Taste & Create: Chicken Acapulco

(sorry guys, this is super late)

For Taste & Create this month, my first in aaages I was paired with Sid of Sid's Sea Palm Cooking. SSPC is a really interesting blog with an eclectic collection of recipes from the Southern USA, Mexico and Denmark... I really enjoyed looking through the Danish recipes and trying to work out what they were for without first clicking the link for a translation. Swedish and Danish are quite similar, and I was fairly successful! :D

Ultimately though, I chose to make a Mexican recipe: Chicken Acapulco with Pico de Gallo!

(thank  you, blogger for re-flipping my images. I am most grateful. Not.)

Mexican recipes are kinda hard to get right in my neck of the woods (suburban NZ) because we simply don't have access to authentic ingredients... But I love almost anything that comes in a tortilla so I chose to give it a whirl! And I'm glad I did!

At it's most basic, this is what I would call a chicken burrito with cheese melted over the chicken while it was still in the pan... but the result is so much more than that!

Cheesy, cheesy goodness!

I had a slight issue in that Sid called for a specific meat marinade but I was able to google the name of the company and check it's listed ingredients... I made my own marinade using the ingredients listed and although the result might not be the same as the packet (I have no way of knowing!) it was still pretty darn good! Kinda sour and salty with a bit of heat from the mustard powder and paprika.

Soy sauce, paprika, mustard, lemon juice, garlic and onion whizzed together with cider vinegar, oil and water; it's a winner!

And that Pico de Gallo! Wow! It was so fresh and fantastic! And perfect accompaniment! Don't do as I did thought, and attempt to whizz it all up in a too small blender - be intrepid and cut your own... I ended up with mush. It didn't detract from the flavour any, but the texture was kinda weird.

Thanks Sid and Min ; this was a lot of fun!

Raw chicken will never be the prettiest; but it turns into some pretty tasty things!

Le Chicken Stock

Vegetarians and Vegans: Avert your eyes now!

Chicken stock. One of the more useful things a person can make in their student kitchen... but one that is very rarely bothered with...

Why? To be perfectly honest - I don't know... it's not like it's difficult or expensive to make - all your need is the carcass left over from your Sunday Roast or, failing that, chicken bits are next to nothing from the supermarket... My guess is that, to most, it seems like too much hard work...?

I'm here to tell you that that is not the case!

Chicken stock... it's never going to win a prize for
"most presentable ingredient of the year"...

Granted, it's not very pretty or photogenic work - but it's pretty simple.

First. Eat your chicken and pick of any leftover bits to have for lunch the next day.

Then put your chicken bones into a large pot (like the one you'd normally cook pasta in...) with the lemons you roasted it with (or new lemons if you didn't roast the chicken with any... or no lemons if lemons aren't your thing), a little oregano, salt and pepper. - basically match the flavours you're putting into your pot now, to the ones you used when you roasted your chicken.

Then toss in a quartered onion and a couple of crushed garlic cloves. Celery tops and/or beet heads are good here too - next time you buy a celery, cut of the leaves and freeze 'em until you want to make stock - they add a lovely, savoury flavorur. Beet heads turn everything a gorgeous pink!

Now, fill the pot with tap - warm water and put it on the heat. Medium heat is probably Okay. - You can also half fill the pot with tap hot water, then top it up with just boiled water (this method is more power usage friendly I believe)...

Turn on your extractor fan, if you have one.. and allow the pot to bubble away until the quantity of liquid has halved.

At this point you can either strain it straight away into a bowl before allowing the liquid to cook and the fat to rise and solidify and then scrape the fat off later (this method is good if you want to reboil the chicken bones for a second [slightly lesser] chicken stock) OR you can allow the whole lot to cool and solidify in the pan and then strain the whole lot, fat and all (this is my preferred method). My chicken stock is never jelly-y (I think because I use so much water to only one chicken carcass) so that's never a problem when straining the cooled stock...

