Chicken Varuval

In Malaysia, we are fortunate to have a variety of Indian food.  Besides having large restaurants that serves a banquet of Indian food, there are also many smaller Mamak (Indian Muslim) eateries that serve paratha and a variety of light snacks.  Amongst all the Indian food, my favorite dish is Chicken Varuval.  The chicken is full of flavour from the spices used in cooking this dish.

I have wanted to cook this dish for as long as I can remember.  But I feel intimidated when it comes to cooking with spices.  I have very little knowledge of spices and do not know how to use them to enhance and compliment the flavour of a dish.

Recently a friend of mine, Veron from Frigglive came to my rescue.  She not only shared with me her recipe for Chicken Varuval but also cook some for us to savour.  It was scrumptious.  Below is the recipe from Veron.

Chicken Varuval
Ingredients
3 chicken maryland, chopped into bite size
2 stick cinnamon, 1.5 inch each
3 cardamons
4 cloves
2 star anise
1 bombay onion, sliced
1 sprig curry leaf
2 medium size potato, cubed
2 medium size tomato, cubed
1/4 cup of green peas
3 tbsp curry powder (I used Baba curry powder for meat)
4 tbsp chilli paste or chilli powder
1/2 cup water
Approx 1/4 cup of cooking oil
Salt and sugar to taste

Blend together and mix with curry powder and chilli paste/powder
1 bombay onion
2 cm ginger root
3 pips garlic

1.  Heat oil in wok and saute the spices; cinnamon sticks, cardamons, star anise, cloves and curry leaves until fragrant.
2.  Add in sliced onion and saute for 1 minute.
3.  Then pour in the blended ingredients and fry until the oil slightly separated from the curry mixture.
4.  Stir in chicken, potatoes and tomatoes and give it a good stir.  Cover the wok and turn the heat down and allow chicken to cook for 2 minutes, stirring every now and then.
5.  Add in water and let the chicken continue cooking till the meat is tender. REMEMBER to stir the chicken every now and then.  This is to ensure the chicken don't get burnt.  More water, a little at a time may be added if the liquid dried up too fast.  
6.  Once the chicken is cooked, stir in the green pea and heat through.
7.  Serve with either rice or roti paratha/canai.

Dinner in a tiffin

Since the beginning of this year, my work load has increased tremendously due to the change in areas of focus in the centre that I work. With a new boss, realignment is inevitable. However, this comes with a price and the price is longer working hours. Though I look forward to new challenges but there is a compromise on areas of interest. Such as my family, my blog, my baking and cake decorating adventures.

This is the reason for my infrequent update and absenteeism from the blogging world. I guess infrequent update and absenteeism is still not as bad as having to wait till 9pm or 10pm for dinner. My 2 poor family members; Sydney and hubby have been doing just that. They will wait for me each day to reach home before we go out for dinner. Home cooked food on a weekday is a luxury at this moment.

In order to have dinner at an earlier and more regular eating hour, I decided to cater for dinner. The catered dinner consist of 3 dishes. These dishes are packed in a tiffin and hubby will pick up the tiffin from the caterer on his way home. Sydney has been appointed the office cook for rice (meant to call her the rice cooker but sure sounds like a pot) at home.

This is how the food looks like in the tiffin. A little pathetic was hubby's remark.



I sincerely hope my working hours will be back to normal soon so that I can start cooking for my family again.

Prawn Noodles

We had this Prawn Noodle for dinner tonight. This is Sydney and Hubby's favourite noodle. This noodle usually cost quite a lot when eaten in a restaurant as large fresh water prawns are expensive. Since I have some leftover large prawns from Chinese New Year (CNY), I decided to give this a try. Surprisingly my first attempt turn out to be quite tasty.

You may wonder how I keep my prawns fresh for such a long since CNY is was month ago. Well the trick is to submerge the prawns in fresh water and freeze them until cooking time.

To prepare this dish, you need a good chicken stock. As I do not have chicken stock, I used Maggie Chicken Concentrate stock from the bottle. I dilute 1 tbsp of chicken concentrate to 2 cups of water to get 2 cups of chicken stock. Honestly, I prefer this to chicken granules as this gives a more natural flavour.

Here is my recipe for this prawn noodle.

