how many of you guys cook???

[Jimmy24]

laziji 辣子鸡 - spicy chicken, chicken with chilies, firecracker chicken, Chongqing chicken - is my favourite dish. I am constantly looking for ways to tweak and improve it.

Yesterday I took a good idea from Fuschia Dunlop - fry the chicken twice. I have done this before with other things - homemade french fries, etc - but why I never thought to do it with this dish, I have no idea.


Fry the chicken in small batches for 3 or 4 minutes each. Then let the oil get good and hot and fry the chicken again briefly in even smaller batches. It ends up wonderfully crispy on the outside and moist inside.


(Sorry for the mediocre photos - it's always dark by the time I'm done cooking and I'm rubbish at trying to adjust the white balance.)


The only problem with this dish is that between the cooking and the eating - you consume far too much beer of an evening.

 
This looks amazing! What do you put on the chicken and what kind dried chilis do you use?

 

[parbaked]

  What do you put on the chicken and what kind dried chilis do you use?

You eat it dry with nothing on it. It is plenty tasty and spicy.
The chillies are dried "facing heaven" chilies.
Those are the basic chili pepper used in Szechuan cuisine.

 

[Pudu]

... What do you put on the chicken and what kind dried chilis do you use?

If you mean marinade, it's just crushed ginger and garlic, some coarsely chopped green onion, and a generous splash of Shaoxing wine. I used to marinate overnight, but now I do it an hour or two before and it tastes just as good, if not better.

...the family recipe involves adding generous squares of the thick dried seaweed into a pot of water and bringing it to gentle boil with a handful of dried anchovies. I don't have either of those ingredients, nor the time presently.

I use kombu and katsuobushi to make dashi - but next time I can find them, I want to try making it with niboshi. I have 20 year old $8 cleaver which I love - perfect for chopping chicken wings and crushing garlic. And you're right, mincing garlic with all that extra weight working for you is fun. Chopping stuff is my favourite part of cooking.


Tonight I made curry laksa, but we ended up with some unexpected dinner guests and by the time I filled my own bowl and went to pour the broth over top, almost all the broth was gone. I had to steal some from my wife's bowl already on the table to get just enough to coat the food, but nowhere near enough for a good picture or slurp. :mad:



So I had to take a quick and dirty photo of my wife's bowl which didn't have half of the good stuff in it (she's more picky and allergic to prawns :rolleyes



And even hers should have had far more of the spicy broth in there. Disappointing.

 

[Clayton SF]

Time for simple homemade pork wontons in a hoisin soy sauce. The wonton skins were store-bought, though.
 

 

[Pudu]

:tongue_smile:

Beautiful ...what's the word for it, skin folding? Doughrigami? Anyway, looks awesome.


I just finished the first episode of Cooked. Definitely worth seeing. The first one concentrates exclusively on meat + fire.

 

[Clayton SF]

Buttermilk-Lime Chess Pie cooling on the window sill.
 
It was supposed to be a Buttermilk-Lemon Chess Pie but all I had was a lime.
 
We'll see how it tastes.
 

 

[parbaked]

  Buttermilk-Lime Chess Pie cooling on the window sill.
 

M wants to know what time we should stop by...seems our invite got lost in the mail!!!

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I've been kind of lazy about cooking on weeknights lately that I've just been eating kimchi. Anyone got any recipes for stews and such that will keep without freezing, primarily so if I end up not eating out I can just pull it out of the fridge and take a portion for eating, rather than have to take it down in the morning (then put it back up) or go at it like using my knife as a pick axe.
 
Adobo with a lot of chilies is an obvious choice, and so is rendang, but I've done those before and I'd like to try something else. Any ideas?

 

[PalJoey]

  I've been kind of lazy about cooking on weeknights lately that I've just been eating kimchi. Anyone got any recipes for stews and such that will keep without freezing, primarily so if I end up not eating out I can just pull it out of the fridge and take a portion for eating, rather than have to take it down in the morning (then put it back up) or go at it like using my knife as a pick axe.
 
Adobo with a lot of chilies is an obvious choice, and so is rendang, but I've done those before and I'd like to try something else. Any ideas?

I've made this a few times, and it tastes very nice: http://damndelicious.net/2015/02/21/slow-cooker-korean-beef/
 
It isn't particularly spicy, but you could always add more Sriracha or chuck in a dried chilli to give it a bit more more fire without killing the flavour. It certainly re-heats nicely, and because the spring onions and sesame seeds are added just before serving, you just add them to each batch you reheat. It is also incredibly simple to make.

 

[jc9394]

Did some easy meals last week during skiing trip.

 

[Pudu]

That's a lot of meals - I find it so difficult to cook in rental kitchens. Nice work.


I tried briefly rinsing soft boiled eggs with warm water after having dumped them into ice water to halt the cooking process. Peeling the shells off is so much easier when the shells have been warmed up to room temperature as opposed to cold - for whatever reason.


Quick and easy satay tonight.

 

[jc9394]

Yeah, cooking in rental kitchen is very hard. Sous Vide helps a lot and make it much easier. That was one meal for first night for 10 adults and 6 kids. The rest of meals goes downhill pretty fast, I think I have at least few liquid meals.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PalJoey /img/forum/go_quote.gif

I've made this a few times, and it tastes very nice: http://damndelicious.net/2015/02/21/slow-cooker-korean-beef/

 

It isn't particularly spicy, but you could always add more Sriracha or chuck in a dried chilli to give it a bit more more fire without killing the flavour. It certainly re-heats nicely, and because the spring onions and sesame seeds are added just before serving, you just add them to each batch you reheat. It is also incredibly simple to make.

 

Oh I've done this one before, it's my alternative to caldereta (kind of like our bourguignon, but with beer and tomatoes), and yep I add chili. I just do it in a Dutch oven over charcoal (my Dad used to do both with dried cow dung as fuel). Gave some of my last batch to my cousin and it had a buttload of chili in it, the person told me he got "Chernobyl-grade Diarrhea" while I was ordering a pizza at the local Chipotle-like restaurant where I asked the cook to basically use my bottle of sriracha in place of the tomato sauce for my olive oil, prosciutto, double bacon, caramelized onion and double jalapeno meal

 

 

I might just go ahead and do another batch of that this weekend 

 

[Pudu]

Steamed tilapia with ginger soy - supposedly a Cantonese dish.

The seasoning was a bit pedestrian for my taste.

 

[jc9394]

It is Cantonese fish dish, that is usually my go to way of cooking fresh fish. Try to slice some shiitake mushroom and small amount of ground pork and put it on top of fish.