Foodarrific» Spicy

2 ingredient grilled chicken

Chili Queen — Mon, 07 May 2012 15:20:47 +0000

Everyone loves a grilled chicken. We certainly do. Here’s one of our family favorites which I made up on the fly and which, to be completely honest, is so easy it barely needs a recipe.

All you need are:

chicken thighs, skin on
your favorite meat rub

I usually use Cajun rub for that kick we love but feel free to use whatever seasoning or rub you fancy. To prep the chicken, simply marinate it for a few hours. When you’re ready, just grill it in the oven for between 35-45 minutes, and that’s it.

Of course you can go ahead and drizzle on some oil and season with salt and pepper to taste. But then it won’t be a 2-ingredient chicken then, would it ?

I don’t use any oil, salt or pepper because grilling with the skin on, the meat is kept wonderfully moist, and the Cajun rub provides all the flavoring we need. We eat it without the skin and it tastes as good as it looks.

lunch @ Nyonya Colors

Chili Queen — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 07:46:59 +0000

Although there’s a whole spread of eateries at the Midvalley walkway to the Gardens, there’s only one or two restaurants that we’re tried that appeal to us. One of them is Nyonya Colors which serves fairly decent nasi lemak (or coconut rice with condiments) but we’ve never tried their nyonya kuih (or cakes). There are certain prices I won’t just pay for certain food, period, especially if I know how easy and cheap they can be made at home.

This Nasi Lemak Pandan with Chicken Rendang is quite a decent portion of rice (the greenish color comes from the screwpine leaves used), fried anchovies and peanuts, half a hard-boiled egg, sliced cucumber and chicken rendang (dried curry sauce).

Another one of our favorites is Nasi Kunyit with Chicken Curry. The nasi kunyit, or turmeric rice, shaped like giant gold coins, may not look like a lot but eaten with the thick, coconuty chicken curry, this glutinous rice is very filling.

And if I’m not very hungry, I’ll order this basic, no-frills nasi lemak in a small portion that I can finish in a few scoops.

Chinese New Year reunion dinner

chili queen — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:41:49 +0000

This year, for our CNY reunion dinner, I decided to slave in the kitchen this year instead of subjecting ourselves to those rip-off festive restaurant prices. My dishes are very simple so it’s not too hard to whip up something pretty quickly.

Stirfried Kailan with Crispy Scallop Bits

Stir-fried Kai-lan (Chinese kale) is a common everyday dish. I merely funky-ed it up with a topping of crispy dried scallop bits. Surprisingly my say-no-to-veggie brood loved this .

Claypot Pork Ribs and Tofu

We’re big fans of Claypot Tofu (recipe here) and I cook this quite often for regular meals. Here I used pork ribs with carrot flowers and wolfberries and turned it into something special.

Spicy Thai-style Crispy Chicken

I topped my easy-peasy and very popular Thai-style Crispy Chicken (recipe here) with shredded carrots, cucumbers and onions.

Braised Mushrooms with Phoenix Claws

Don’t jump now. Phoenix claws are actually just plain old chicken feet.

Lotus Root Soup with Japanese Baby Scallops

This turned out so sweet and flavorful I surprised even myself .

You’ll agree there’s nothing very fattening here so no need for us to start reading phentermine reviews ! In fact, I cooked everything here with fresh ingredients and very little sodium, practically no sugar or added MSG.

fried kuay teow, or flat rice noodle

chili queen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:47:37 +0000

On weekends, when everyone is home, I try to cook something that everyone likes. One of our favorite hawker food is fried kuay teow, or fried flat rice noodle, which is pretty easy to whip up at home. I fried this and couldn’t wait to gobble it up.

All you need are these fresh ingredients which you can adjust according to number of people you’re feeding:

kuay teow, or flat rice noodle (I use 1 kg for two meals for 5 people)
fresh medium or large shrimps, shelled and deveined
nga choy, or bean sprouts
gow choy, or chives, cut into 2″ lengths (discard the heads)
cooking oil
thick dark soy sauce
light soy sauce
chili paste
eggs
salt to taste

I first heat up my wok with a generous drizzle of cooking oil. I usually fry one portion (for one person) at a time. You need to keep your wok on high heat and you need to work fast. So don’t get distracted now .

First I throw in a handful of shrimps followed by a couple handfuls of noodles, or kuay teow, and drizzle over some dark soy sauce (just enough to give it some color) and add a splash of water. I’m frying, frying, keep that hand moving, woo-oo!

Then I throw in a handful of bean sprouts, chives and a spoonful (or however many) of chili paste and I keep right on frying as I crack an egg and drizzle some light soy sauce into the mix.

And we’re done. So simple. We like our fried kuay teow pretty basic without clams, Chinese sausages or fish paste slices but you can go ahead and add those if you like.

