Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

Melting Wok revealed her secrets to me about her Spicy Honey Chicken after I asked her how come my dish looked more like Tomato Paste Chicken rather than Spicy Honey Chicken?!?

Sim Cooks Tomato Paste Chicken

versus

Melting Wok’s Spicy Honey Chicken

The only ingredient I did not add was an onion, because I had used that in my Chicken Pie and forgot to buy another one when I wanted to make her Spicy Honey Chicken.

Ok. So here are the secrets revealed and lessons learnt. (Note: You will need to read her Spicy Honey Chicken recipe first for this to make sense.)

Sim Cooks: I used a canned tomato paste (looks like tomato paste you use to spread on pizza dough) and bought a cheap Safeway brand. I needed to add water when heating up the paste cos it looked like the paste and all was going to burn and catch fire.
Melting Wok: I did not add water, cos for me, the tomato paste was not too thick - I used bottled ones.
Lesson #1: If you want more gravy, get a tomato paste with a lighter consistency. Bottled ones are useful cos you can then SEE the consistency of the paste inside. O, and don’t be a cheapskate. Safeway brand tomato paste sucks.

Sim Cooks: I pounded two chilli padi into a chilli paste using my mortar and pestle.
Melting Wok: Mine is a home-made chilli paste and is more watery & oily. I add cooking oil to my chilli paste before I store it in the refrigerator because that keeps my food moist from drying and sticking into the pan. Generally, if you use store-bought chilli paste, you must always put enough oil before you stir-fry your aromatics, spices, and spoon in some cooking oil before you add any thick paste in, or anytime while simmering the sauce. It’ll seal in the moisture. Otherwise, use more cooking spray before you start cooking.
Lesson #2: Matt or Glossy? The beautiful glaze you see from Melting Wok’s Spicy Honey Chicken is probably due to her more moist and oily chilli paste. So, matt or glossy? If you want matt, just shoddily pound a couple of chilli and make them into a paste. If you want glossy, er… pull up your socks and do some work!

Sim Cooks: How come my chicken is not crispy? Grrrr….
Melting Wok: I did not simmer the pre-pan-fried chicken too long. First, the chicken was almost done; second, I wanted to maintain the light crispy texture of the chicken, hence I did not let them sit in the sauce too long; third, I wanted lotsa sauce, enough to eat with my white rice, so I briefly let the chicken simmer in the sauce at low heat right after I briefly stir-fried the chicken at high heat, and last, the sauce did not have other liquids, hence, it’d only get thicker and dry up even more if you let the chicken sit in the sauce too long, and last, the more honey you add, the thicker it gets.
Sim Cooks: *Brain freeze* Can you speak in English?
Lesson #3: De-frost brain and re-read the above.

Sim Cooks: I did not have onions. Was I already off to a bad start?
Melting Wok: The onions added a light caramel texture and sweetness to the sauce.
Lesson #4: Always keep an onion handy in the pantry.

Sim Cooks: You said “add honey to taste” … the honey bear asked me to press his tummy a few times. Was a few times too many times too much?
Melting Wok: I’ve only used, I think, about 3/4 of tbsp of honey. The more honey you add, the thicker the sauce gets.
Lesson #5: Never trust the honey bear.

I had some chicken as leftovers and I did not want to eat that with rice again cos the taste of the tomato paste was a wee bit strong. So I mixed them with some spaghetti and chopped cilantro and I managed to get a pretty good Spaghetti With Tomato Paste Chicken.

Thanks Melting Wok for your additional tips on making Spicy Honey Chicken. I’ll be keen to make that again and eat with fragrant Basmati Rice.

Soto Ayam is a classic Spicy Chicken Soup, commonly found in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia (”Soto” means “soup” and “Ayam” means “chicken”). The soup is yellow in color due to the use of turmeric as one of its ingredients.

Add yellow noodles to this Soto Ayam and turn it into Mee Soto (Noodle Soup), a great light lunch and participate in Presto Pasta Nights. (*Phew!* Ruth accepts any noodle dish from any culture as entries.)

