Roast chicken with honey and pepper

Sometimes I thinks simple foods are absolutely the best as I really don't have much time to fuss over it and moreover, I would rather spend more time playing with my baby. However, as food is also essential and cooking nice food just make me feel better especially when my family enjoyed them. Before landing on this seashore i would not know how to roast a chicken, what more to check out the recipes online. Whenever there is a craving for roast chicken there is always Kenny Rogers, Cold Storage selection and of course little restaurants all over the city. Here it is totally different when you have a craving you would have to start cooking it yourself from the very basic to the most complex.

Coming here have both been a hard lessons for me as there are also some very small areas of happiness. Mostly, i miss home and some time resent the feeling of being trap here. So i learned to cook better and tried more complex dishes.

This recipe that I am going to share is really one of the easiest and time saving.

Ingredients:

• one whole chicken about 1.1kg
• 2 medium size ginger pound roughly
• 8 cloves of garlic pound roughly
• 6 teaspoons of slight soy
• 4 teaspoons of oyster sauce
• pepper generous amount
• 2 stalk of rosemary
• 3 leaves of cinnamon
• juice of a lemon

Methods

• Put the clean chicken with all the marinate and leave it for 2 hours
• Place the chicken in a baking dish and brush a thin layer of oyster sauce on top of the chicken skin and sprinkle a generous layer of pepper on top
• leave it in the griller
• Temperature of 140C for 80 minutes

Serve with rice or potatoes wedges and salad for a truly restaurant meal at home. Bon appetite!

Fish with palm wine sauce

This is rather uncommon as palm wine is really common in this part of the world and people here drink them neat, the thing with palm wine is nobody really know the percentage of the alcohol content in the drink so better not try this. However, this is good to cook with according to hubby.
So last night I have decided to use the palm wine which was a gift to cook my fish and Ola.. the taste is yummy more like the Chinese home made rice wine... gosh it made me miss mom's rice wine steam chicken with ginger.. this is another recipe that I would share it at another time.
For now this is my bake fish in palm wine sauce.

Ingredients:

• A slice of red snapper about 400gm with bone
• 2 inches of ginger slice thinly
• 3 teaspoons of light soy
• pepper for taste
• 50 mls of palm wine

Methods:

• Place the red snapper in a baking dish
• Pour in the palm wine and light soy and sprinkle the ginger on top of the fish together with pepper
• Let it sit for 10 minutes
• Bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 140C

Serve hot with rice and a side stir fry veggies for a complete meal.

Sandwich..

Frankly, I really don't know when we started this bring lunch to work business and it is usually a small sandwich. Of course when we were in Singapore there were load of choices we could have ham and cheese, tuna, salmon even the exotic ones like pate sandwich.

Here in Seychelles we have to be innovative with sandwich making as it is really hard to get good ham or bacon. I have since try out other fusion sandwich filling that is yummy at the same time nutritious for us as a lunch meal.

So I am going to share this really easy to make chicken sandwich filling. Start by getting some really fresh chicken breast you can either boil them to cook or griller them. This one is made with simple griller chicken breast.

• 2 pieces of clean chicken breast
• 2 teaspoons of light soy
• 1 teaspoon of oyster sauce
• pepper for taste
• 6 teaspoons low fat mayonnaise
• a dash of hot pepper sauce or Peri Peri spicy sauce

Method:

• Marinate the chicken breast with light soy, oyster sauce and pepper
• Put in the griller at 180C for 35 minutes
• Let it cool and tear it into small fine pieces
• Put in a bowl mix it with mayonnaise and hot pepper sauce mix it together
• Leave it in the fridge can last for a week

Simple and easy way to make a sandwich filling that is cheap and economical at the same time.

Bake pork chop in red wine and mayonnaise

Last night I have a last minute change of menu as Hubby has a late evening meeting again and baby was cranky so I have to do a fast bake pork chop instead of fish dish with rice. While I was pondering what to put in the marinate, I saw an open bottle of red wine in the wine fridge so I decided to use that instead. However, I know it sound weird to combine red wine with mayonnaise, frankly that were what I could find so I decided not to go with the normal and give it a new fusion taste.

The end result was finger licking good, hubby enjoyed his share so much that he even chewed on the bone. As for baby she was looking for all the juicy bites from our plates even thought she already had her share. It was such a good feeling when you have a nicely cook meal that you can relax and enjoy with the family.

Here is the recipe for this fusion pork chop.

