Shredded Chicken with Vegetable Stir-Fry Sauce - Let's Do Chinese!

Hullo!

 

This recipe, I have loved for quite a while now. It's easy to make and yummy to eat. Rich in protein and high in vitamins too. It's got Chinese origins.

 

 

This normally is a chicken recipe but for this particular one, I used turkey as I usually love to use those already shredded chicken pieces they sell in Park n Shop or Shoprite or the boneless chicken breasts but didn't have any. But since I wasn't able to go to any of those stores, I didn't want to have to struggle with deboning the regular chicken sold in neighbourhood frozen food stores, I bought turkey instead. Turkey works perfectly for this also. But! Make sure your knife is super sharp for this one. Shredding was such a pain as my knife was already blunting. This was the first time I used turkey for this recipe instead of chicken. I thought the turkey would be softer than frozen chicken. Actually, it was. But because the flesh of turkey is too succulent, a blunt knife will not get the shape you are aiming for.

 

The cabbage in this recipe is optional but I love me some cabbage. It also helps for quantity.

 

2 Chicken breast/ 1 Turkey wing, deboned, split and skinned (or not. I love my poultry skin)

4 tsp cornflour

2 tsp soy sauce

1 egg white, slightly beaten

Seasoning

5 tbsp olive oil

1 big carrot, thinly shredded

1 Green pepper, thinly shredded

2 Tatashe (red bell pepper)

1 cup of cabbage, thinly shredded

1 tsp fresh ginger, thinly shredded or grated

Spring Onion (Scallions) sliced into 1/2 inch length

1 onion

2 garlic cloves, thinly diced

3 tbsp water

 

Slice the chicken/turkey horizontally, paper thin. Believe me, your knife must be sharp. Mine wasn't so I ended up having shreds and dices. Place in a bowl.

 

 

 

Combine half of cornflour, seasoning and half of soy sauce and egg white. Pour over the chicken slivers and let stand for 30minutes.

 

 

 

Heat 1 tbsp of oil in skillet and sauté carrots for 1 minute. Add the green and red pepper and sauté for 1 minute.

 

 

Add cabbage and sauté for 30 seconds.

 

 

Remove vegetables from the pan/wok and set aside. In same pan, heat remaining olive oil and sauté onion, garlic ginger, seasoning and scallion for 30 seconds. With a slotted spoon, remove chicken from soy sauce and add to pan, cooking and stirring until shreds turn white or until it changes colour.

 

 

 

Add the reserved vegetables, and remaining soy sauce. Cook until heated through, then stir in remaining cornflour dissolved in the cold water. Cook briefly until all is covered with glaze or glistening.

 

 

Serve at once over rice.

 

Lol. This is not Ila Asepo o!

You go fear presentation

 

 

Things you should try to do for this recipe:

1. Better you buy the already sliced chicken sliver being sold in big chain supermarkets eg. Park n shop or Shoprite

2. An alternative to 1 is to buy boneless chicken breasts from same stores.

3. Sharpen your knife!!!

4. Basmati rice is best with this. Those our staple imported Thai rice here are just meh!

5. You can substitute the Soy sauce with a Light Soy sauce if you're bothered about sodium. You may need to use more though.

6. For those worried about MSG - I know, I am too most times - substitute the soy sauce with light soy sauce and for the seasoning, use Spice Supreme's Salt Free Seasoning.

7. The Nigerian reader here is wondering if I omitted the salt. No, I didn't. You don't need it. There's even too much soy sauce going on here for you to go adding more sodium.

8. The Chinese food enthusiast is wondering if I omitted the sugar. You can add the sugar if you want. I didn't want.

9. You can use gizzard or beef for this sauce as well.

10. You can use whatever veggies you want. Not leafy veggies though!

 

Ciao now!

 

PS. Notice the new blog look? You like?

YAMARITA! OR SHALL WE SAY DUN DUN ONIYERI?

Hey people!

Long weekends have to come with some fun stuff, right? Well, on Saturday, my sister was talking about feeling like eating Yamarita and I told her I had recently found the recipe off Dunni's blog and I could prepare it for her. Dunni has got a very fantastic food blog, I tell you.

Now, I'm not really a yam lover. In fact, I'm not a yam lover. I'd rather not eat it unless I'm very hungry and there's nothing else to eat. I haven't even eaten yamarita before. I'm not even sure if I've seen it except on the menu of TFC's eatery. I just hear people gush about it. But I was pretty impressed with the outcome of this yamarita.