I was eating chicken salad for a few meals, and every time I boiled the bone-in chicken breast meat, I kept the chicken bones and the broth as a reserve for making this Soto Ayam.

The recipe is fairly simple. Turmeric, ginger, lemon grass, shallots, cloves, cardamons and star anise are all aromatics, contributing to the fragrance of the Soto Ayam. Oh and by the way I was shopping for whole cloves the other day and just FYI, Mccormick cloves sold in Safeway are at an exorbitant price of about US$5 for a small 0.62 oz bottle. If possible, get them from an Asian supermarket. That cost me only US$0.99 for a packet of approximately the same volume.

The Soto Ayam / Mee Soto Recipe below is based on approximated amounts because the amount of various ingredients to add depends on individual taste.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

- 1 handful of fresh / dry yellow noodles
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 1 chicken breast, bone in
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 lb bean sprouts, pluck off roots and blanched

Garnish:

- 1 small shallot, sliced
- 2 stalks spring onion, chopped
- 2 stalks cilantro, chopped

Soup Ingredients:

- 4-5 slices ginger
- 1 stalk lemon grass (the white part only)
- 1 small shallot
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 5 whole cloves
- 3 cardamons
- 1 star anise
- 1/2 tsp pepper (or more if you like a very peppery tasting soup)

Cooking Method:

1. Cook yellow noodles and set aside. Deep fry sliced shallot (from Garnish) until fragrant. Set aside. Grind the ginger, lemon grass and shallot (from Soup Ingredients) together using a mini food processor. Set aside.

2. Bring chicken broth to a boil, add chicken breast and salt, reduce heat setting to low and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove chicken from broth, shred chicken and set aside. Return chicken bones to the broth. Note: If you like me, have chicken broth made from leftover chicken bones, continue to simmer all the bones in the broth.

3. Heat up 2-3 tbsp cooking oil. When oil is hot enough, saute all the soup ingredients until fragrant. Pour in the chicken broth (together with all the bones) and cook under low heat (simmer, not boiling) for about half an hour till aromatic. Filter off the soup ingredients and get the soup only into serving bowls.

4. Add cooked yellow noodles, blanched bean sprouts and shredded chicken into the bowls. Garnish with chopped spring onions, cilantro and fried shallots.

Oops! The yellow noodles were all hidden under the shredded chicken bean sprouts and garnish :) but this is Mee Soto all right - yellow noodles in Spicy Chicken Soup (Soto Ayam).

Just out of the oven…

You can tell the difference between a seasoned baker versus a novice baker when you see the following signs:

The seasoned baker publishes a Chicken Pie Recipe; the novice baker follows the recipe.

The seasoned baker has a fancy “tree mould” print; the novice baker has hers plain.

The seasoned baker makes conventional round Chicken Pies; the novice baker tried to be funny in her first attempt.

Following the steps given by the seasoned baker was not in vain because the novice baker produced some really great tasting, lip smacking Chicken Pies (*pat on her back*). She made the dough from scratch too (*another pat on the back*) and that was no small feat cos it required crumbling the butter-flour mixture with a broken wrist. Ok I am kidding. The sprained wrist was forced to heal quickly becos the tummy needed food. Makes sense? Oh never mind.

Anyways… back to the novice baker’s Chicken Pie revelation. She had wondered why there was plain yoghurt as an ingredient in the seasoned baker’s recipe instead of just plain water (the novice baker had to buy a whole tub of it as Safeway did not have plain yoghurt in single servings). After tasting the great tasting, lip smacking (oh was this mentioned before?) Chicken Pies, the conclusion was the yoghurt enhanced the taste of the pastry.

The novice baker used salted butter this time round was happy with the tasty buttery pastry.

These Chicken Pies were simply awesome! The almost caramelized onions, the soft potatoes, the tender chicken breast pieces, the button mushrooms which absorbed the flavor of the chicken, the almost flaky pastry… one word to summarize: AWESOME!

