Category: Chicken

Lemon chicken couscous recipe.

I don’t know why…but I had always thought couscous was a nightmare to cook. Never mind I had never cooked it before. Maybe it’s because good couscous can be so amazingly fluffy and light….which got me to assume that it’d take a lot of skills to produce good couscous.

How wrong was I! Recently, I bought a packet of couscous just cause it was on sale and I’m so glad I did because I finally found out that cooking couscous is easy. In fact, it seems even easier than cooking rice or pasta!

# – Delicious lemon chicken couscous.

Don’t believe me? Read on….

The ingredients:

  • 200 grams of chicken fillet, chopped
    (Marinade the chopped chicken fillet with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, salt, some cooking oil and a dash of cornflour for 30 minutes)
  • 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon of lemon zest
  • 50 grams of butter
  • 120 grams of instant couscous
  • 100 ml of water
  • 1 handful of raisins
  • 1 tablespoon of salt

# – First, marinade the chicken in lemon juice, salt, cooking oil and some cornflour for 30 minutes.

# – Then, heat up a well greased griddle and lay all the marinaded chicken meat on it for a few minutes.

# – Turn to cook the other side. Also for a few minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

# – Boil the water in a pan. Add in butter and the salt.

# – When water has started bubbling, turn off the heat and pour the couscous in.

# – Also chuck in the handful of raisins.

# – As well as the lemon zest.

# – Now turn on the lowest heat and gently stir the couscous till it’s not longer wet and the couscous seem fluffy.

# – At this point, add in the grilled chicken made earlier. Mix them up nicely.

# – Before serving, pour some lemon juice all over the couscous.

# – Lemon chicken couscous, DONE!

The couscous was fluffy and light with a nice lemony tang to it, made interesting by the burst of sweetness from the raisins. The meat was tender and deliciously flavoured by the lemon marinade…making this dish a real winner.

Since we’re here, do you know that couscous is also a healthier alternative to pasta or rice? According to Wiki, it has a superior vitamin profile to pasta, containing twice as much riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, and folate, and containing four times as much thiamine and pantothenic acid!

I don’t even know what pantothenic acid does but hey, hook me up!

Fake Japanese braised chicken wings with potatoes.

Never ever try to plan dinner right after lunch because it’s virtually impossible to conjure up any coherent thought. And that’s how my chicken wings came about. Bought them while on a semi-food coma, with no planning whatsoever.

The thing is, I’ve never really had luck with cooking chicken on the bone. They’ve always turned out semi-raw and I’d have to nuke them in the microwave half way through eating. Yeah, pretty disgusting.

So really, I don’t know how I ended up with a packet of chicken wings because I’d normally quite consciously avoid them.

# – Fake Japanese braised chicken wings with potatoes.

From food coma to a full blown panic mode, I realised the only source of protein for tonight’s dinner were the wings. The look of disappointment on the BF’s face upon his realisation that he’d chomped on raw poultry popped up to haunt me.

I was determined to make it right but I didn’t know how :(

Thankfully, I found a recipe called “tebasaki to sato-imo” or english for braised chicken wings with new potatoes (i <3 google translate) in one of my recipe books. So, I replaced the sake with chinese rice wine, scallions with coriander powder and new potatoes with old potatoes chopped up into new potato size.... And hence, the title :P I was confident it would work, it had to work gawddamit! # - Tebasaki To Sato-imo

The ingredients:

  • 500 grams of chicken wings (that’s about 4 wings with drummets still attached)
  • 400 grams of potatoes, cut into cubes
  • 4 tablespoons of chinese rice wine (or better, sake!)
  • 3 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon of dark soya sauce
  • 2 teaspoon of sugar
  • 2 cm of ginger, sliced
  • 1 tablespoon of coriander powder
  • 200 ml of water

