Braised Turmeric Chicken

        Although the work-from-home period had ended a month ago, the daily kitchen activity has been continuing. Hubby has been served neither new nor complicated recipes. Nevertheless, he has been enjoying the home-cooked dinners and has been reluctant to eat out, even occasionally. 

      One of the first dishes that I repeated after I ended my daily blogging of the home-cooked meals during the Movement Control Order was a recipe that both hubby and I had enjoyed tremendously. As it is not a difficult dish to whip up, it's definitely a recipe for keeps and will be a regular feature on our dining table.

      The dish in reference is a recipe from Alexandra Wong's cookwithipohbunny.com and was posted on Day 73 of my MCO blog https://irenechanal.blogspot.com/2020/05/mco-day-73.html . This post is an easy reference for myself when I wish to cook this Braised Turmeric Chicken.

      For approximately 350g of skinless chicken pieces, I pounded 2 medium-sized knobs of fresh turmeric, bearing in mind to don plastic gloves for this task. I then marinated the chicken overnight with the turmeric and a pinch of salt.

      When the cooking process came, I heated some oil in a wok and threw in 3 chopped shallots and 2 stalks of finely-minced lemongrass (using only the white part) for sautéing. I have cooked this dish minus the lemongrass and it tasted just as yummy. But if there's lemongrass in my pantry, I would add this for extra oomph! With the aroma of the shallots and lemongrass enticing the chicken pieces in their orange bath, the chicken pieces clucked their gratitude as I lowered them into the wok to join the merry crowd. I gave them all a good toss to aid the mingling among the crowd (no social distancing here!) and added about half a cup of water before covering the wok with a lid to allow the chicken to simmer in its spa bath. After approximately 20 minutes, I checked for taste and added a dash of fish sauce. I let the chicken braise for another 5 minutes before jazzing up the party with 50ml of coconut milk. I hate to be a party pooper but after another 5 minutes, I had to put an end to the merrymaking in the wok. It was time to dish up the Braised Turmeric Chicken for our dinner!

MCO - Day 84

9 June 2020     Day 84 of Movement Control Order 

        18 March 2020 to 9 June 2020...a total of 84 historic days...a record of 82 homecooked dinners and 2 takeout dinners. I’ve amazed even myself! It all shows that when there’s a will (plus flexible time), there’s a way.

        I started this lockdown with Fried Nam Yu Pork Belly so I decided to end it with Fried Nam Yu Chicken. It’s not a difficult dish to cook, but requires sufficient time for marinating. This time, besides the very flavourful red fermented bean curd, I added Shaoxing wine, ginger juice, sesame oil, black pepper, chilli powder, rice flour, cornflour and egg to the marinade. Easy-peasy tasty dish!

        

Fried Nam Yu Chicken

Pork Ribs, Cranberry Beans and Black-eyed Beans Soup

MCO - Day 83

8 June 2020     Day 83 of Movement Control Order 

        As we approach the end of this lockdown period, I wanted to try another Marion Grasby recipe. During this MCO, she has been  my source of inspiration a total of 12 times (at times, more than 1 recipe a day)! I think Safari on my phone must be getting tired of being directed to her blog, marionskitchen.com, every time its owner goes online.

        Tonight, I had the mental image of my kitchen goddess cum idol as I cooked her Easy Tantanmen. Tantanmen is Japan’s answer to Szechuan’s Dan Dan Noodles (担担面). Unlike its Szechuan cousin, which can be served dry or in a soup, Tantanmen is ramen in soup, a spicy mellow nutty sweet soup to be precise. The spicy element comes from the use of dou ban jiang chilli bean paste (豆瓣酱) and chilli oil while the mellow nutty sweetness is derived from the combination of white sesame paste and unsweetened soya milk. I did not adhere to Marion’s recipe 100% as I just made use of what was available in my pantry. Chilli oil was replaced by a small teaspoon of XO sauce, white sesame paste was substituted with peanut butter (as advised by Marion) and a dash of sake was modified into a few drops of vodka. I did not have fresh ramen as well but egg noodles worked well. I regret not planning this meal in advance for if I had, I would have tried making ajitsuke tamago or ramen soft-boiled eggs in its soy sauce, the way Marion does. Oh well, there will always be another time. At least, today I managed to nail the slightly runny, jammy yolk!

Easy Tantanmen 

A closer look at the flavourful spicy minced pork topping the bowl of noodles

Mix everything up, especially the soup!

