cooking therapy

Tumeric chicken with serai and shallots.

Ingredients
Tumeric powder
Ginger 1 knob
3 cloves garlic
1 Stalk of serai
4 shallots
Salt
Sugar

Pound all the ginger, garlic, serai and shallots into a paste. Since i didnt have a mortar..i had to chop it manually to tiny bits and smash it with the side of the knife with my palm.

Marinate the chicken all over with the paste, add salt and sugar. Add tumeric powder to the chicken till its nice and yellow all over. It will look like this. Marinate this overnight for extra shiokness. I wrapped it with aluminum to lock in the taste.

To cook, throw it in the oven at 190 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. Best in the oven till the skin becomes crispy and the paste becomes crunchy.


This is what i had for lunch today :)


Minced pork with eggplant
Took this from a website and it turned out perfect

Ingredients

• 3 eggplants
• salt
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 knob ginger, peeled
• 8 spring onions
• peanut oil (or vegetable oil) for shallow frying
• 300g pork mince
• 2 tbsp chilli bean paste ( i used the spicy black bean paste instead)
  
• 4 tbsp soy sauce
• 5 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (or substitute dry sherry)
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 cup water

Slice eggplants into short, thin strips and scatter with salt, then leave in a colander for 30-40 minutes. Rinse and pat dry with kitchen paper. This allows the salt to extract the moist from inside the eggplant allowing it to absorb the sauce and taste from the paste during cooking. Picture of the water extracted by the salt.

In a mortar and pestle (or food processor), crush garlic, ginger and four spring onions to a paste. Slice the other spring onions into 5cm lengths. Again...i didnt have a Set aside. See below

Heat a wok with a cup of oil and when hot, fry the eggplants until golden brown - it's best to do this in two batches. Remove with a slotted spoon to drain on kitchen paper and discard oil.

Heat the wok with a few tablespoons of fresh oil and add the garlic paste and pork mince. Stir-fry for 5 minutes on high until the pork is cooked, then add all the remaining ingredients, including the sliced spring onions. Cook for a few minutes until they have softened and the flavours have melded together.

Stir in the eggplant, check the seasoning (if a little salty add more water) and serve.

Serves 4

Voila!! damn nice...