Best eaten with mushroom soup and your favorite chilli sauce.

Do you want a bite now?

I seldom deep fry stuff because:

1) I do not have a deep fryer
2) I need to use a lot of oil and it’s like a waste
3) Oil splatter is bound to occur as the meat cooks (and juices come out) and the splattering oil may get into my eye and blind me
4) The whole kitchen and living room smells like a deep fryer after the cooking is done
5) I need to mop the floor

However, just the other day I somehow felt like eating Fried Chicken Wings. I want an easy recipe and I want it NOW.

This Fried Chicken Wings recipe is gotten from Julia of Aroma Cookery. She shared her secret to Fried Chicken Wings with crispy skin and juicy meat and of course… minimum ingredients. (Easy! I like!)

Note: I saw in an episode of Alton Brown Good Eats regarding deep frying, that the secret to not having the meat absorb too much oil is to deep fry them in really high temperature oil.

Ingredients (Serves 3):

- 1kg (or 2.2 lbs) mid-joint wings (approx. 20 wings) (I used 12 whole chicken wings)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp light soy sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- a few dashes of white pepper
- 1 egg
- 8 tbsp cornstarch
- oil for deep-frying

Cooking Method:

1. Wash and pat dry the chicken wings (so that the seasoning will stick).

2. Mix the salt, sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper, and egg together. Pour the mixture over the wings and mix thoroughly in a large bowl or pot, then add the cornstarch and mix well. Leave aside for 15 minutes.

3. Heat up the oil and add the wings. Deep-fry in batches if necessary. Lower the heat to medium and cook till about 80% done. Then raise the heat to high again and deep-fry the wings till they are golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.

4. Serve with your favorite sweet chilli sauce.

Just like what Julia said, this method produces “moderately crispy but incredibly juicy fried chicken wings”. They are best eaten when hot, otherwise the crispiness will be lost. (To reinstate that crispiness, just pop them into the oven at 400F and bake them for 15 mins).

To reduce the guilt of eating Fried Chicken Wings, serve it with salad. :)

I did say I am not a baker, but did I tell you I am an artist wannabe? Just look at how pretty this pie is.

I used the same Betty Crocker Pie Crust Mix that I had used for the Portuguese Egg Tarts (because I liked the flaky texture and not too buttery taste of this pie crust mix) and made this pie crust in the same way as the tarts. I did read about Pillsbury Pie Shells being used in some Chicken Pie Recipes, but those require a 9 inch diameter pie pan and I didn’t have that.

I did have this 5.5 inches by 5.5 inches square glass baking dish which I had used for my tuna casserole (recipe not yet posted, and would not be for some time cos I don’t know if canned tuna is safe to eat during pregnancy, so I thought I’d avoid it totally).

Anyway… back to Miss Pretty Chicken Pie. Unfortunately Miss Pretty Chicken Pie is like a bimbo, whose emphasis is only on external looks. That’s because her creator (that’s me) decided to throw a few ingredients together (whatever’s available in the fridge or pantry) without wanting to go through the hassle of buying any additional herbs or spices or flavoring.

I seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper and cajun spice and did a simple pan-fry. Then I cooked some frozen peas and carrots in one tablespoon of butter and then mixed that with the cooked chicken, and added some cornstarch solution in an attempt to get a sticky mixture. When the mixture has cooled, I transfered it to the pie crust, did some braiding on top and coated the top with eggwash (so that the top would brown in the oven).

I suspect I did not add enough salt and had used unsalted butter. My chicken pie tasted only so-so… please do not follow what I did above. LOL!

The other thing I learnt is that the pie crust on the top needs to be a bit bigger than the pie dish cos the crust will shrink when baked. (Ref picture above)

I heard of some people using Cream of Mushroom Soup or Cream of Chicken Soup mixed with cooked chicken to create the pie filling. Will that really work?

I like the Chicken Pies from POLAR Puffs and Cake. One day, I will make Chicken Pies as tasty as theirs. One day.