Apparently, the native name for yamarita is Dundun Oniyeri but yamarita is a coined name.

Recipe:

Yam - sliced in slim pieces
2 eggs
Maggi seasoning
Salt
Curry
Cayenne pepper
Mixed spice
Flour
Oil for deep frying

I cut the yam, peeled it and sliced it this way:

I then rinsed it severally to get the starch out and until the water was clear. Then I soaked it in Salted water. This was to ensure that the yam was well salted.

I mixed the egg with the maggi, salt, curry, cayenne pepper and mixed spice. After the yam was soaked for about 10 minutes, I dipped it in the egg mixture and then rolled it in flour.

 

 

I then proceeded to deep-fry it. Make sure you deep-fry on low heat for about 7-10 minutes. This is to ensure that the yam gets to cook and the egg does not get burnt. I think I prefer this to boiling the yam first and the yam was well cooked inside.

You can use potatoes with this recipe if you desire.

I didn't do a dipping sauce. I felt I had done more than enough by helping my siblings fry yam. Between you and I, I was just feeling lazy.

I don't like yam but I really did not mind this yamarita at all. Fantastic stuff. Amazing how easy it is too. My family was all over it.

Do try it.

Ciao!

Update:

So, I went on Dunni's blog and saw that she had written another post for yamarita that was slightly different. She boiled the yam before coating it and she coated the yam in egg a second time after dipping in flour. So, since my siblings ate boiled yam and egg on this Sunday morning, I decided to use the yam for this other style of yamarita. Here is the result:

This version is definitely crispier. But my sister says she loves the crispyness of this version but it lacks the dundun taste because the yam was boiled before being coated. So, you can do whichever version you please.

Stewed Gizzard and Tagliatelle in Spinach

Hey y'all!

 

Here's a recipe I came up with last week. It's nothing dramatically new. I just had a day when I felt like eating pasta. I had some macaroni at home but at the last minute, I decided using the Tagliatelle in Spinach that had been sitting in my kitchen for a while. When it was time to think of the animal protein to accompany the meal, I gave that a long thought. You'd think it was more than a normal meal I was pondering on. Thing is, I'm not much of an animal protein fan. I can well eat my meals and do without it. But in this environment, people tend to frown on that. I eat them mostly because I know my body needs them. I like fish/seafood a lot and like beef the least. For chicken, I'm just indifferent although I have a little love for turkey. So this day, I had no animal protein at home and I really did not feel like doing chicken seeing as I seemed to be having that too many times. I have this belief that poultry goes best with pasta, actually. And since I eat a lot of pasta, well, I was tired of all that chicken. It then occurred to me that Wait a minute! I love Gizzard! That's one of the few animal proteins I just cannot pass. So, I went off to buy half a kilo of Gizzard. I wanted as little as possible as I was the only one eating it. So, I came up with this meal:

 

Gizzard - Half a kilo

Tomatoes - 7

Scotch Bonnet (rodo) - 10 (I eat a lot of pepper. Reduce yours if you don't)

Onions - 2

Olive Oil - 2 tbsp.

Italian Seasoning - 1 tsp

Garlic (powdered) - 2 tsp

Maggi chicken cube

Cayenne powder - 1 tsp

Salt

Granoro's Tagliatelle with Spinach 

 

I washed the gizzards of dirt. I was pleased to discover that Half a kilo of gizzard was so much that I had to keep some away. I even took some time admiring this particular gizzard. This was nicely pink and I just bought it from one of these neighbourhood frozen food shops. The packed ones I've been getting from those popular big chain supermarkets were not even as much or pink or fleshy or lovely looking before being cooked.

 

Yummy gizzard

 

Seasoned the gizzard with some Italian Seasoning, a bit of Maggi, a teaspoon of Garlic powder and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Add half an onion and a quarter cup of water. Let cook. Then put aside afterwards.

 

While that's cooking, clean the tomatoes and pepper and onions. Put in a blender and pulse. I didn't puree as I always like my pepper to be rough and not smooth.

 

Blended pepper

Next, pour the olive oil in the pan or wok. Then add some chopped onions. When the onions turn transparent, pour in the blended pepper and let cook on medium heat for about 15minutes.



 

When cooked, add all the dry ingredients and the juice from the cooked gizzard. Let cook for about 5minutes. Add some more chopped onions then add the cooked gizzard. Cover and let cook for another 5 minutes then take off the burner.

