Peri-Peri Chicken and Mashed Potatoes

Everything a recipe/food detail starts with 'healthy', I try to avoid it - because it probably means food that's been stripped of any flavour or personality. But recently, I have decided to get healthier - make the right eating choices and make habits out of them. I bought myself a kilogram of whole chicken breasts, which Mum sliced into single portions for me - we got about 9 pieces. Mum and I have been experimenting and here's one of mine...

I know what you're thinking - prison food looks better than this! But no really, this looks and tastes MUCH better. Please take my word for it - I just don't know how to take pictures

You need:
1/2 chicken breast
1 large potato
1 tsp Nando's Peri-Peri sauce (Hot)
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove of garlic
Olive oil
Salt

Mix the Peri-Peri sauce with lemon and chopped garlic. Pour it over the chicken breast and let it sit for at least an hour.  Make three diagonal slits along the chicken and get the marinade inside.

For the potatoes, peel it and drop it in boiling water. Take it out after 15 minutes and mash it with a fork. Add a teaspoon of olive oil and salt and mix well.  If you think the potatoes are a little lumpy then add about 2 tablespoons of hot water to the mash and stick it in the microwave for 3 minutes. Mash them with a fork once again. Lo-fat, lo-cal mashed potatoes are ready!

Back to the chicken now - heat a teaspoon of olive oil in the pan and add the chicken. Let it sizzle and change color.  I like to cook it slowly by adding just a spoon of water and covering the pan. 5 minutes later your chicken should be ready to go!

Also, my research indicates that the chicken breast is about 135 calories and the mashed potatoes are about 195 calories. That's a 330 calorie dinner - not bad - especially if it has potatoes in it.

Here's hoping there will be many more healthier choices in my life and yours!

Not-So-Simple Dimple

Asian food is my comfort food but it's still risky in Karachi. In your head you might have expected satay but what's on the dish is a generic grilled chicken on a skewer. Simple Dimple Khao Suey Palace deliveries are all the rage among the ladies in my office - Asian salads, soups, khao sueys, satay (like the one described earlier). However, Simple Dimple still does a great job of soothing the office worker's soul.

Last week, I ordered the Chicken and Mushrooms in Oyster sauce. 

It's really easy to over-salt anything cooked in oyster sauce. This was perfectly salted and flavored. Simple oyster sauce and a hint of chilli with sliced garlic. But the very art of balancing the 'caramel' flavour of the sauce with the garlic and chilli, so none over powers the other is not quite so easy - but Simple Dimple has 'balance' down to an art.  The dish was generous on the fresh mushrooms - which is fantastic - and a few of the canned button variety thrown in too. The mushrooms were still moist and chewy.

The chicken, however, was not as stellar as the mushrooms. I fear its yet another case of the rampant eatery affliction called 'general chicken' (name coined by me, of course). General Chicken is exactly what the name implies - cooked in a generic fashion to fit any kind of chicken dish. In this case, the chicken did not taste like garlic, chilli and oyster sauce. It tasted like the basic stir fry chicken marinade of soya sauce, a flour rub and maybe some garlic. I felt that the ingredients did not have to get to know each other. Perhaps the chicken was just mixed in right at the end for a few seconds? More power to the chicken, please?

Also, the dish costs Rs 300. Which is fair. What's unfair is the steamed rice that costs Rs 100. And I'll let the reader decide if the delivery charge of Rs 100 is fair.

Chicken and Potato Curry

What makes a curry, a curry? What is the difference between a 'salan' and a curry? I am not sure. The chicken curry recipe detailed below is one of the first recipes taught to me by my mother. Makes for a great lunch, comfort food and 'dawat' dish.

