Baked Chicken Breast with Cheese and Tomato

Most of my cooking are Asian or Chinese food but KC is a person who loves Western food especially cheese. He will cook spaghetti or roast chicken wings at home and he is very good at marinating meat. Since we arrived at Hershey, I have become the full time ‘cook’. So I guess he may have forgotten how to do that. hehehe…

Today, he told me that he would love to have baked chicken with cheese. This dish was introduced to us by Erin and Joel when we had our first dinner at their place. Erin told me that it’s a very easy dish to prepare and she was very kind to email me the recipe. I remembered all it needed were chicken breast, tomato, cheese, salt and pepper. Simple, right?! However, when I went through the recipe just before I wanted to start cooking, I found out that I lacked so many ingredients stated. So, I had no choice but to cook using whatever I had.

First, I mixed cubed tomato, finely chopped garlic, dried parsley, dried basil, crouton, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then I spread the mixture and cheese on top of chicken, drizzled with a bit of olive oil and baked it at 350F for 30- 40 minutes.

I served it with baked potato and romaine. Hey, it turned out better than I thought! The only thing is it’s not good for the next meal. The chicken will be too dry after reheating.

Give it a try and let me know how do you like it. It’s very easy to prepare and needs little work.

Tomato Bee Hoon @ Mee Siam

We have been in Hershey for almost half a year. When I recap the time that we have spent here, I have discovered my another new hobby— to fulfill KC’s craving For instance, few days ago when he told me that he missed ‘tomato Bee Hoon’ very much (Bee Hoon is rice vermicille), I knew I got to look for the recipe or at least figured out the recipe from his description. I am actually happy whenever he tells me what he will like to eat because a lot of time, I am out of idea what to cook.

Talking about ‘tomato Bee Hoon’, I had totally no idea what it was. According to KC, it’s stir-frying the Bee Hoon with tomato sauce. Hah, that’s easy but would it be tasty?! I googled and I found something very similar to KC’s description— Mee Siam. Mee Siam or “Siamese noodles” is basically spicy fried rice vermicille with various toppings such as shrimp, chicken, fried firm tofu, and shredded omelet. It is usually served with a piece of kalamansi lime (the juice gives an extra tangy kick to the noodles). This dish is said to originate from the north of Malaysia where the culinary influences of Thailand (formerly Siam) sometimes fuse with Malaysian food.

I went through a few recipes and decided on one interesting one which used dried prawns, tomato sauce and tamarind juice. As usual, I would love to share with you my recipe but don’t worry, the original recipe can be found here

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Ingredient

• 250g or half pack rice vermicille (soaked in warm water and drained when soft)
• 4 dried chilies
• 1 onion (shredded)
• 4 cloves garlic (finely chopped)
• 100g dried prawns (finely chopped)
• 10-12 prawns (shelled and deveined)
• 4oz. Char Siew or pork (shredded)
• 5 pieces fried bean curd or firm toufu (cut into pieces)
• 4-5 pieces Chinese long cabbage (shredded)
• 1 cup water

Seasoning

• 2 tbsp. Tau Cheo or salted soy bean paste
• 3-4 tbsp. tomato ketchup
• 2 tbsp. chili sauce
• 1 tbsp. tamarind Juice
• 2 tbsp. lime juice
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp. fish sauce
• salt and sugar to taste

Garnishing

• 2 eggs (lightly bitten, seasoned with a pinch of salt and black pepper)
• 2 stalks scallion (chopped into 1/2-inch length)

Method

1. Heat up a pan with some oil and make the beaten eggs into an omelet. Fold and slice the omelet thinly. Set aside.

2. Heat up pan and add 3 tablespoons of oil, fry the dried prawns until fragrant. Add dried chilies, onion, garlic, salted soy bean paste and fry until golden brown.

3. Add prawns, Char Siew, fried bean curd, Chinese long cabbage and stir fry until the prawn and Chinese long cabbage are half done. Add seasoning and bring to boil with 1 cup of water.

4. Add softened rice vermicille and stir fry until all ingredients are evenly distributed. Taste and adjust the seasoning by adding salt or sugar to taste.

5. Transfer the Mee Siam onto a big serving bowl and garnish with the omelet strips, chopped scallions. Serve immediately.

Notes: I can’t get kalamansi limes where I am, so I use only the lime juice. Oh, how I miss squeezing the kalamansi lime and its smell on my fingers *sniff sniff *

Oh, another must have for the extra extra kick is THE sambal belachan which goes very well with this!!

Curry Chicken

 I ushered in my new year at a party organized by KC’s supervisor. They loved Asian food so I thought curry chicken would be a good dish to introduce to the people here. This was my second attempt of cooking curry chicken. The first one was just ‘so so’ because I only used the ready mix curry paste. It’s definitely lack of something very important – the ‘kick’!!

I googled and I was very excited when I found this website Nyonya Food. It had a lot of tasty yet easy recipes for the dishes that I never thought I would want to cook myself. Now that I have no choice, I am really thankful and much willing to give it a try. The original recipe for curry chicken can be found here. I modified according to my accessibility for spices. Though without the curry leaves, I am very satisfied with my curry chicken this time round. It tasted better after reheating as the gravy would thicken. I cooked quite a lot and we ate it with rice, bread, pita bread, naan…

This is the curry paste we used for cooking curry

 

This is the curry I cooked using my modified recipe

This is the curry I cooked using only curry paste. You can notice the obvious color difference, not to mention about the fragrance and flavor *sniff sniff*.

Naan is sold for $2 a piece here. So far, we only had twice ;P

Here is my modified recipe for curry chicken:

Ingredients:

• 6 chicken whole legs (cut in small pieces)
• 4 medium size potatoes (peeled and cut into cubes)
• 100ml thick coconut milk and 100ml milk (I use less coconut milk because I am watching out for my cholesterol level)
• 2 star anise
• 1 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick (3 inches long)
• 1 lemongrass (cut into 2 inches long)
• 5 tbsp. oil
• 2 cups water (use more if you like it to be more diluted)

Spice Paste (ground):

• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 big onions
• 1 tbsp. turmeric powder
• 1tsp galangal powder
• 2 tbsp. curry powder
• 1 lemongrass (white part only)
• 2-3 tbsp. chili paste
• ¼ pack of curry paste (optional)

Seasoning

• 1 tbsp. salt
• 1 tsp. sugar

Method:

1. Heat up your wok, pour in 5 tbsp oil, sauté cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves and lemon grass, fry over low heat, add in spice paste and stir-fry until fragrant and turn into darker color.
2. Add chicken and potatoes and fry well. Add in water, cover the pot, bring it to boil until chicken and potatoes are cooked well (around 10 min).
3. Transfer everything to crockpot and cook for at least 3 hours on high.
4. Add the thick coconut milk, salt and sugar. Continue to cook on high for 2-3 hours or until the chicken and potatoes become tender. Remove and serve with white rice, bread, nasi kunyit, or roti jala.

Notes: To make it easier, add in coconut milk when you transfer everything into crockpot and let it cook for few hours until chicken and potatoes are tender and the gravy starts to thicken.