Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

I was given a pasta education recently by my blog readers on how to make Chicken with Pasta:
1) The Military Pasta way - am still not sure what that is?
2) The Pomodoro way - pasta with olive oil and fresh tomatoes
3) The Marinara way - pasta with olive oil, tomatoes plus some other herbs like basil
4) The Asian way - Teriyaki Chicken with Linguine
5) The No way - Spaghetti with Chicken does not exist.

Below is the simcooks’ way : Chicken Fettucine. I have a few cooking tips to make the chicken and pasta very tasty.

Cooking Tip # 1:
Leave the chicken skin on. The chicken skin will not only crisp up during the pan-sear process, it will also keep the chicken juices in, so that the end result is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

Cooking Tip # 2:
Season the chicken thighs with salt, pepper and cajun seasoning liberally. If you don’t have cajun seasoning, then salt and pepper will do. (Cajun seasoning comprises of a variety of spices like cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, thyme, sweet basil and bay leaf. Variations may be found, depending on brand.)

Cooking Tip # 3:
Heat up 2 tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan. Medium-high heat. The tip here is in using a saucepan instead of a frying pan. Reason being a saucepan has a higher “side” and you can use a paper towel to cover the saucepan during the pan-fry process to prevent oil splatter.

Cooking Tip # 4:
Put the chicken skin side down, and then leave it alone for about 10 minutes. Yep, leave it alone. Nope! No excuses, no itchy fingers, no but-I-want-to-turn-it-over-to-take-a-look buts. Go make a salad for a side dish and start to cook the pasta. This is because, we want the chicken to sear. And nope! Searing does not “seal in the juices”. This myth has been busted in Alton Brown’s Good Eats. (do a search for “searing” in Wikipedia.) Searing is to allow the skin to caramelise so that the chicken will be very tasty.

After 10 minutes, use a pair of tongs to turn the chicken over. This other side will cook for a shorter amount of time. Let it cook for about 8 minutes, again, without moving the chicken around.

Cooking Tip # 5:
After this long wait (because you are starting to get hungry), check if the chicken is cooked thoroughly by using a pair of kitchen scissors to make a small but deep incision on one side of the largest chicken thigh. If no blood oozes out, that means the chicken is cooked thoroughly.

Cooking Tip # 6:
The pasta should be cooked by now. Set aside the cooked chicken. Transfer the pasta to the same saucepan. Use a spatula to scrape off the brown bits left at the bottom of the saucepan. If necessary, use a pair of tongs to mix the brown bits well with the pasta. This is because the brown bits are very tasty.

To serve:
Cut the chicken thighs into bite sized pieces. Plate the pasta and top it off with the chicken. If you wish, sprinkle some finely chopped parsley (for color). We don’t want to add cheese to this dish because we don’t want the strong flavor of parmesan cheese to mute the flavor of the crispy, salty chicken.

Enjoy!

The ProBlogger Group Writing Project
Is here again!
Participating in this project
Will not be in vain

This time round it’s about
Reviews and predictions
Hmm… what if I write something
About my cooking addiction?

Think I’ll write on
What’s up for the new year ahead
What food shall I cook?
What dish shall I make?

Hey! I just got from Amazon
A recipe book
Now I’ve got new stuff
That I can cook!

Singaporean, Malaysian
And Indonesian Cuisine
Those are the delicious dishes
That I’m seeing

Lots of spices
For me to explore
Some of them
I may grow to adore

Knotgrass, kaffir leaves
And galangal
Though new to me
I think they’ll be swell

Banana leaves and pandan leaves
I’ve used them before
They add lots of fragrance
To my coconut rice galore

Have you heard of
Hainanese Chicken Rice?
It’s a Singapore favorite
It’s so very nice!

I used to make this using
The Prima Taste premix
Now I have a recipe
For my chicken rice fix!

How does Fragrant Coconut Chicken
Sound to you?
The recipe only has eight ingredients
And can serve two

Nonya Pork Stew
I’d love to try
The picture looks delicious…
Oh my oh my oh my!

Do you know how to
Make Spicy Anchovies?
Do you know they are called
Sambal Goreng Ikan Bilis?

Nasi Lemak is Coconut Rice,
You can eat with anchovies,
A fried egg and some
Fresh Grated Coconut With Beef

Oh! I recently made a
Menu for Hope donation
And hope to win the
Cradle of Flavor in return

Then I’ll have more recipes
For the New Year
I give and take
All in good cheer

With my cooking predictions
For the year 2007
I see myself rubbing my tummy
In a state of heaven…

As I write this, the total amount donated is ever increasing! Total amount raised as of now is US$26,620.70 and we still have 5 days to go!

