Images Lemon and Rosemary Roast Chicken

Lemon and Rosemary Roast Chicken

I ❤ roast chicken. You don't have to do too much to make it a delicious meal. It is soOooo convenient. For me, it's matter of spreading a few basic ingredients over the chicken and voila! Into the oven it goes. A couple of hours later, dinner is ready.

But I have a totally different take for festive occasions. Special occasions are seasons for complicated recipes. This feeling is not out of any need to impress friends. It's because of the excitement I feel from the positive energy that surrounds the special occasion. It just screams, "Churn out something magical for 'eat' gathering!".

Anyway, this is how I usually make roast chicken on normal days. It is lightly seasoned with salt, rubbed with butter, dried herbs and some sort of fruit like  oranges, mangoes, apples or lemons.

I chose to go with lemon this time. One can never go wrong with lemon. The aroma that wafts through the air in the midst of roasting is heavenly. Makes me drool thinking about it.

If you're wondering whether it tastes sour. It doesn't. It has this savoury lemon flavour without any of that 'sour' taste. Yum stuff. Check out the recipe below.

Ingredients:
- 1 small medium chicken
- 3 medium potatoes (quartered or smaller)
- 2 medium onions (cut into wedges)
- 100g butter more or less (softened)
- ½ tsp dried rosemary
- ½ lemon 
- Salt, to taste

How-to:
1) Rub salt, rosemary and half of the butter all over the chicken. Stuff a wedge of onion into the chicken.

2) Line roasting tray with foil and brush on a bit of butter.

3) Place chicken onto the tray. Arrange potatoes and onions around the chicken.

4) Spread remaining butter over the potatoes and onion.

5) Squeeze lemon juice over it. Then, stuff the lemon into the chicken.

6) Roast at 185C for 1 hour 10 minutes or longer (depending on the size of your chicken). 
Note: I basted the chicken twice in between roasting time using the juices that had accumulated on the tray. This is to keep the chicken moist and to add a little more flavour to the skin. 

Butter it. Squeeze lemon juice all over.

 

Roast chicken underway

 

Fresh out of the oven ~ Lemon and rosemary roast chicken with a nice brown

I had mine with lettuce and dragon fruit.

Roast chicken with Dragon Fruit balls (used a melon baller) and lettuce. Yum!

Images Baked Mandarin Orange Chicken with Buttered Potatoes and Apples

Baked Mandarin Orange Chicken with Buttered Potatoes and Apples

Distributing mandarin oranges to friends and family during the Lunar New Year is an age-old practice for people with Chinese roots in my homeland. I received my fair share during the festive season. That said, this is a long overdue blog post, at least two months behind schedule!

Aaah..anyway, back to the oranges. I wish I could have eaten it all as is, peeled fresh and just out of the fridge, but there was more than this household could handle with two boxes in keeping. So, I did what I could to clear it off quicker - I decided to cook it. And this is really yummy stuff although it's a simple recipe! Then again, when it comes to food, I've rarely ever said yuck.

I didn't mess the flavour with too much seasoning. I felt the juice from the orange would be sufficient to pass for delicious and it did.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken drumsticks
- 2 potatoes (sliced thin, not all the way through)
- 2 red apples (sliced)
- 2 medium red onions (quartered)
- 3 mandarin oranges (Peel skin off from the segments of two oranges. Squeeze the juice out from one)
- 1 tbsp salted butter (softened)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Cooking oil

How-to:
1) Season chicken with a little bit of salt, pepper and some mandarin orange juice.

2) Place the chicken on a lightly oiled baking tray. Add onions, orange segments and the remainder of the orange juice to create the yummy gravy. Sprinkle on a wee bit of salt and pepper.

3) Spread butter onto apples and potatoes. Place in a separate baking tray (also lightly oiled).

4) Bake for about 45 minutes at 175C. Baking time differs. You're done once the chicken is cooked and the potatoes are tender.

I garnished mine with some chopped celery leaves.
 

In the oven - Chicken with mandarin oranges

Baked Chicken and Mandarin Oranges

Images Spicy Apple Chicken

Spicy Apple Chicken with Snow Peas

An apple a day keeps the Doctor away, so they say. I think it's just one of mom's tricks to get us to eat our fruits .. seriously.

This is a really simple recipe, something I made the other day because I had one red apple left in the house and I wanted it gone before it starts to get all dry and wrinkly.