I find playing around in cold chicken stock trying to pick out little discs of congealed fat kind of repugnant, which is why I prefer the second method. The fat sticks to the bones and, if your sieve is fine enough, gets strained out.

Steam it up!

That's it. Pretty simple, really. Next time you roast yourself a chicken - try it out and let me know how you go! :)

At Last! Nigella's Rizty Chicken Nuggets = Kat's Oaty Chicken Nuggets

Do you remember ages, and ages ago... back when I was trying to post regularly what I ate on Wednesday and I posted about a Nigella Feast that consisted of Blood and Guts potatoes, and Orange Sesame dressed salad and oatmeal chicken nuggets...?

Well. The link to the potatoes is above - but that's as far as I got. Today, I will post for you - the Chicken Nuggets!

Not the most beautiful things, are they?

I attribute the pale-ness of these little babies to their oatie coating, and the fact that they were oven baked, rather than deep fried. The first time I made 'em I used crush cornflakes, Nigella uses crushed savoury crackers - both of these mediums make for excellent crunch... Rolled oats, although not crunchy, will do in a pinch! They feel healthier too...

Nigella says that the buttermilk, or in my case - yoghurt, "marinade" makes for a more succulent, tender nibble - I've never tried without the marinade so I can't validate that - but it sure makes the coating easier!

These are tasty little morsels that are easy to make, and will be made in the future. Valid student food too!

RWW: A Nigella Meal!

(Wednesday, Sunday... same diff, right?)

So... It was coming up to tea-time and I was watching my Nigella DVDs. More specifically, I was watching my 'Nigella Feasts' DVD - Fun Food where she discusses making awesome food for children and then naming said food items "Blood and Guts Potatoes" or "Slime Soup" - how's a girl to resist, I ask you?!

Being that I had no specific plans for tea yet (woops...) I allowed Nigella to guide me - and I created a delicious (though I do say so myself...) Nigella inspired meal. There were three components to this meal, and I'm rather proud of them - so I'm going to post the recipes separately but for now here's an image:

Clockwise from top: Blood and Guts Potato, Oatmealy Chicken Nuggets and Sesame Orange Salad...

Real World Wednesdays:Chicken Soup

There are two reasons that this post is currently going image-less and neither of them is "because Kat was too hungry/lazy/forgot to take a photo" they are a) I'm at Uni and Uni doesn't like uploading photo's for me... and b) my flat internet is down to dial up speed. This, in NZ is not a rare occasion, unfortunately. In New Zealand the interwebs SUCK!!!

Also. Google Chrome can't spell "Zealand" just FYI...

So, in honour of RWW (and just to prove that I can stick with something for more than one week) I took a photo of my dinner even though it was made in a rush and is not particularly exciting... Real, honest student food then!

Chicken Soup. I blended mine with a stick-blended because clear broth with floaties freaks me out no end! I also chucked some bacon in - because it was there. The bacon gave the soup a faintly smokey smell and after tasted. Joshee (boyfriend) said it tasted like "soup" but that he was please with me for making him eat soup because it's not so bad after all... Or words to that effect!

There was also a chilli in this soup. Gave the soup some bite. And a litre of store-bought chicken stock because a) it was on special when I bought it and b) I hadn't gotten around to stripping the chicken carcass of meat yet (and by "I", I mean Joshee...) because I wanted to put that meat into my soup!

Steamy, hot, and screaming "Delicious!"

So read on for a set of guidelines to make your own 60-Minute Chicken Soup...

Taste & Create: Lemony Peppered Chicken

Hello all!

At last, I have my entry for this month's Taste & Create challenge!

Taste & Create is a blogging community where blogger apply, and a paired up with a partner whose blog they must sample a recipe from!

(^^ Ewww... that was a messy sentence...)

Anywho! This month I was partnered with Tamy of Always Eat on the Good China... It's a real interesting blog with a bazillion recipe! I was there for days just lookin' around... In a totally non-creepy manner. Promise.

