a lot of Korean dramas and variety shows and became interested in their way of cooking. So, I decided to attempt something easy, Hobak Jeon (Pan-fried Zucchini), since I bought a pack of zucchini recently.

Found a simple recipe online by My Korean Kitchen but because I didn’t have plain flour, I made modification to the batter instead. 

Ingredient for Batter:

50g Self-rising flour                                            25g Corn Flour
1 egg                                                                  Pepper
Sugar                                                                 Salt
Water (adjust to the consistency that you want for the batter)

Method:
1.  Mixed all ingredients in a mixing bowl and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes before use

After the batter is ready, just dip the sliced zucchini into the batter and shallow fry in oil. The result was not bad, all things considered. Maybe next round I can make again using the correct flour.