It's mildly sweet and spicy all in - not strongly flavoured. Check out the recipe below.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken leg quarters (marinated with salt and 1 tsp meat curry powder)
- 1 red apple (roughly chopped)
- 1 clove garlic (roughly chopped)
- 1 medium onion (roughly chopped)
- 1½ tsp blended fresh red chili
- A pinch of dried rosemary
- A pinch of salt and pepper

How-to:
1) Bake chicken in a preheated oven (180c, approx. 45 minutes for me). Save the chicken juice.
 
2) For the sauce, blend apple, garlic and onion together (with a little water to get things moving), until fine.

3) Heat chicken juices in pan with the blended ingredients, rosemary and chili. Season with salt and pepper. Stir until the sauce is slightly thickened.

4) Coat baked chicken in the apple sauce. Serve with vegetables of your choice.

Baked Curry Chicken

Plate the Chilied Apple Chicken

Spicy Apple Chicken Garnished with Coriander

Images Mango Chicken

This is probably the yummiest dish I've ever made and I say this only because it is hard for me to resist the charm of the mango. Don't you just love 'em? I can understand people avoiding the Durian or Tarap but I'm pretty sure the mango is welcome in most homes!

When cooking with mangoes, I opt for simplicity. The mango provides a natural flavour that is so delicious that I try not to mess it up with too much seasoning. A pinch of salt and pepper is as far as I go.

Here's how I did this.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken leg quarters
- 1 large sweet mango (diced, seeded)
- 3 cloves garlic (chopped)
- ½ tsp meat curry powder
- 1 bunch asparagus (about 20-30 spears)
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- Salt and pepper

How-to:
1) Marinate chicken with curry powder, salt and pepper. Bake at 180c for 45 minutes in the oven. Do not throw the chicken juice away.

2) Stir-fry asparagus in cooking oil with a bit of garlic and a pinch of salt. Leave aside.

3) To make the mango sauce - Pour chicken juice into pan. Stir-fry that with the remainder of the garlic. Add the mango. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook until the mango is slightly tender and starts to look like gravy.

4) Finally, assemble cooked asparagus on a plate. Lay the chicken on top and pour the gravy over. Voila!

Baked curried chicken

Assemble on plate - first asparagus, then the chicken, finally the sauce

Diced mango

Chicken juice, garlic and mango - the gravy

Images Soy Sauce Chili Dip (Cili Kicap)

Sliced chili in soy sauce? It can be found in almost every restaurant here because it makes a great accompaniment for the typical Malaysian rice or noodle dish. I think of it as our national dipping sauce.

In our home, it is also a must-have on the dinner table. Today, I was inspired to add a little twist to the simple recipe for extra oomph. It involves crushing all the ingredients together. The end result is a spicy piquant sweet, salty dip.

Here's my take, with the recipe included below.

Spicy Chili-Soy Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:
- 1 red chili (sliced)
- 4 green bird's eye chili (sliced)
- 1 very small red onion (chopped)
- A pinch of fresh ginger

- 1/2 calamansi (seeded)
- 1/4 cup sweet saltish soy sauce (I use a local brand - "Cap Dua Ikan")

How-to:
1. Using a mortar and pestle, roughly crush chili, onion and ginger together into small bits.
2. Once done, add soy sauce and squeeze calamansi juice into the mix. Stir well and serve.

Best eaten with rice dishes or as a batter-fried food dip (I'm thinking bananas, sweet potatoes, vegetables).

Crush, crush, crush!

Warning ~ known to increase appetite!

Images Stir Fried Water Apples with Squid and Cabbage

Water apples are known by many names. We call it wax jambu in my household.

I love cooking with fruits and had a little kitchen fun experimenting with water apples when a friend gave some to us.

Water apples aren't as sweet as most fruits but it is juicy so it makes more sense to stir fry it than to attempt baking it with something.

Anyway, here's what I did. Simple, but the outcome was tasty. My other half, the one person who has little love for this fruit has this to say ~ "I never knew water apples could taste this good!" I agree.

Stir Fried Water Apples with Squid and Cabbage

Estimates for two, best eaten with rice.

Ingredients:
- 2 water apples (sliced thin)
- 1/2 small cabbage (sliced thin)
- 1 medium-sized Squid (sliced into ring-shaped sections)
- 1 clove garlic (minced)
- 1 sprig spring onion (chopped)
- 1/2 tsp corn flour (diluted in 1 tbsp water)
- 1 tbsp cooking oil
- Salt and pepper to taste

How-to:
1. Heat oil in cooking pan. Add garlic and fry until lightly browned.

2. Add squid, water apples and cabbage. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Stir fry until water apples are slightly tender. Finish by stirring corn flour into the mix.

4. Garnish with spring onion before serving.