Korean Style Marinated Chicken!

I got a bit bored with the few chicken dishes I always eat, so I wanted to make something different from what I normally have. With the ingredients I found in my kitchen, here's what I made.

It's a slightly adapted version of the Korean Gochujang Marinated chicken! I found the original recipe online, but I did not have all the ingredients mentioned at home, so I just used something else as an alternative, which turned out just as tasty! Beware: this is a spicy dish!

You will need:

(2 servings)

3-4 chicken thighs

1 tablespoon gochujang (Korean Red Pepper Paste)

half tablespoon golden syrup

some garlic

1 tablespoon sweet chili sauce

1 teaspoon of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of sesame oil

cooking oil

Steps:

1. Using the back of the knife,pound the chicken to tenderize, then cut the chicken thighs into smaller pieces.

2. Mash up some garlic into small bits.

3. Marinate the chicken with the gochujang, golden syrup, garlic, sweet chili sauce, soy sauce and sesame oil. Massage the ingredients into the chicken and leave it for 15-30 mins.

4. Heat up a pan, add in some cooking oil. Then cook the chicken at low heat. As there is syrup in there, the chicken can burn very easily before it is cooked on the inside if it is on high heat. Put the lid on to retain its flavour.

5. Turn the chicken pieces over when one side is done. 

6. When both sides are cooked, stir fry it so the sauce is thoroughly mixed with the chicken.

I highly recommend to have this with rice, since the chicken is quite strongly flavoured.

Chinese Style BBQ Pork

On Christmas Eve, I tried making the Chinese style BBQ Pork - Char Siu. This was the first time me attempting this, and gladly, it turned out just the way I hoped! Highly recommend anyone to try this at home, I promise, they taste much better when freshly made at home than those you buy in markets in Hong Kong!

You will need:
(4 servings)

3 pieces of pork shoulder steak
4 big spoons Lee Kum Kee Char Siu Sauce
1.5 tsp of soya sauce
3 spoons of honey

Steps:
1. Prepare a baking container, line it with aluminium foil. Reserve extra aluminium foil as you will need extra length of aluminum foil to wrap around the pork steaks. Marinate the meat in there.
2. To marinate the pork, add some soya sauce, massage it and then add in the Char Siu sauce. Continue massaging it so the sauces spreads over the pork evenly. Then wrap the pork steaks with the excess foil.

3. Store in the fridge for at least 4 hours, I left it for one day.
4. Preheat the oven to 200-230C for 10-15 mins.
5. Take out the marinated pork steaks from the fridge and place it in the oven for 50mins. Every 15-20 mins, turn the whole "wrap" over. This is to ensure the sauce inside does not just sit at the bottom, but is spread evenly on the top and bottom.
6. After 50mins, open up your "wrap" and apply a layer of honey the pork steaks. Place the steak back into the oven for 10 mins. You do not need to wrap it up again. At 5 mins, turn the pork steak over and apply honey to the other side.
7. Now that it is ready to serve, slice the char siu into thin slices.

It's great when having cha siu with rice.

Soup for Winter!

In such old weather, a bowl of soup is always something good to have to keep myself warm! Today's soup of the day is..sweet squash soup!

You will need:
(approx. 6 servings)

1/3 squash
3 carrots
1/4 bowl of pearl barley
1/4 bowl of rice beans (red coloured)
LOTS of water! About 5L ( This is just a rough estimate as the water boils off and you will need to keep adding more, so I lose track on how much I added)

Steps:

1. Mixing the rice beans and pearl barley, leaving in a water bath for 1hr.
2. Boil lots of water.
3. Dice up the squash. Peel and dice up the carrots.
4. When the water is boiled, add in all the ingredients. Boil it at full heat.
5. When 1/3 of the water has boiled off, add more water. Repeat this twice.
6. Reduce to medium heat and let it boil while keep tasting it at times to make sure it is too "watery". The soup should be sweet, and should not require sugar.

This soup should require 2-3 hours to make.

Hotdog!

Craving for a hotdog but your nearby hotdog cart is still too far away to walk? Here is a quick and easy recipe for you to make at home yourself to satisfy your craving!

You will need:
1 frankfurter sausage
A slice of processed cheese ( if you prefer a more "cheesy" hotdog, then use more slices:))
Ketchup
1 plain bread roll

Steps:

1. Toast the sausage in a toaster. or fry the sausage with a frying pan.
2. Cut the bread into half, Toast the bread to warm the bread, If you prefer a more crispy bread texture, then toast it for longer until it's golden brown on the white surface.
3.When the bread is still warm, place the cheese in bread so that it can melt. Then place the sausage into the bread roll.
4. Finally, add how ever much ketchup you want. You may add mustard as well!

Ta-da! Just looking at the picture makes me salivate~