Scrutinising the heavenly soft-boiled egg

        What did hubby have to say to this Easy Tantanmen? “Ooh! Different! Nice! Mmm...good!” 😄

MCO - Day 82

7 June 2020     Day 82 of Movement Control Order 

        MCO, then CMCO (Conditional Movement Control Order), and now RMCO (Recovery Movement Control Order)...names and acronyms...for all of us who have survived this unprecedented period, there’s a lot to tell the future generation. Basically, RMCO means the end of this lockdown. Hence, this 84-day (till 9 June) blogging of meals from my humble kitchen should end too. Schools will be re-opened in the not-too-distant future and hubby should be thankful if a simple dinner is served. But it really has been enjoyable documenting the meals and new recipes that I tried out. It will be an excellent reminder of this once-in-a-lifetime period (fingers crossed!).

        Day 82’s dinner consisted of hubby’s favourite Stir-fried “Siew Pak Choy” with fried garlic (featured a total of 7 times during this MCO) and Chicken in Cheong Cheng Sauce (酱蒸鸡丁). Cheong Cheng sauce, which is made up of chopped shallots, garlic, ginger, cili boh, pickled leeks, plum sauce and taucu, can be easily made and is an extremely versatile sauce to be used. It complements fish, seafood, pork and pork ribs very well. I don’t use pickled leeks but opt to replace them with a dash of vinegar.

Chicken in  酱蒸 Sauce

Greens for us

No, it’s not crepe for dessert...just a simple omelette made from leftover egg used for marinating the chicken pieces 

MCO - Day 81

6 June 2020     Day 81 of Movement Control Order 

        After 59 days, we had Fried Grouper in Sweet and Sour Sauce again. But tonight’s dinner still featured one new dish, an easy one to cook, though. It was Salted Egg Seafood Tofu (recipe taken from nofrillsrecipe.com). The aroma of frying the mashed steamed salted egg yolk together with the curry leaves and cili padi stirred hubby’s interest so he took a break from pumping iron and popped his head into the kitchen to investigate.

Salted Egg Seafood Tofu

Fried Grouper in Sweet and Sour Sauce

Stir-fried Beansprouts

MCO - Day 80

5 June 2020     Day 80 of Movement Control Order 

        My travels abroad have not included the United States of America, so I’m not aware of how famous Nashville Hot Chicken is. It, apparently, is quite a BIG thing. I heard about it only recently, and it’s all from Marion Grasby. Her tweaked version, Not Nashville Hot Chicken, got me interested and when I showed hubby the video, his eyes sparkled with excitement. He enjoys fried chicken (our only 2 takeout dinners during this MCO were from KFC) and he has a penchant for spicy food.

        The only snag of this dish is it involves deep frying. But to please hubby, I was game to give it a try. And after trying it out, I find it’s not difficult, just a trifle more tedious, but the taste made up for all the labour! Marion’s Nahm Jin hot sauce, which was used to brush all over the crispy chicken, was utterly scrumptious. Her concoction of Nahm Jin sauce is made up of tamarind juice, fish sauce, finely chopped shallots, brown sugar, sweet paprika, Thai chilli flakes and lime juice. Instead of Thai chilli flakes, I used Thai shrimp flavoured crushed chilli and I used chilli powder to replace the sweet paprika. One bite into the spicy, sweet, tangy, milky and crunchy chicken pieces, hubby remarked, “Oooh! Nice!” Needless to say, hubby was one happy tiger tonight, especially since the meal was complemented with lotus root, peanuts and pork ribs soup.

Another 5-star dish from Marion - Not Nashville Hot Chicken

Lotus root, peanuts and pork ribs soup

MCO - Day 79

4 June 2020     Day 79 of Movement Control Order 

        Is Malaysia’s lockdown coming to an end on 9 June? This must be the question weighing on many people’s minds. There is no answer yet, but signs of near-normalcy can be seen. The local wet market is not crowded, for example. There are no more long queues for pork and today, even the few RELA men stationed at the market to ensure MCO regulations compliance were no more to be seen.

        I managed to get my meat and vegetables without much ado. For tonight’s dinner, hubby was served Lemongrass Curry Pork Slices (recipe adapted from eatwhattonight.com) and Stir-fried Angled Luffa with Prawns. I’ve cooked angled luffa with pork, beef, fishballs and prawns, but it always tastes better with prawns.

Hubby was delighted with these Lemongrass Curry Pork Slices

Lovely prawns having a dip in the Stir-Fried Angled Luffa gravy