Ingredients

2 rolls of fresh egg noodles (wanton mee), unroll and deep fry in oil for a few minutes till lightly brown and crispy.

2 large prawns, sliced into halves

1 small bunch of spring onions, cut into 1 inch length

1/2 inch ginger, sliced

2 tbsp cooking oil

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tbsp corn flour mixed with 2 tbsp of water

Sauce Ingredients

2 cups chicken stock

1/2 tbsp light soy sauce

1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp pepper

Mix sauce ingredients together

1. Heat cooking oil in a wok and saute ginger and the white stem of the green onions.

2. Add in prawn and fry till the prawns turn pink.

3. Pour in sauce ingredients together with spring onions and bring to boil.

4. Add in corn flour mixture and when the gravy thickens turn off the fire and stir in the eggs.

5. Pour gravy over the noodle and serve immediately.

Vegetarian Pasta

Though most of the time Hubby, Sydney and I will have dinner together, there are times like tonight that hubby can't join us for dinner due to work commitment. Since there are only two of us, I decided to make a one dish pasta meal. As this is a last minute decision, I only had what's left in my fridge to rely on.

I usually use spaghetti for this dish but this time round I substituted it with Angel Hair pasta. Reason being, Angel Hair pasta cook much faster. It only required to be boiled for 2 minutes (quicker than instant Maggi noodle). This brings back memories of how my mom used to comment that I always look for the shortest way possible to get things done. Her rational is lazy people will find quick way out. But in this modern day, this is called process improvement and I like to think that back then I was already practising process improvement *wink*.

Ingredients
150g Angel Hair pasta
1 capsicum, roasted, skin removed and sliced
5 fresh brown mushrooms, sliced
1 tbsp chopped local celery
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
dried chilli flakes to taste (I replace with ground paprika)
freshly ground black pepper to taste
salt to taste
grated Parmesan cheese

1. Boil pasta according to instruction provided on packaging.
2. Heat olive oil and fry garlic for 1 minute.
3. Stir in mushroom, capsicum and celery.
4. Add in pasta and some of the leftover water used to boil pasta.
5. Add salt and ground pepper and stir fry for 2 minutes.
6. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese.

Spicy Prawn Chilli Okra (Ladies' Fingers)

This is one of my favourite time saving dish. It is Okra with Spicy Prawn Chilli. This dish is really fast and easy to make with the help of Tean's Spicy Prawn Chilli.

For this dish, I used :-

10 okra cut into 1.5 inch length
water to blanch okra
2 tsp soy sauce
1-2 tbsp Tean's Spicy Prawn Chilli

1. Bring water to boil.
2. Blanch okra for 3 - 5 minutes
3. Dish okra from water and top with soy sauce and Spicy Prawn Chilli

Below is the the Tean's Spicy Prawn Chilli.


This Spicy Prawn Chilli is made up of ground chillies and dried prawns fried in oil till crispy. It can also be served as a accompanying sauce for noodles or rice besides using this as topping to flavour vegetable or soy bean curd.

Spicy Fried Chicken

I spoke a little too soon sometime back when I wrote in my blog that eating out in Malaysia is still cheap and affordable. However, this has not been the case since the recent increase in petrol price by 40%. Generally, prices of most goods have gone up quite substantially. For instance a bag of 10kg rice that used to cost RM20 is now close to RM40.

Under such circumstances, we have decided not to eat out so often. Therefore, I am back to my dinner cooking routine again.......(sigh). Will have to comb through all my recipe books for quick and simple dishes to satisfy the hunger of Sydney and hubby who awaits patiently each day for my return to prepare dinner.

Here is one such recipe that I improvise and name it Spicy Fried Chicken.

Ingredients

6 chicken wings

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp curry powder for meat

Oil for deep frying

1. Marinate chicken wings with salt and curry powder for at least half an hour.

2. Heat oil and fry till crispy and chicken wings are cooked.

Note : I used chicken wings as they cook faster than chicken drumstick and I marinate them in the morning before I leave for work.

Braised Fish Head (Hoong Siew Yee Tau)

The last 3 weeks have been extremely busy for me with tons and tons of office work to complete. So much so that I do not have time to cook for my family. We have been eating out most of the week nights. Thankfully eating out is still affordable in this part of the world.