So - eventually I decided I wanted to do something with chicken, and using that as a search, I eventually came across this recipe for Lemon Lime Pepper Chicken... I don't have any limes, so mine's just "Lemon Pepper Chicken" but this is what I came up with:

This is my Boyfriend's dinner - served with brussel sprouts, lemon/sesame glazed carrots and  pesto coated pasta... Mine was the same, only smaller. And without the pasta.

What resulted was a delicious, subtle dish that was a doddle to make, and will definitely feature on my dinner table again!

I encourage you to go to Tamy's page for the recipe, if you're interested! But these are the changes I made to her recipe:

• As I mentioned before: I have no limes so I used only lemon.
• I scaled the recipe down for 2 - except for the glaze which I kept as instructed except to halve the sugar (as always!)
• Tamy has onions in her photo, so I flung half an onion in with the butter, before the chicken.
• I bashed my chicken with a saucepan before dredging it in flour so that it would cook at an even rate. (I don't have a meat mallet...)
• I chopped up the lemon skin and threw it in with the frying chicken, pulling it out before I poured the glaze on.
• I did a "Nigella" and allowed the chicken to rest, wrapped in tin foil for 10 minutes while I prepared the veggies and BF's pasta - the chicken was so juicy and tender!

It was a real successful meal, and Tamy's blog is an interesting read! So thanks to Taste & Create for introducing me to a new blogger!

Chicken Parma-Leftovers

Take a photo! Take a photo! Quick! Before I start eating...

I'm at home now... No longer Chef-Extraordinaire for a flat of four... But now the unemployed daughter of two fantastic parents who sometimes allow me into their kitchen to cook tea or bake (see Chocolate Chip Cookies) and create general havoc...

The Family and I are soon off to Auckland, Hong Kong and finally India... I imagine that posts will decrease around that time as I'll be busy relaxing... But with any luck photo's and remembered recipes will be available to occupy me and entertain you in the New Year.

As I said... Off to India we go! But before we can leave the fridge, freezer and pantry all need cleared of their perishables and to create room for the house-sitter and his wares. Thus, with a little imagination you have Chicken Parma-Leftovers it came out fairly well, I thought... Using up a tin of tomato sauce, some chicken breasts from the freezer, and a little left  over parmesan... I crumbed the chicken in corn-meal with visions of a cruchy shell giving way to moist, flavourful chicken... Alas the corn-meal didn't live up to my imagination, but the chicken was beautifully tender and moist! I think, that if I had only fried and never baked the chicken, I'd've got the result I was half-heartedly looking for.

Recipe follows the jump.

"Tandoori" Chicken Burgers

What ended up being dinner for two!

When I started writing this blog - all of a month ago, I'd planned on it being full of gorgeous dessert-y things... The yummy sweets that I love! As it turns out, students have neither the time nor the funding to bake goodies and prepare dessert. That and I live with a house load of salt-cravers... Only my gorgeous boyfriend is a sugar lover like me... And even then he's mostly exclusive to chocolate! :)

What students do eat, however is dinner... Lots and lots of dinner! Believe it or not, this was another cupboard scraping recipe... With the tandoori paste left over from a vegan curry I like to make, and the yoghurt I didn't use in the tzatziki! The chicken surfaced from the freezer...

The recipe for Kat's Tandoori Burgers follows the jump...

Saturday Roast...

OM NOM NOM... Roasted anything is among my flat mate's favourite food!

This is my Greek-Style Roast Chicken! I sorta developed the recipe myself - using Greek-ish flavours... :) Lemon, oregano, olive oil and salt!

Before Carving!

After cooking, and eating... You can boil up the carcass to make stock. I didn't to that this time, because I'm (hopefully) moving out soon...

I cook the chicken in water to keep it moist, and then the gravy is easy!

Recipe after the jump...