Chicken with Cucumber

Cucumber is another ingredient not normally used in cooking. They are either eaten raw in salads, in Japanese sushi, as garnishing or as one of the ingredient in salad. One notable use of cucumber as major ingredient in a dish is the cold cucumber soup. There is one Chinese recipe that calls for zucchini with chicken. However, in my place I seldom find zucchini but there are really plenty of cucumbers. I thought of substituting cucumber for my chicken recipe that calls for zucchini and the result is just nice. You have to modify the cooking style a little though to accommodate for the tender cucumber.

Ingredients:

½ kg Chicken thigh fillet (halved)

1 pc. Cucumber (large, cut into strips, remove seeds if they are too large, you may peel the cucumber if desired.)

1 pc. Egg (medium, beaten)

1 tbsp. Cornstarch

1/8 tsp. Black pepper (freshly ground)

¼ tsp. Iodized salt

2 tbsp. Premium dark soy sauce

1 tbsp. Oyster sauce

1 tsp. Sesame oil

2 tbsp. Safflower oil (for frying chicken fillets)

1 tbsp. Safflower oil (for sautéing onion and garlic)

4 cloves Garlic (minced)

1 pc. Onion (medium, thinly sliced)

1 pc. Green bell pepper (cut into large cubes)

1/8 tsp. Ginger powder

1 cup Water

Cooking Instruction:

In a suitable bowl, mix together the chicken fillets, starch, egg, black pepper, salt. Heat oil in a Teflon pan and fry both sides of the chicken fillets until golden brown. Set aside fried fillets on a colander lined with paper towels to remove excess fat.

Add more oil to the Teflon pan and sauté the garlic and onion until the garlic is golden brown and the onion starts to caramelize. Toss in the chicken and add the water, oyster sauce, soy sauce, ginger powder. Boil and simmer with cover until the liquid is about ½ cup. Add extra black pepper to taste. Toss in the bell pepper and continue simmering for another 2 minutes. Add the cucumber and mix well. Cover and simmer for another 2 minutes. Add the sesame oil and mix well. Serve. Enjoy as topping on steamed rice or with plain steamed buns.

Pizza!

I just love pizzas! You can top it with almost anything you like. I like cooking my pizza at home since I get to choose what I like to include in the recipe unlike the precooked items in restaurants. Plus I get to practice making my pizza myself but of course I do not make the dough myself because that would be too hard. This one is my son's favourite!

Soy Chicken

There are countless recipes using chicken and that does not stop one from inventing still newer recipes. Cuisines continuously evolve and sometimes it is nice to cook simple recipes so that you enjoy the natural taste of the ingredients. Remove this, add that and voila! The thing tastes different!

Ingredients:

1 kg. Chicken

¼ cup Dark soy sauce

½ tsp. Black pepper (ground)

2 tbsp. Garlic (minced)

1 pc. Onion (medium, finely chopped)

¼ cup Water

1 tbsp. Sesame oil

2 tbsp. Safflower oil

Cooking Instruction:

Heat oil in the pressure cooker and sauté in the oil the garlic until golden brown. Once the garlic is golden brown toss in the onion and ginger and sauté the onion until it starts to caramelize. Toss in the chicken and stir to blanch the surface. Add the soy sauce, black pepper, and water. Pressure cook for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes turn off the flame and allow to cool normally. Do not vent the steam. Allow it to cool normally which takes about 10-15 minutes. The additional time afforded by the normal cool down is used for additional cooking of the contents. Once safe to open, remove the cover and skim off any excess fat to further reduce the fat content of the dish. Add the sesame oil and mix well. Enjoy with plain steamed buns or top on steamed rice.

