Thai Curry Chicken

Thai Curry Chicken

10 oz coconut milk

14 oz chicken broth

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp Thai red curry paste

2 tbsp light brown sugar

1 large Japanese sweet yam, cut into chunks

1¼ pounds chicken breasts, cut crosswise into ¼-inch-thick strips

6 oz green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths

A handful of chopped fresh basil

Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Bring the coconut milk, chicken broth, fish sauce, curry paste, and sugar to a boil. Simmer on low for about 5 minutes.

2. Add in the yam and simmer, covered, for about 8-10 minutes until tender. Add the chicken and green beans, cook for another 5 minutes.

3. Sprinkle in the basil; season with salt and pepper. Serve with white jasmine rice

Recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchen 30-Minute Suppers (Winter '09)

三杯雞 (San Bei Ji)

Tonight, my mom and I had a fun cooking competition. I had been wanting to make this delectable Taiwanese dish called San Bei Ji ever since I had it in a restaurant in Atlanta. Since there was a bunch of spare basil left over from making pizzas earlier this week, San Bei Ji was a great way to use it up. San Bei Ji is literally translated into "Three Cup Chicken." The name comes from the three main ingredients (besides chicken): soy sauce, wine, and sesame oil. Usually chinese rice wine is used, but we substituted it with some nice white wine.

Cooking with clay pots keeps the flavor in.

This is my pot of San Bei Ji. I kept it to the essential elements of the recipes: chicken, soy sauce, wine, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, sugar, and basil.

This is mom's San Bei Ji - she went easy on the soy sauce and put in shiitake mushrooms and a hot chili pepper, smart lady, for an extra hit of spice.

We gave my dad a blind taste test of our two versions of San Bei Ji. He preferred my mom's version with the spicy kick, but my two sisters liked the deep flavor of my dish. Everyone had a delicious meal of San Bei Ji.

三杯雞 (San Bei Ji) Recipe

Half a chicken, bone in and some skin on, cut into 1" pieces

10 slices of fresh ginger

10 cloves of garlic

About 1/4 cup each of soy sauce, cooking wine, and sesame oil

A spoonful of sugar

A handful of fresh basil

Shiitake mushrooms, optional

Hot dried chili pepper, optional

Heat up the sesame oil in a large skillet, throw in the ginger and garlic to build up flavor. Then add in the chicken, brown for a little bit, and add the rest of the ingredients. Give it a good stir and transfer to a clay pot if available (if not, just keep cooking in the skillet, no problem). Cook on low until chicken is cooked and sauce is reduced by a third. Serve with white rice.

Pizza Night

My little sister, Jessica, has recently taken up an interest in photography, and she has a pretty good eye for it. Jessica has been helping me take photos as I cook. So why not also try her hand at blogging?

Jessica here.

Tonight, we decided to make pizzas for dinner and each of us customized our pizzas to our individual likings. I chose to make a margherita pizza, because that's one of my favorites. (Too bad I didn't know that margherita pizzas don't have tomato sauce.) My 'margherita' pizza ended up with the extra ingredients of ham (another favorite pizza topping) and mushrooms, because we needed to use up all the ingredients we chopped, and tomato sauce. Of course, I also made sure to add lots of mozzy cheese! (Pronounced like "mott-see". That's mozzarella, in Jessica-speak)

Here's my pizza fresh from the oven.

That would be Jenn's pizza. Hers was super special.

For those of you who are gravely concerned about Beverly's lack of updates, no worries. I will be bugging her often.

Hors d'oeuvres! (That is my way of saying goodbye.) A bientot!

Pizza Bites

Clank Works has been busy getting their store/apartment ready for move-in. I usually like to join in the fun with painting, putting up drywall, and spackling. But today, I thought it would be nice to make a hearty dinner to keep them fueled, since they often start right after their day jobs and work late into the night. Pizza bites were a perfect option: easy to transport and no utensils required.

Recipe adapted from Tastefully Done.

I made my own pizza dough, used fontina in addition to the mozzarella, and substituted the pepperoni with Trader Joe's chicken sausage (a much tastier - and healthier? - variation, in my humble opinion)

Before. Parsley/parmesan/spices mix to sprinkled on top.

After the oven. So tasty with marinara sauce!

New Ingredients

Since the summer is long past, and there are plenty of people around to help eat whatever I may fancy cooking/baking, this blog doesn't have its original purpose to serve anymore. But it would make me a bit sad to just abandon it; it has been a good experience and I still get asked occasionally if I'm going to update and keep it up (by which I am quite flattered that you are still looking at this, thank you). 

And so I think I will work on being a more diligent blogger... but the content will be changed up a bit. Instead of posting what I'm cooking/baking on a regular basis, I will share the more exciting recipes I try. Posts will probably be even less frequent, but I hope that you will be patient with me.

Also, my friend Ben and I are trying to cook together more often and perhaps have a dinner party every other weekend if our schedules will allow it. I am happy to write that we just cooked our first successful dinner party this past weekend. If you are so inclined to join us in the future, let us know; we would love to have new guests =)

Ben, the Connoisseur of Cheese, made a fabulous blackberry chutney to accompany the array of cheeses: Asiago, Havarti, Edam, Fontina and a smoked cheddar.

(chutney recipe from Recipezaar)

In the lower left corner is a wedge salad of iceberg lettuce, apple slices, and bacon bits drizzled with asiago peppercorn dressing and some fresh asiago (this salad was influenced by my summer housemate; thank you, Richard!)

Jambalaya stuffed peppers (recipe from Made Healthier)

"Farm Stand" Corn Bread - with whole corn kernels! (recipe from Baking and Books)

Cheers!

2 Things

Tonight, I will be making 2 things:

1) Eggs and tomato, served with white rice

and...

2) Strawberry sour cream muffins (recipe from Boston.com)

Wontons

Wontons with shrimp, pork, napa cabbage, shittake mushrooms (recipe from my mom)

and a really yummy dipping sauce!

By the way, did I mention that Tastespotting is back? :D

Beef & Snow Peas

Beef and snow pea stir fry (recipe from SuperCook)

Thai Fried Rice

Thai Fried Rice (recipe from Real Thai Recipes)

Heads up: muffins later this week

Noodles and Rice

Sesame noodles with bok choy, red peppers, mushrooms, and snow peas (adapted from Adventures in Shaw)

Cucumber salad (recipe from Veggie Paradise)

[Sorry, no pics of this]

Black rice pudding with coconut milk (recipe from RecipeZaar)

I actually cooked all this yesterday evening for dinner with Eamae - who was visiting for the weekend - Caryn, and Krosendale. It was a lovely dinner with lovely people.

There's still some sesame noodles and plenty of black rice pudding (I made a huge batch) waiting to be eaten! They're both really good chilled, so it's perfect for a hot, lazy Sunday.

Thyme for Tilapia!

Lemon Thyme Tilapia (recipe from 28 Cooks)

My good neighbors Sandy and Judy gave to me my very own pot of thyme, so I have fresh herbs to use for this recipe! Having fresh thyme definitely makes up for the little bit of freezer burn on the filets =)

Thai Chicken Sautee

Thai chicken sautee (recipe from Elle's New England Kitchen)

no cilantro or limes... will try lemons?

Dinnertime

Garlic beef with broccoli [and shittake mushrooms] -- served with white rice

(damn, can't find the shittake mushrooms)

edit: I found the mushrooms hiding behind the tortilla chips!