# – First, marinade the wings with 4 tablespoon of chinese rice wine and set aside for 30 minutes.

# – Then, heat up oil in a pan and brown the chicken wings on all sides.

# – When wings have browned, throw in the sliced ginger.

# – Pour water in till chicken wings are just covered.

# – Cover and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes.

# – After that, throw in 2 teaspoons of sugar.

# – And the dark soya sauce.

# – Not to forget the potatoes…

# – Lastly, the one tablespoon of coriander powder.

# – Stir to combine, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes.

# – In the meantime, steam or boil some peas. Because everyone should eat vegetables!

# – Fake Japanese braised chicken wings with potatoes, DONE!

The wings…they were gorgeous! The meat was succulent, moist and full of flavours. The sauce was DELICIOUS and sticky. And the potatoes? Gawd, the potatoes…

# – Look at the colours inside the potato. Flavoured through and through.

Simply sublime with rice and what’s surprising was how few ingredients were involved and how relaxing the entire process was. Just leave them to simmer into something so amazingly delicious.

Don’t believe me?

# – Plate-licking good!

Best thing of all, I didn’t have to nuke them in the middle of dinner just so we won’t get bird flu or something. I implore you to try this recipe! Happy cooking!

Malaysian devil chicken curry recipe.

Contrary to what the name of the dish suggests…..no, it’s not evil. It does however, pack some heat.

By some, I mean LOADS. Be warned you should only make this if you’re a lover of spicy food. That said, I imagine you could reduce the amount of dry chillies and substitute with more shallots for something with less heat.

# – Malaysian devil chicken curry.

For the curry paste:

  • 30 shallots
  • 30 dried chillies, seeded and soaked for 15 minutes
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons of tumeric powder
  • 1 inch length of galangal, chopped
  • 2 stalks of lemongrass, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon of brown mustard seeds, soaked for 5 minutes

The other ingredients:

  • 2 onions, quartered
  • 2 inches of ginger, sliced
  • 5 cloves of garlic, sliced
  • 2 red chillies, seeded & halved lengthwise
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 1 teaspoon of light soya sauce
  • 4 tablespoons of sugar
  • 4 potatoes, peeled and quartered
  • 3 chicken thighs with bone, skin removed & chopped into serving pieces
  • 125 ml of white vinegar
  • 1 litre of water

# – Seed, soak, peel whatever you need to do for the curry paste (refer to ingredients list above).

# – Chuck them all in a blender or food processor and blitz.

# – Add some oil while at it to smoothen the paste. I’d say about 2 – 3 tablespoons.

# – Set the curry paste aside. By the way, you’re working with tumeric here and that stuff stains everything! So becareful.

# – Heat up some oil in a pan and fry up the quartered onions, sliced ginger, sliced garlic and halved chillies.

# – Remove from heat and set aside when they’ve browned & wilted slightly.

# – Now heat up about 4 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan and chuck the curry paste in. Fry for about 3 minutes.

# – Add 2 teaspoons of salt.

# – Followed by a teaspoon of light soya sauce.

# – And 4 tablespoons of sugar. Stir.

# – Now throw in the chicken.

# – Don’t forget the potatoes. Stir till everything’s coated by the curry paste.

# – Pour the white vinegar in..

# – And then the 1 litre of water.

# – Stir till combined and allow to simmer for 30 minutes or when liquid has reduced by half.

# – When the liquid has reduced by half, throw in the onions, garlic, ginger and chillies fried earlier. Stir and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

# – Malaysian devil chicken curry, DONE!

# – Serve with piping hot plain rice. Yums!

It’s also very helpful if you’ve got a helper to seed 30 dry chillies for it’s not a very pleasant task. My hands were still tingling 5 hours later. I found it much easier and faster to seed the chillies after they’ve been soaked in water and softened up. With a pair of kitchen scissors, do it under running water to quickly flush away the seeds.

Really, if you want to make this, make sure you’ve prepared the ingredients earlier on otherwise you may find your poor back on the verge of breaking by the end of it all. But…it’s all worth it. Because it’s interesting! It’s complex! It’s mind-bogglingly delicious!

The curry tasted better too after a day. The BF ate it with bread. He ate it all. He didn’t leave me any -_-