During this festive season, one of the best things any of us can do is give to those who aren’t as fortunate as we are.

Menu For Hope III is organized by celebrity food blogger Chez Pim, this event is all about giving and sharing. Here’s how the campaign works: food bloggers from all over the world participate by giving away some amazing prizes, and readers donate money for a chance (or chances) to win them. The money collected will then be donated to the UN World Food Programme which provides hunger relief for needy people worldwide.

For every US$10 you donate, you may claim one raffle ticket toward a prize of your choice. The more you give, the better your chance to win. The campaign has been running since December 11 and will continue until Friday 22nd, 6PM PST.

It’s not too late for you to do your part. Head on down to Menu For Hope III and make a donation NOW!

High Fructose Corn Syrup is the “bad word” in an ingredients list. I read food labels but most of the time, I focused on the calorie count and fat content per serving.

It was only until recently that I was introduced to The Murky World of High Fructose Corn Syrup by the nutritionist from my pre-natal nutrition class.

Soft drinks and processed foods are full of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is not only fattening, it is an inexpensive and ultra-concentrated sugar that has no resemblance to real food made by nature. It is a highly processed form of sugar and almost certainly made from genetically modified corn and then processed with genetically modified enzymes.

HFCS is found in the most unlikely foods like ketchup, coolwhip, yogurt, salad dressing and barbecue sauce. Horror of horrors! I have the latter three in my refrigerator! The irony is that even LOW-FAT yogurt and salad dressing contain HFCS!

A July 2006 New York Times article on high fructose corn syrup (”A Sweetener With a Bad Rap“), noted:

“The Food and Drug Administration never established rules on what, exactly, ‘natural’ means, allowing companies to pitch products as natural even if they contain high-fructose corn syrup. Cadbury Schweppes recently began promoting 7-Up, which is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, as “100 percent natural.” Capri Sun fruit-flavored drinks from Kraft are also promoted as all-natural, although they, too, are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Cadbury and Kraft both say they believe that high-fructose corn syrup is natural because it is made from corn.”

So, boys and girls, moms and dads, do read food labels when grocery shopping and be aware that seemingly “natural” products may not be so natural after all.

As for me, I will be taking limited quantities of my yogurt, salad dressing and barbecue sauce just so as to be on the safe side, where the murky world of high fructose corn syrup is concerned.

Sushi Maru is one of those sushi boat places. This time round, we sat at the table because sometimes the sushi boat to nowhere just goes round and round and round and you can’t really be sure how fresh the sushi is when it comes to you. Also, the unagi sushi in the boat sometimes turns cold. However, if you sit at the table and give your sushi order to the waitress, she will get the sushi fresh from the sushi chef behind the counter. This is the best way to get our fresh hamachi and salmon sushi and warm unagi sushi!

Of course, the hamachi and the salmon sushi are forbidden fishes for me cos they are raw. I had to make do with the unagi sushi. Oh yummy! The pieces were so big but I could still fit them into my mouth. Hehe! Sushi etiquette dictates that you eat nigiri sushi in one bite. The traditional itamae (sushi chef) will make the pieces the proper size for this. So these sushi from Sushi Maru are big, but not too big!

Below are the ones which I could savor ALL of! It’s a combo lunch deal which comes with beef teriyaki and pork cutlet. Lunch specials come with miso soup and salad.

The beef teriyaki has a thin layer of fats at the sides of some pieces and when eaten with the sweet soy sauce marinade, is very flavorful. The grill marks on the beef teriyaki makes a pretty picture pleasing to the eyes. I asked for salad without the dressing so that I could mix the salad with the teriyaki sauce.

I was happy with the pork cutlet too. But only the pork cutlet per se, not the mustard dip that came with it. It was a strange sweet taste that I could not get accustomed to.

The miso soup was a tad too salty and tasted strongly of MSG. My instant miso soup from Range99 tasted way better!

All in all, it is a good deal to eat at Sushi Maru. Sushi boats comes in plates of $1.99, $2.99, $3.99 and $4.99. For the combination we had, it was $2.99 for each pair of sushi (salmon, hamachi, unagi) and $8.99 for my beef teriyaki-pork cutlet combo meal.

Sushi Maru Restaurant
308 Town and Country
Sunnyvale, CA 94086