You need:
1 kg chicken (12 pieces)
1/2 kg potatoes
4 - 6 tomatoes
4 onions
2 tablespoons garlic paste
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1 tablespoon red chilli powder
1 tablespoon corriander powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Salt to taste
3-4 whole green chillis, cut down the middle
1/2 cup of cooking oil

Heat up the oil in a large pot. Add the sliced onions and fry until golden. Next add the sliced tomatoes and stir and cook for  6 - 7minutes, until the tomatoes and onions make a loose paste. There should be 'loose' onions and tomatoes floating around. Use a blender to create a 'neat' paste if needed. Add the ginger and garlic pastes and stir for another 3-4 minutes. Then add all the spices and continue to cook until the spices are cooked through. Add a little bit of water, if needed. Then, add the pieces of chicken and mix well. When the chicken changes color, add the potatoes and mix well. Then add about 500 ml of water and cover. The amount of water to be added depends how you like the consistency of your curry. I like mine to be a little watered down to go with the rice, and quite thick to go with naan.The chicken and potatoes should be cooked in no more than 15-20 minutes over a low flame. Add the green chillis in the last 5 minutes.

This should serve about 6-8 people easily. Serve it with boiled white rice or naan. This is one of my favorite desi dishes. Quick, simple and can feed a large family in a relatively smaller cooking time. Thanks Mom for teaching me how to cook this!

Singapore Eats: Renn Thai

If you are a 'real' traveler and not just a tourist, you must indulge in the local cuisine of your destination. Singapore is a great place for a foodie, a close second to Malaysia. But the debate between which one of the 'causeway cousins' has better food will probably never end. Coming from anywhere other than Malaysia, the variety of food in Singapore is truly mind-boggling. The term 'Asian cuisine' takes on mammoth proportions - Peranakan, mainland Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese, South Indian - I could just go on and on but you get the drift. There will be lots of Singapore entries on the blog. We'll start with something more upscale and touristy in the Clark Quay quarter.

Clark Quay is a nightlife hotspot - lots of bars, clubs, restaurants, characters - the whole rainbow. The restaurants are of course pricier than your average Singapore food prices. Our first night in town, my friends and I probably wanted to feel more special than the average weekend so we opted for a fancy Thai place on Clark Quay - Renn Thai. 

Here we have the wonderful honey glazed chicken with fried garlic. The chicken was thinly sliced and fried crisp and the garlic beautifully golden fried. The chicken was flavored with a basic soya sauce marinade it seemed, with a generous drizzle of honey. The strong taste of the garlic and the sweetness of  the honey should have been a good balance but honey was a bit over powering. But nothing some Thai chilli sauce couldn't balance out. The dish works perfectly on its own and with steamed white rice as well. But check this, this meal with white rice and a drink set me back by SGD 50. Bit much if you ask me. Good food but the place is obviously aimed at the tourist dollar. Or perhaps abusing the tourist dollar.

Simplest Masala Chicken Ever

Don't panic - there is no need for a barbecue set or that special cut of chicken to make this chicken delight. Regular utensils and chicken cuts work.

You need:
1 large chicken (1.5kg) - cut into 8 pieces
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon garlic paste
4 tablespoons of white vinegar
1 tablespoon of red chilli powder
Salt to taste
2 cups of chicken stock

This is easier than you imagined. Mix together the ginger, garlic, vinegar, chilli powder and salt into a marinade. Rub the marinade over the chicken and let it rest for at least an hour,if not two.

In a large wok/karahi heat up 1/2 cup of cooking oil. A 'handi' or pot works well too if you don't have a wok. Add the marinaded pieces of chicken to the oil and keep stirring at a high flame until the chicken changes color. Once that's done, add 1/4 cup of water, lower the flame and cover the chicken. Allow it cook for ten minutes before checking on it. Uncover and raise the flame, stir the chicken around until it is cooked.

Remove the chicken from the wok. Add the leftover marinade to the wok and let it cook/fry for no more than a minute. Next add the chicken stock and let it simmer until it thickens. The gravy makes a nice addition to the chicken tikka - goes well with the naan.

Serve the chicken with naan and raita. My mum usually makes peas and carrots to go with it. And I add on the garlic fried potatoes.  And a big cold bottle of Pakola goes well with everything!