Ingredients:

• 5 pieces of pork chop
• 6 pieces of small cinnamon leaves
• 3 teaspoons of oyster sauce
• 3 teaspoons of light soy
• 2 teaspoons of low fat mayonnaise
• 1 glass of red wine
• pepper for taste
• a splash of olive oil

Method:

• Marinate the clean pork chops with oyster sauce, light soy, mayonnaise, red wine, pepper and olive oil for 30 minutes or longer if time allow
• Line the baking dish with cinnamon leaves
• Put the marinated pork chops in a single layer on top of the cinnamon leaves
• Bake it in the oven at 200C for 40 minutes

I used cinnamon leaves to line the tray to give it a light fragrant to my pork chops but I don't want it to over power the taste and smell of the other marinate. You can leave out the cinnamon leaves if there are none availables.

Grill black pepper chicken legs on pandan leaves

As usual when you have a hubby who is 10 times busier each day and you are stuggling to make sure dinner is on time and the kid is fed and happy, it just seem difficult to get a really nice meal on the table. Since we have been here I have learned to make my food simple and yummy at the same time. Black pepper roast chicken was our favourite when we were in Singapore and of course you could get it even at the supermarket.

Last night as hubby was out with friend and baby wants to be koala bear to me, I have made a fusion version of pandan and black pepper chicken and it was truly yummy with the nice fragrant of pandan and crackling black pepper.

Here is the recipe, try and enjoy.

Ingredient:

• 4 whole chicken legs
• 8 pieces of clean pandan leaves
• some coarsely pound black pepper
• 4 teaspoons of osyter sauce
• some olive oil

Methods:

• Marinate the chicken with osyter sauce and mix it with the pandan leave
• Leave it for few hours if there is time
• Layer the pandan leaves, then follow by the chicken on single layer on the baking tray
• Sprinkle black pepper generously on the chicken
• Drizzler some olive oil over the chicken
• Put in the grill at 180C for 40 minutes

Best serve with mash potatoes or rice. This is a really favourful and moist chicken legs.

Sweet dessert soup

This is a nice sweet dessert soup that I remembered my mother used to make for us and when we were younger this is truly a nice one especially on a hot day afternoon. Now I have children of my own I likes them to enjoy some of what mom has made for me over the year.
This simple and yummy sweet dessert is now a favourite with my baby girl. It is simple slow broiler barley with fuchok and eggs. We love it cold on a hot afternoon. Baby girl can almost have a bowl all by herself now. For me it is not the sophisticated desserts that you have found in a 5 stars hotel or restaurant that impress me as what is truly wonderful it a simple bowl of nice homemade dessert that is satisfying and nourishing to the body.
In this recipe, the barley is cooling to the body as belief by the ancient medicine people of the yesteryear and fuchok is protein based that is good for the body. Ok let me explained the fuchok is actually the dried layer of bean curd that is usually easily found in any Asian shop, there are a few types for one is for making Dian Xin ,another type for adding in stir fried or curries and last one is for dessert soup.

Here is the simple recipe that I hope you would enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 200gm of pearl barley
• 1 pack of fuchok about 50gm
• 50gm of rock sugar (add more if you like it sweeter)
• 4 eggs

Method:

• Rinse the pearl barley and add a litre of water and let it boil slowly
• Add clean fuchok once the barley started to boil
• Continue to cook in slow fire till fuchok soften and broken into smooth pieces
• Add rock sugar and let it boil till dissolved
• Add one egg at a time and stir gentle while adding the egg
• Make sure the egg is of the egg Benedict consistency

Wala... now you could dish and have it hot or chill it in the fridge for a few hours and have it cool.

Simple lentils in Creole style

This dish was first introduced to me by my then boyfriend who is now my hubby. This is the dish that I remembered him cooking for me the first time. It is really a very simple, nutritious dish that even my baby loves it very much whenever we made it.

This dish is always a hit when we have guests coming for dinner be it with the local Seychellios or our overseas friends. They love that it is so simple and taste super yummy. I normally make it thicker than the local here as it give more favour in each mouth full. This is best served with rice. Do try them and you would be amazed. This recipes is for 3 portions.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of red lentils
• 2 cups of water
• 2 cups of skim milk
• 1 stalk of rosemary
• 5 slices of bacon or 3 pieces of sausage cut in bite size pieces
• salt and pepper for taste
• 1 inch of ginger minced
• 1 small red onion cut in small bits

Method:

• Wash the lentils and put in 2 cups of water cooked it till soft, add more water if necessary.
• once soften add skim milk, onion and rosemary leave it to cook on slow fire for 10 minutes or longer if require
• pan fried the bacon or sausages till slightly brown( you can also leave it as it is I prefer pan fried gave out more favour)
• Add them to the broiling lentils and put in the ginger at the same time simmers for another 10minutes
• Add salt and pepper when ready

The trick here is not to add any salt to the lentil before it soften otherwise you would have a pot of uncooked hard lentils. Here I also choose to use skim milk but you could use other if you prefer. For me a dish has to be simple and healthy for my family.

Happy trying out.