sorry I've not updated on the Cooking Challenge in a little while, it's been a bit of a busy week at my new job, and I went up to Liverpool straight after work on Friday to see Reel Big Fish (it was awesome by the way!) so not had a chance to update on cooking progress until we got back a little while ago.
On Thursday I cooked Ravinder Bhoghal's Hanoi Poached Chicken with chilli dipping sauce, which was in the 'Skinny Food' chapter. As the recipe was originally for 6 people and therefore used 6 chicken fillets, I just used 2 fillets for the two of us and kept pretty much everything else the same. I think one of the reasons it might have been a 'healthier' meal is that the amount of rice it called for probably wouldn't have gone very far between 6 people, but as I cooked the recommended amount of rice for 6 we actually had plenty and a bit leftover for work the following day, which is always good by me :)
Now, I have to admit I was a little bit sceptical about how nice it would turn out, as in my experience healthier food tends to lack flavour, but fair play to the girl, this meal was absolutely Delicious (yes, with a capital D!)
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| The final dish with some of the chilli and garlic sauce on top |
It's actually quite a simple recipe and not expensive either if you can get hold of relatively decent quality frozen chicken fillets which I can at Aldi's, although I may well get some from the Meat Man in town once we've cleared some space in the freezer as they've often got good deals on local meat. Basically the (defrosted) chicken is poached in chicken stock with some sliced ginger root and spring onions and then kept warm while you fry the rice with garlic and a small amount of oil and then cook it in the chicken stock. The chicken comes out beautifully tender and very flavoursome without having seen any oil or fat, but it's the rice that was the surprise winner for me.
I have never tasted such good rice before, and mixed in with a little of the chilli sauce (which was just a couple of chillis and some garlic whizzed in a food processor and then mixed with soy sauce, lime juice, a tsp of caster sugar, and some of the leftover stock) it was downright superb. For me, rice is normally one of two things - plain and dull but a handy (i.e. cheap) carb component of a meal, or it's tasty but expensive and unhealthy takeaway special fried rice with egg, shrimp and other bits of meat and veg. This rice on the other hand was simple, healthy, and beautifully flavoured. Even the cold leftovers at work the next day were mouthwatering.
I guess if someone were to take a very critical standpoint they could point out that rice cooked in chicken stock is going to have a fair bit of salt in it which is possibly not that healthy in the long run, but right now I'm personally more concerned about not eating overly fatty and sugary foods, so as in my opinion, it was a blooming good meal and definitely one I'll cook again I'm sure. The only thing to watch out for with this recipe is that if you are buying cheaper chicken fillets is that they're probably less likely to be of similar size or thickness so some of them might take longer to cook than the others.I suppose you could try to flatten some of the thicker fillets so that they're all roughly the same thickness but it's not really a big deal if you need to pop one back in the pot if it's not quite done in the middle.
All in all, it was a (surprisingly) fabulous recipe and definitely one I'll be cooking again for us and probably also for friends, but if anyone would like the recipe just let me know.
The other recipe I managed to tick off the list was the Oat and Hazelnut bites from the Rosie's Pantry book, which I also cooked on Thursday as I wanted to take them up to Liverpool with me to share out between the four of us who were going to the concert.
Now this one wasn't quite as healthy as the chicken dish, but to be fair it was pretty simple, and if it hadn't been for the fact that I was trying to cook the chicken at the same time it would have been easy peasy! The only thing I did wrong was forget to add the milk in at the right place, but I remembered eventually so no big deal. It just made the last stirring bit a bit more hard work, but certainly doesn't qualify as a 'Kitchen Disaster'.
The recipe I followed said it made about 30 cookies, but I managed to get quite a few more out of it, so I think next time I'll make each one a little bigger and see how we go. This was a perfectly nice, crunchy, cookie recipe and when they came out of the oven they were just a little bit soft in the middle which I thought was really yummy, although Tom said he thought they were even tastier cold.
Next time we might experiment and try to make a plate of half-baked cookie dough and see how it comes out.... I've just finished the last one now as I write and already I'm craving more! Oh dear...
Anyway, I'm starting to get really chilly typing this so I'm going to wrap this up so I can wrap myself up and get snuggled up on the sofa with a blanket and cup of tea.
The current Cooking Challenge 2012 recipe count is as follows:
Recipes completed: 5 Remaining recipes: 67 Weeks remaining: 47
It was really quite frosty and windy up in Liverpool today, and it's been snowing quite a lot at home so the sofa is calling me!
Bye for now!
xx
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