 

While the sauce was cooking, boil some water in a separate pot. Add a bit of salt. When it's boiled, put in the pasta. I used 4 rolls of the Granoro Tagliatelle in Spinach.

 



Tagliatelle pasta with spinach

Let the pasta boil for about 5mins as tagliatelle cooks quickly then drain in a sieve or colander. Look how beautiful that is.

 

 

I at first tried to mix the sauce with the pasta but I found that to be unnecessary as the strong green colour of the pasta did not let the colour of the sauce come through. So, I served the meal this way.

 

Yum!

 

My personal opinion is that this meal is suitable for weightwatchers. The pasta is infused with spinach to make it healthy. Kinda like wheat bread, I think. Gizzard too is known to be a healthy source of protein as against red meat.

 

Oh yeah! It tasted fantastic!

 

NB: Writing this post tonight has helped me none. The plumbing is bad in my flat so there's no running water. I didn't want to cook anything that'll cause me to have dirty dishes so I'm stuck with eating bread for dinner. I now went to write this post. Now, I'm hungry for real food. Just swell!

 

Seafood stir-fry and Pasta

Since this blog is just about me posting my favourite activities and interests, here's a recipe I just discovered and absolutely love.

I found this recipe off the internet while I was having a bored period. I don't quite remember the link now but when I do, I'd be sure to update. Why I particularly got interested with this recipe is because 1. I love pasta. That's my go-to staple. As tiny as my kitchen is, if you see nothing else  in there, you can be sure to meet some pasta. My father is a pasta fanatic. He passed it on to me. 2. I love seafood too! But not as much of a staple as pasta is to me. I got the Breco Seafood Mix from Shoprite which has squid, calamari rings, shrimp, octopus, etc and it's quite cheap. Just under 800naira.

So, 2 loves and I was ready to try this recipe.

Here's what you need:

Pasta (I used Tagliatelle cos that was what I had on hand)
5 Carrots - skinned and chopped
2 Green pepper - chopped
4 Scotch Bonnet - chopped (You can use the number you desire. I love my food very spicy)
1 Onion - chopped
3 Tomatoes - chopped
Tomato Paste (Original recipe said to use Pasta sauce but I had none at home)
Black Pepper (I used whole. You can use powdered if you wish)
Seasoning (I used Maggi crayfish. Original recipe said Maggi chicken but hey! This is seafood!)
Crushed chilli (very optional)
Powdered Ginger
Powdered Garlic
Salt
Olive oil - 1 tbs
Seafood Mix (I used Breco seafood mix. )

Directions:

I had let the Seafood Mix melt down from the day before by bringing it out of the freezer and putting in the refrigerator. I rinsed it severally and then put in a colander to lose any leftover fluids.
Pour oil in frying pan wok (I don't own a wok. Yet). Let it heat up for a bit then you add some of the onions. Let the onions fry on low heat until it's about transparent. At this point, first add carrots and stir continuously. After about 1 minutes, add in tomatoes, green pepper and scotch bonnet. Continue to stir for about 5 minutes on low heat. Add the remaining onions.

Err... Couldn't quite get to rotate this

Take about a tablespoon of the tomato paste and mix in 1 tablespoon of water to reduce its thick consistency. Stir this to the wok and let cook for another 5 minutes.

At this point, put on a pot of boiling water for the pasta. Add a teaspoon of salt and a dash of olive oil. When boiled, put in the pasta and let cook till soft.

Back to the sauce. Add all dried ingredients (salt inclusive) at this point and stir into the mix. Let cook for 2 minutes then add the Seafood mix.

 

Ensure you are on low heat when this comes in. Seafood does not exactly like to be cooked on high heat lest it tastes and feels like glue.

I really cannot understand why these pictures are not in the right angle

Cover the point and let simmer for about 5 minutes or as long as you feel it's cooked enough for you to eat. Turn off the burner and let sit.

Drain the pasta into a colander to remove fluid. Serve the sauce on the pasta and it's ready to be devoured.

Bon appetit!  




PS: I have a confession to make. That last shot? Well, after I cooked the meal, it looked so good that I gobbled it in no time and forgot to take a picture. I took a second serving and still did not remember. By the time I remembered, it was all gone. Next day, I cooked the same recipe but with one slight difference. I was out of the Seafood mix. I had used up all I had. But I had a small packet of Calamari rings sitting in my freezer! Well, all na seafood. No scam there. I used the Calamari rings instead and made sure I took a picture right before I gobbled this one too all up! You'd fall prey too, I assure you.

Hope you like it!