Oriental KFC

This is so so so nice lah, though the photo doesn't do it justice but its worth all the hassle and the fats! This recipe is from Harumi Kurihara from her book 'Harumi's Japanese cooking'.

(serves 2-3)

250gn boneless chicken thighs with skin!!!

3 tbsp potato starch or cornflour

2 tbsp of plain flour

For the marinade:

1 tbsp of soy sauce

1/2 tbsp shokoshu(Chinese sake)

1/2 tsp crushed garlic

salt

Pierce the chicken skin several places before cutting into smaller pieces. Place in the marinade and make sure that they are all well coated and leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Lightly mix the potato starch and flour to dust the chicken pieces.

Deep fry in hot oil for 4-5 minutes till crisp, golden and cooked through.

I served this with soy sauce and wasabi and it was so so so good, same goes with mayo or sweet chilli sauce. Harumi recommended to have these wrapped in salad leaves.

Chicken balls meehoon

This is an unexplainable satisfying bowl of meehoon soup, I'm not sure if its the stock or the effort in making the chicken balls or the fact it does not add on to the pounds! It was oohhh so yummy having it with chilli padi and soy sauce. Its only meehoon that gives such satisfaction, I tried it with other noodles and it does not come close even the egg noodles is no competition.

For the stock:-

2 litres of water

6 mid sized onions-chopped

2 tbsp of dried shrimps

5 tbsp of dried anchovies (ikan bilis)

chicken granules to taste (approx. 1 tbsp)

Rinse the dried shrimps and anchovies then dry it thoroughly with kitchen towel and place in a bowl, add in a tbsp of oil and put it in the microwave for about 2 mins (1100watts), if not brown enough, give it extra time by 10 seconds. Always check before giving it more time in the microwave cause it burns easily once its reached the brown stage.

Put all the ingredients except chicken granules into a stockpot and put it on medium high flame and boil for an hour to one and a half hour. At the end of the cooking time, season with the chicken granules to taste. Optional, you could add in a small cube of rock sugar.

For the chicken balls:

De bone some chicken meat (i used 4 drumsticks)

Put it into a food processor to blend then season with some pepper, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp of sesame oil and 2 tbsp of soy sauce.

Cook the chicken balls in the stock. Blanch some meehoon and vegetable of your choice and then ladle on the soup with the chicken balls and enjoy :)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2009!!!

Way late for this post, but Merry Christmas 2008 anyway. Was too busy to put up anything during this festive season cause of all the mad sales going on around! Never seen Auckland so busy ever, getting a parking was actually a problem!

Just wanted to post this recipe for the cupcakes, thought they were really nice and easy.

For cupcakes:

3/4 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup soft unsalted butter

5 tbsp of sugar, increase if you like it sweeter

2 eggs

2 tsp of orange essence

1 tbsp of Cointreau

2 tbsp of milk

Just mix everything together in a cake mixer of a food processor till smooth and spoon into cupcake moulds. Fill to 1/3 full only if u intend to put on icing.

For the ganache:

Melt 100gm of dark compound chocolate over a double boiler (i used the microwave hehe) together with 1 tbsp of butter. Add in evaporated milk to get a smooth consistency. Let cool a little and make your cupcakes pretty as you desire.

Again a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2009!