I love nuts and its but natural to have them as often as I can even among savoury food. One staple Chinese take away dish that I really enjoy is the stir-fried chicken with cashews. I found this recipe in my trusted Chinese Cuisine by Huang Su-Huei and decided to give it a go. It is quite good if I may say so myself although I think I would increase the sauce to double it the next time.
Chicken with Cashews
500 g boneless chicken meat - cut into bite-sized pieces 2 green onions - cut into 1-inch pieces 1 cup diced cucumbers 1/2 cup cooking oil 1 cup fried cashews
*Marinade: 1/4 tsp fine sea salt 1 Tbsp cooking wine
Okay I'm not too familiar with this Parmesan Chicken over on this side of the pond. I would assume this is name is popular over in the US. Over here it is called other things like chicken schnitzel or escalope. They may or may not have parmesan cheese but sure does make it very tasty. Some other variations of these involves brining the meat and also putting some tomato sauce and mozarella on top before grilling it for a few minutes. So those would be my next experiments in the mean time I leave you this recipe which I got from the lovely Ina Garten over at the Food Network.
Parmesan Chicken (Chicken Escalope / Schnitzel)
2 chicken breasts 65 g [1/2 cup] plain flour 1/2 tsp fine sea salt 1/4 tsp ground black pepper 1 large egg 1 1/4 cups breadcrumbs 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese olive oil unsalted butter
Butterfly each of the chicken breast into two thin pieces. Pound each piece so that it will be about 1/4-inch thick.
Combine the flour, sea salt, and black pepper. Set aside.
Beat the egg with a teaspoon of water.
Combine the breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Set aside.
Dredge the pieces in flour then dip in the egg and then finally coat it with the breadcrumb mixture.
Heat 1 Tbsp of the butter and 1 Tbsp of the olive oil in a pan. Fry the battered chicken pieces in the pan on medium-low heat of about 2 minutes each side.
Chicken lollipops are good appetizers and very popular among kids. There's something about having a 'handle' on a piece of fried chicken that entice everyone. It is essentially fried chicken wings that are easy to make and you can use any type of marinade you like. The only hard thing about it is the preparation of the wing drummette itself where you have to scrape the meat from the bone without detaching completely and then pushing the meat all the way to the end of the bone. It is much better and easier if you can find a butcher who can do this for you. For instructions on how to do this, here a couple of links from Saveur and a video from Stella Culinary.
I've used a very simple lemon and soy sauce marinade here to make Filipino-style chicken lollipops. It was quite effective since the taste is not mixed with so many other spices and flavours. But if you want a more 'sophisticated' taste then go ahead and add more spices to the marinade.
Cut, separate and prepare the chicken wings using the instructions in this link and/or in here.
Mix the marinade of lemon juice and soy sauce in a bowl. Taste to see if the sour-salty combination is according to your liking. If not, adjust lemon juice and soy sauce.
Marinate prepared chicken wings for about 1 hour.
Drain chicken from marinade.
Arrange flour and breadcrumbs in separate shallow bowls. Beat egg with milk (if using) in another bowl.
Dredge chicken wings in flour first then dip in egg mixture and finally roll in the breadcrumbs. Let rest on a rack for about 30 minutes.
This is one of my experiment last Christmas. It turned well actually. The chicken had a lot of flavour and was juicy. Although I thought there should be less molasses (black treacle) to reduce the darkness and richness of the marinade so it is reflected in the recipe below. I adapted this from my ancient Maya Cookbook. The cover has been ripped off and is currently missing so I don't really know the actual name of the book. But it has served me well (like my old Nora Daza cookbook) as a reference.
Lechon Manok (Filipino-style Roasted Chicken)
*Marinade 2 Tbsp lemon or calamansi juice 1/4 cup patis 2 Tbsp sea salt 2 Tbsp liquid seasoning (Maggi or Knorr) 1 tsp ground black pepper 2 Tbsp molasses or black treacle
1 whole chicken
Combine all the marinade except the molasses. Taste the marinade, it should have the right balance between sourness and saltiness. Adjust according to your taste. Add in the molasses and mix well.
Marinate the chicken for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 160°C/fan 140°C/325°F. Roast chicken for 30 minutes then increase temperature to 180°C/fan 160°C/350°F for an hour or until juices coming out of pierced thigh is clear. *OR* Grill in charcoal barbecue for maximum flavour.
My kids took after my husband, they so love noodle soups especially the ones with egg noodles. So whenever we go to a Chinese restaurant my kids would almost always order noodle soups. It's one way to test if the restaurant is any good. My son would get the braised beef while the girls would more often than not order the soya chicken noodle soup.
This delicious soya chicken dish (sometimes called soy chicken) it involves braising a whole chicken in soy sauce and spices and then hanged to dry and crisp up. You can usually see this hanging with roast ducks and crispy roast pork in Chinese restaurants serving roast meats. It is great with noodles (both the stir-fried and soupy varieties) or simply with steamed rice.
Here is an attempt to re-create soya chicken at home to reduce our visits to noodle restaurants. I did not bother to use a whole chicken and dispensed with the air-drying thing. It is delicious nonetheless.
Soya Chicken
1 cup dark soy sauce 1 cup light soy sauce 1/2 cup Chinese rice wine or dry sherry 1/2 cup packed brown sugar or 1/2 cup Chinese rock sugar 1 tsp fennel seeds 3 whole star anise 1 tsp Szechuan peppercorn - roasted 1 inch fresh ginger - peeled and lightly smashed 1 cinnamon stick 500 g chicken legs
Combine all ingredients except the chicken in a pot. Bring to boil in medium heat.
Add in the chicken and bring back to boil.
Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Turn or braise chicken with the sauce from time to time.
Turn off heat, cover pot (if not yet covered) and let sit for 1 hour.
Remove chicken from sauce. Cut up into serving pieces and serve with steamed rice or noodles in soup.
Note: The sauce can be re-used. Just re-boil it, strain the spices and discard, cool the sauce completely and then store in a glass or plastic container in the fridge.