Finally, I had some time today since it is Sunday and we do not have any dinner plans. Hence, I decided to cook one of hubby's favourite fish dish. For this dish I used a large head of red snapper. I prefer large fish head as it yield more meat. Since the fish head that I bought was quite big, I only used half for this dish.

Ingredients
600g to 700g fish head cut into 8 pieces
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
corn flour
oil for deep frying
100g pork belly, sliced thinly
1 stalk leek, sliced
2 dried mushroom, soaked and sliced
4 baby corn, cut into half
8 button mushroom, cut into half
2 inch carrot, sliced
5 slices of ginger
3 clove garlic, chopped
1 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 tbsp sesame oil

Sauce Ingredients
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup water

Corn flour mixture
1 tsp corn flour
1 tbsp water

1. Clean fish head and season with soy sauce and pepper for 30 minutes.
2. Lightly coat fish head pieces with corn flour and deep fry till golden brown.
3. Drained and set aside.
4. Heat wok with both cooking oil and sesame oil.
5. Saute garlic and ginger for 1 minute, then add in pork belly and stir fry until pork belly is cook and lightly brown on the sides.
6. Add in dried mushroom, carrot and leek, stir fry for 1 minute.
7. Then add in corn and button mushroom and stir fry till well mixed.
8. Springkle cooking wine around the food directly on the wok, then stir in sauce ingredients and bring to boil.
9. Add in fish head and simmer for 3 minutes.
10. Thicken with corn flour mixture and serve.

Note : pork belly can be replace with roast pork for a more flavourful dish.

Braised Chicken with Raisin Wine

Yesterday was a public holiday in Malaysia and this is in celebration of Prophet Mohammad's birthday. Since I do not have to work and have some time in hand, I decided to cook something different for a change for dinner instead of the usual quick stir fry dishes that I dish out within minutes on working nights.

I opt for the Braised Chicken with Raisin Wine since my mom gave me a bottle of raisin wine that she made herself. In the absence of raisin wine, it can also be subtituted with rice wine.

Here's the recipe :-

Ingredients

500g chicken (I prefer chicken thigh or drumstick)

3 clove garlic (chopped)

5 slices of ginger

5 dried chinese mushroom (soak in water till soft, remove stem and cut into half)

2 tbsp cooking oil

1 tbsp sesame oil

1/2 cup of water

Marinade
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sugar

Seasoning
2 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup of raisin wine

Mix chicken with marinade and leave a side.
Heat cooking oil and sesame oil in a wok.
Fry chopped and ginger in hot oil until fragrant.
Add in chicken and fry till the juice has been sealed in.
Then add in mushroom and stir fry for 1 minute.
Pour in seasoning and water, bring to boil and let it simmer ill chicken is cooked and tender.
Serve hot with rice.

Curry Chicken

I was invited by Big Boys Oven for a bloggers get together. It was really an honour since I am a newbie and Big Boys and the rest have been in the scene for so long. Initially, I wanted to bring along my signature cupcakes. SIGNATURE because I have baked and featured them in my blog for umpteen times. But on second thought, how can I bring cupcakes to a get together where the hosts are expert in the field of baking and desserts.

Therefore, after much thought I came up with Curry Chicken and Homemade Bread. For now, I'll just post the recipe for Curry Chicken and save the recipe for bread that is much easier with the help of breadmaker for another time.

Marinade together:-

1 whole chicken (approx. 1.5kg)

1/3 cup of curry powder for meat

1 tsp salt

Marinate chicken for 1/2 hour.

Blend together:-
10 chillies (150g)

15 shallots (250g)

6 pips garlic (50g)

20g belacan (prawn paste) - optional

Other Ingredients

1/3 cup cooking oil

2 stalk of curry leaves

1 piece cinnamon stick

2 star anise

2 stalks of lemon grass

1 piece of dried tamarine

7 medium size potatoes - cut into chunks

Coconut milk extracted from 1 coconut

salt to taste

Heat oil in wok until it is hot.

Fry curry leaves, lemon grass, star anise and cinnamon stick briefly.
Pour in blended ingredients and fry using medium heat until oil floats to the top.

Add in chicken and fry for 2 to 3 minutes.

Mix 1/3 of the coconut milk with water and pour over the chicken. Ensure water is enough to cover the chicken.

