Category: Homemade Recipes

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!

The international cold noodles recipe.

I love Japanese cold noodles. I love the eating process – swirling the springy noodles in the chilled dashi dipping sauce till they’re loose, lightly coated with sauce and eventually, eating it. I love the taste – so refreshing, light and so tasty. I love the condiments – the raw quail egg, scallions, pickles, shredded seaweed sheets and wasabi.

(I really don’t like the sesame seeds that sometimes come with it though. I love everything sesame except the seeds :P)

On this particular warm and humid evening, my stomach decided to crave for Japanese cold noodles. I could have driven out and get my fix but I decided to make it eventhough the only Japanese ingredient I had in my pantry was a tube of instant wasabi.

# – The international cold noodles.

What would you do??

Well, I decided to wing it. I figured that an International version of cold noodles would just do as well to satisfy my craving ;)

What exactly is International cold noodles, your wonder? Lets find out…

The ingredients:

  • 80 grams of wheat or rice vermicelli (from China)
  • 300 ml of chicken stock (from Malaysia)
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon of nampla or fish sauce (from Thailand)
  • 1 tablespoon of light soya sauce (from China)
  • 1 egg, half boiled (from Malaysia)
  • 1 tablespoon of pickled sour ginger slices (from China)
  • 1 teaspoon of Japanese horseradish paste/wasabi (from Japan)
  • 1 teaspoon of parsley flakes (from USA)

How’s that for International????? Hehe.

# – First, warm up the chicken stock in a pan and pour in the nampla/fish sauce.

# – Followed by the light soya sauce. Stir to combine.

# – Pour the stock into a bowl and keep chilled in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.

# – In the meantime, make the half boiled egg. This contraption I was using is brilliant! Simply pour boiling water into it up to the designated level and wait for it to drip off. Once water is completely drained, voila…perfect half boiled eggs!

# – Now boil the noodles according to instructions on the packet.

# – Drain the noodles and rinse with cold water. You can throw in some ice if you want.

# – Set the noodles on a plate and placed the half boiled egg on it. Place some pickled ginger slices and squeeze out some wasabi on the side.

# – Take out the chilled dipping sauce and sprinkle parsley flakes all over the sauce. Serve with the plate of noodles.

# – The international cold noodles, DONE!

I was truly pleased because this international cold noodle dish managed to hit all the right notes. The noodles were loose and springy. The half boiled egg was divine (you must absolutely dunk it in the dipping sauce).

The dipping sauce was delicious thanks to the depth of the homemade chicken stock and the taste of sea from the nampla. It was really not a bad replacement for authentic dashi dipping sauce!

All said, some Japanese salty pickles would have made the entire experience perfect, but beggars can’t be chooser. I’ll remember to stock up on Japanese pickles next time. Oh yeah, and chopsticks!!!!

Simple and delicious spinach and egg bake.

This recipe is literally hot off the oven because I’ve just had it for dinner.

Since it’s so simple to make and so tasty (there she goes tooting her own horn, again), I’ve decided to blog it right now.

The BF is away attending some geeky event after work so I was all alone at dinner time. Instead of nuking some gazillion year old frozen casserole, I thought I’d make something from scratch just to soothe my separation anxiety.

# – Simple and delicious spinach and egg bake.

And nothing makes me more happy than gooey egg yolks. You can say that the entire idea of this dinner revolved around the egg yolks.

Also, I had a huge bunch of spinach I got from Tesco for RM0.30 that I had to use up. Yeap, you heard me, 30 Malaysian ringgit cents!!!!!! I love midnight knock-downs :D

The ingredients:

  • 150 grams of spinach leaves, cleaned
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon of parsley flakes or fresh finely chopped parsley
  • 3 tablespoons of whipping cream
  • Some salt
  • Some ground black pepper
  • 4 cherry tomatoes, halved

# – First, pour a bit of cooking oil onto a paper towel and wipe it all over an oven safe dish. You can use butter to grease if you want…I was just too lazy to handle butter :P

# – Then, lay the spinach leaves at the bottom of the dish.

# – Season the spinach with some salt.

# – Now, crack 3 eggs over the spinach. Ideally, the yolks should not burst.

# – Sprinkle parsley flakes or fresh chopped parsley all over.

# – Pour about 3 tablespoons of whipping cream. Try to avoid splashing onto the yolks.

# – Season with ground black pepper.

# – And finish it off with a sprinkling of salt.

# – Stick the dish into a pre-heated oven at 160 degrees celcius for 12-13 minutes. 15 minutes if you like the yolks to set, but seriously!??

# – While the dish is still very hot, lay the halved cherry tomatoes all over.

# – Spinach and egg bake, DONE! It was absolutely perfect with buttered toasts :D

Wilted spinach with gooey egg yolks and creamy egg whites interspersed with juicy cherry tomatoes. I don’t know how else to explain it. Absolutely blissful.

I could eat this everyday!!!!

(For the record, the BF separation anxiety thing is a joke)