Pork Caldereta

Caldereta is another versatile recipe for a variety of meats. Like the pasta, you can include a variety of ingredients depending upon what is available to the cook. It can include several to just some simple ingredient. Nevertheless, it has almost similar taste except for small difference because of the ingredients that was used to make the dish. In fact, there are several variations of the recipe depending on which locality it is cooked. All of the variations however are all delicious. Of course one may have preference to one variant to the others also. The customary meat that is cooked in this recipe should be beef. However, you can also use pork, mutton, lamb, chicken, etc. Of course if you crave for the dish and you have little time to prepare and you don’t have time also to go some place to have it, you can still cook it for yourself using meat that is easily tenderized which I just did with this recipe which I will share in this blog. Of course you can opt to have in the freezer pre-tenderized beef but if you don’t then this is a good alternative.

Ingredients:

1 kg Pork (ribs are recommended or chops will do just fine)

250 g Potato (cut into large cubes)

125 g Carrots (cut in big pieces)

½ tsp. Black pepper (powder)

2 tbsp. Garlic (minced)

1 pc. Onion (medium, thinly sliced)

½ cup Tomato sauce

1 can Liver spread (small)

1 pc. Green bell pepper (cut into large squares)

½ cup Safflower oil (for frying the potatoes and carrots)

2 tbsp. Safflower oil (for sautéing)

½ tsp. Iodized salt

1 tbsp. Sugar

½ cup Water

¼ cup Dark soy sauce

1 pc. Hot dog (cut into pieces)

Cooking Instruction:

In a frying pan heat the oil and fry the potatoes and carrots until golden brown. Set aside on paper towels to remove excess pan. Get 2 tbsp. Oil and transfer into a pressure cooker and heat the transferred oil to near its smoke point. When smoke point is nearly reached, sauté on it the garlic and onion until garlic is golden brown and onion starts to caramelize. Saute the hotdog and toss in the pork and black pepper. Cook for 2 minutes with stirring and add the soy sauce, water, sugar, and liver spread. Mix well and cover to pressure cook for about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, turn off the flame and allow cooling normally. Do not vent the pressure to hasten cooling; the additional time which is about 10-15 minutes consumed for normal cooling is used as additional cooking time to tenderize the meat. When cooled, open the pressure cooker and skim off any excess oil that floats to lower the dish’s fat content. Toss in the potato and carrots and the tomato sauce, mix. Again turn on the heat and mix from time to time taking care not to shred the soft meat (this is best done not by using a ladle but by lifting the pressure cooker and swirling the contents. When it boils, simmer for about 2 minutes. You may now enjoy the hot caldereta with rice or some bread.

Vegetables and Chicken with Cottage Cheese and Balsamic Vinegar

I thought of experimenting with cheese and balsamic vinegar and have created this recipe as a result. It has that strong cheesy taste and fragrance of balsamic vinegar. I think the taste is interesting enough for me to post it here. I just hope it is up to the taste of the readers too...

Ingredients:

¼ kg Chicken thigh fillets (halved)

½ cup Mixed green peas, carrots, and corn kernels

1 tsp. Cottage cheese

1 tbsp. Balsamic vinegar

¼ tsp Worcestershire sauce

¼ cup White wine

¼ tsp. Iodized salt

2 tbsp. Butter

1 tsp. Extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp. Safflower oil (for frying the chicken)

1/8 tsp. Black pepper (freshly milled)

1 tbsp. Garlic (minced)

½ cup water

1 pc. Onion (medium, finely sliced)

Cooking Procedure:

Heat the safflower oil in a Teflon pan. Sprinkle some freshly milled black pepper on the chicken and fry each side until golden brown and set aside.

Discard the oil from frying the chicken (this is laden with cholesterol from the chicken fat). In the same pan, heat the olive oil and sauté in the oil, the garlic and onion until the garlic is golden brown and onion starts to caramelize. Add the chicken and mix. Add the balsamic vinegar and again mix to distribute throughout the chicken evenly. Pour in the wine and continue cooking at high heat for another two minutes. Add the vegetables, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and the water. Cover and boil at high heat until sauce is reduced to approximately ½ cup liquid. Add the butter and mix well. Enjoy with pita bread or rice.