Bring to boil and simmer until chicken is cooked and potatoes are soft.

Pour in the balance of coconut milk and add salt to taste.

Bring curry to boil then immediately turn off the fire.

Curry Chicken is another versatile dish. It can either be served with plain rice, bread or as topping for noodles.

For those who would like to know how the night goes, please check out All About Yum.

Chicken Pie

When Dome Restaurant was first introduced in KL, I used to visit this restaurant just to have their Gourmet Chicken Pie. This is like a chicken pot pie that has a rich and creamy gravy and topped with baked fluffy puff pastry.

One day, I decided to give this pie a try and found out that it is actually quite easy to make. The pie filing can be cooked in advance and left to cool slightly before covering with puff pastry. Then, all you need to do is to pop it in the oven just minutes before your guests arrive.

When your guests arrived, they will be greeted not only by the aroma from the oven but also an impressive looking chicken pie. This will make your guests think that you have slothed many hours in the kitchen just to prepare food for them *like real* .

So, for those who wants to impress their guests......here's the recipe.

375g frozen puff pastry - thawed
4 pieces of chicken drumstick - deboned and cubed

1 small bombay onion - chopped

2 large potatoes - cubed

2 medium size carrots - cubed

1 can of button mushroom - drained and cut into halves

1 can of cream of mushroom

approx. 1 cup of water

1 tsp mixed dried herbs

salt and pepper to taste

Heat some oil in a wok and saute the bombay onion.
Add in chicken and fry for 1 minute.

Stir in potatoes, carrots, mushroom and let it cook for 2 minutes.

Add mixed herbs and enough water to cover almost 3/4 of the chicken filing.

Bring to boil and simmer until chicken is cooked and potatoes and carrots are soft and tender.

Stir in cream of mushroom and add salt and pepper to taste.

Bring to boil again, then turn off the fire.
Transfer cooked chicken pie filling into a casserole pot and leave to cool.

Roll puff pastry to 1/2 cm thick.

Cover casserole with rolled puff pastry and seal with a mixture of corn starch mixed with water.

Poke a couple of holes on the puff pastry with a satay stick.

Bake at 180C for 20 to 25 mins.

Please note that the button mushroom used in this recipe can be replaced with any type of fresh mushroom of you choice.

Stew Pork

So far, I have posted mainly baking stuff. Besides baking, I do cook dinners for my family a few days in a week. I would love to cook more often but there are times that I am unable to make it back in time (due to work commitment) to cook dinner before Sydney leaves for tuition at 8.00pm. Therefore, I am constantly on the look out for quick & easy dishes as well as dishes that freeze well. Here is one such dish that I learnt from my mum.

If dad is my STAR, then mum is best described as my MOON. She watches over us both day and night. Even though we live about 100km a part, she still calls us regularly to check on us. I believe how I run my household today is greatly influenced by my mum. She is such an efficient (mmm....I think I am too) and good cook (*sigh* still got a long way to go).

I have tried many of her recipes but somehow mine never tasted exactly like hers. When I asked her why, her reply was.........you cannot follow recipe religiously coz' same food may not necessary produce the same taste each time you cook them. Therefore, you need to adjust the taste during the cook process and add seasoning accordingly. Make sense to me but........sad to say that my taste bud is no where near hers.

So here's the recipe for my friend, Amy who likes my stew pork even though it is no where near mum's:-

Ingredients

900g pork

3 whole roasted garlic

6 hard boiled eggs

1- 1 1/2 cup water

Seasoning

1/4 cup light soy sauce

1 tsp dark soy sauce

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper corn - lightly crushed

Mix pork with all the seasonings and bring to boil. Then simmer over low fire till the juice has been sealed in. Add in water and bring to boil again and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Then add in the eggs and simmer for further 15 minutes or untill meat is tender.

NOTE - Normally I used 2 tsp dark soy sauce. But since it is too dark for photo shooting, I reduced it to 1 tsp.

This is a very versatile dish. (1) You can used any type of pork of your choice but take note of the cooking time. (2) You can replace hard boiled eggs with either potatoes, tau kua or include all 3. (3) This dish can either be served with rice or as topping for noodles. (4) It also freezes well.

So to Amy, happy trying this dish. Let me know what yours taste like.