Wednesday, December 14, 2011

SPICY CHICKEN CHOPS

(Text in English is below. Türkçe tarif için burayi tiklayin)

This title might not give you any hint why this chicken is so different than the other “spicy chicken” recipes out there! The combination is quite unique and very successful. Every time I make it at home, we enjoy it very much! I think it is one of the things that you can serve to your guests, yet it is very simple to make!

Ingredients 

6 chicken chop steaks
chicken chops












For the sauce:
2 – 3 spoons of olive oil
4 – 5 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
A small handful of sage (be careful with the amount you use, as sage has a very strong taste that might dominate the whole dish)
2 – 3 spoons of dried coriander seeds
2 – 3 spoons of soy sauce
4 – 5 kefir leaves
Juice of 1 or 2 mandarins
1 – 2 mandarins, peeled 

Method:
  1. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees
  2. Mix the olive oil, the garlic, the soy sauce, the herbs and the mandarin juice.
  3. Place the chicken chops in an oven dish.
  4. Pour the sauce on the chicken chops. Garnish with the mandarin slices.
  5. Cover the oven dish with aluminum foil and make a few small holes on it.
  6. Lower the temperature of the oven to 180 degrees and cook the dish for 20 minutes to half an hour.
step 2 - sauce
step 4

spicy chicken is ready to be served!

spicy chicken on a bed of pilaf

yummy ending!

RICE PUDDING FLAVOURED WITH MASTIC, GINGER AND PERFUMED WITH ROSE WATER

(English version is below. Türkçe tarif için burayi tiklayin)

(RIZ BI HALEEB)

This is not just rice pudding! It is something else! Because it is flavored with rose water, mastic and ginger! It is an awesome combo; really something special!

In Turkey, rice pudding is called sütlaç and it is one of the most common deserts of the Turkish kitchen. However, compared to the recipe I post now, it is much simpler in taste: it only consists of milk, rice and sugar. This recipe I found in one of the magazines that I get home monthly. According to the magazine, it is called “Riz bi Halebi” (meaning rice pudding from Aleppo). 

From now on, I think I’ll prepare the rice pudding this way; because I think it is much more gastronomical this way.

I’m posting the original recipe; however I changed the recipe a bit:

#1  I didn’t have any cardamom seeds at home, so I skipped this one.
#2 I didn’t know what they meant with ginger, in any case I used the ginger powder that I had at home instead of fresh ginger. F you prefer to use fresh ginger, I think you can chop it real fine so that it your desert is more homogeneous.  
#3 I didn’t have mastic, so I used the mastic jam that I had at home. This way I also added less sugar as given in the recipe.
#4 I also don’t like orange peel at all, so I just replaced it two spoons of orange juice instead. Though I doubt it added anything to the taste J
#5 Rose water is something that is quite strong in taste. My personal opinion is that two drops of rose water should be fine; as I noticed that it dominated the whole taste!
 #6 I was afraid that the pudding will be too liquid so I added a few spoons of rice flour as well. But I don’t think it is necessary as such. It depends on how liquid or thick you like your rice pudding!  

Hope you will enjoy this recipe guys!

Ingredients (serves 6):
Half a glass of rice
5 glasses of milk
4 seeds of cardamom (see the comment nr 1 above in italic)
2 tea spoons of ginger (see the comment nr 2 above in italic)
A piece of mastic, crushed (see the comment nr 3 above in italic)
6 spoons of sugar (see the comment nr 3 above in italic)
Peel of 1 orange, grated (see the comment nr 4 above in italic)
1 spoon of rose water (see the comment nr 5 above in italic)
*** 2 – 3 spoons of rice flour (see the comment nr 6 above in italic)

Method:
  1. Take the milk, the rice, the mastic, the ginger, the cardamom in a pot and cook until the rice is soft.
  2. Add the sugar, the grated orange peel and the rose water and mix.
  3. Share out to the cups or bowls.
  4. Decorate as you wish (I decorated with walnuts)
Yummy ending!


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

THAI GLASS NOODLE SALAD (MUNG BEAN SALAD) WITH PRAWNS

This is a classic for me. Whenever I eat Thai, I always order this beyond delicious salad. Now it is home made for you!

Ingredients: (serves 2)

2*80 grams of glass noodles, soaked in first cold and then in warm water – follow the instructions on the package! (btw, this amount I use when I will have only soup and salad for the supper. But in case you plan a main dish as well, I think 80 grams shall be fine)
10 – 15 prawns, peeled and cleaned
8 leaves of lettuce, chopped
2 – 3 spring onions, chopped
4 – 5 cherry tomatoes, each sliced into 3 – 4
4 spoons of chilli sauce (I used medium hot chilli sauce of Sriracha)
Chilli peppers (depends on how much you like them), chopped very fine
1 desert spoon of sugar
2 spoons of fish sauce
Lime juice from 2 limes
Coriander 

Method: 

  1. For the dressing, mix the fish sauce, the chili sauce, the lime juice, the chilli pepper, sugar.
  2. When the glass noodles are ready, toss them in the half of the dressing.
  3. Mix the rest of the ingredients all together (except for the prawns of course) and toss them in the remaining half of the dressing.
  4. Prepare your salad plate: make a bed of the all the ingredients and place the glass noodles on top of it.
  5. Cook the prawns, and top the salad plate with the prawns.
  6. Garnish with extra coriander and spring onions

thai glass noodle deliciousness