Homemade hawker-style fried kuay teow is just as tasty and much cleaner and healthier. If you’re eat this a lot outside, don’t forget to some colon cleanse reviews as the hawker fried kuay teow is usually fried with lard .

the thing with a zing!

chili queen — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:12:43 +0000

Every weekend, without fail, we would go to the neighborhood mall. My kids go to a music school there so that’s where I’m at every weekend. After class, we would usually hang out there, do a little shopping and then have dinner.

Thing is we’re there so often, we’ve run through the mall’s directory list and tried practically every restaurant there. Now we’re down to eating nasi lemak which is the thing with a zing that everyone loves, so no arguments.

It’s our all-time favorite rice in coconut milk with chicken curry, fried anchovies and peanuts, half a hard-boiled egg, sliced cucumbers, sambal or chili paste topped off with a crispy papadam or Indian corn cracker.

Absolutely yummy! There’s nothing like it eaten piping hot and spicy. Sometimes my kids order the less spicy combination that comes with fried chicken instead of chicken curry. Sometimes I cook this at home. I’ll have to post the recipe sometime.

thai green curry

chili queen — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:15:03 +0000

Our school day lunches have been rather run-of-the-mill of late due to our hectic schedule. So I try to spice things up during the weekends and school breaks. This time I decided to surprise my daughters with Thai green curry for lunch.

This is a dish I can only prepare when I have ample time because it requires quite a lot of ingredients and preparation. Glad I got to use fresh basil from my own garden and lemongrass from my neighbor’s garden .

For the curry paste, I blended these ingredients into a paste:

5 large green chillies, or jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1 knob ginger
6 cloves garlic
4-5 medium sticks of lemongrass, chopped
zest from 1 lime, grated
2 medium onions, diced
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
½ cup fish sauce
1 Tsp sugar

The other ingredients are:

2 boneless chicken thighs, cut in 1” pieces
2 cups thickened coconut milk
1 zucchini, diced
1 egg plant, diced
6-8 long beans, diced
1 bunch basil
1 cup chicken stock, or water
a few drizzles of soy sauce
1 Tsp lime juice
3 Tsp cooking oil

First I heat up the pot with cooking oil to fry half the green curry paste on medium heat for about 5 minutes till fragrant. Then I add the coconut milk and chicken stock followed by the long beans since they take the longest to soften.

I let it simmer for about 5 minutes before adding the remaining green curry paste and coconut milk, followed by zucchini, eggplant, chicken, soy sauce, lime juice and basil, then for another 5-7 minutes on medium to low heat till the veggies are softened.

As usual, I add just enough salt to taste. Remember the fish sauce and chicken stock are salty in themselves, and you don’t want to end up with a sodium overdose.

Thai green curry is the best thing ever eaten over rice. I’m am not a big rice fan though so I prefer mine over noodles. You can see from the first photo that my curry is not too thick so there’s more than enough sauce to make a noodle soup.

If you’re craving a wonderfully exotic curry, there’s no need to wait till the next time you visit a Thai restaurant or go on vacation at a hotel, try cooking this at home instead. It’s not hard but it needs quite a bit of prep time .

tom yam noodle soup

chili queen — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:34:50 +0000

The weather’s been rainy with cool mornings and heavy downpours in the evenings which would’ve been perfect for checking out the warehouse sale my girl friend’s been dying to get to.

Except she’s down with the flu so there goes our brilliant plan to go shopping for wholesale handbags. So I stayed home and decided to cook tomyam rice noodle soup instead, which incidentally makes a warming meal for cool weather days.

I use tom yam flavored cubes for the soup base. I don’t stick to any particular brand of cubes, sometimes I use Maggi, sometimes Knorr, and you can pretty much use whatever brand you can find. There’s also the tomyam paste that comes in a jar but I didn’t quite like the taste of the ones I tried.

So I tend to stick with the flavored cubes which come in packs of 6. I typically use 3-4 cubes into a saucepan of boiling water to form the soup base depending on how strong a flavor I want.

To sweeten the soup, I add some chicken carcasses (to be removed later), sliced celery and carrots, fresh black mushrooms, fresh enoki mushrooms, fishballs and pork balls. Tomyam goes well with other ingredients like chicken or fish slices, squid or shrimp and whatever vegetables you fancy so go ahead and be creative.

Bring everything to a boil on medium to high heat. It’s important to taste the soup before serving. Depending on which brand and how many cubes I use, the soup may end up too sharp. If that’s the case, I just add a bit of sugar to take the edge off the tomyam. If you’re a chilli freak like me, you can also add fresh chopped chillies to really spice things up !

In another saucepan, I boil up enough water to soak the rice noodles in. When the noodles are softened, drain and scoop into individual bowls. Ladle tomyam soup over the noodles and serve hot. Sometimes I make a big pot of tomyam soup, enough for lunch and dinner and we eat this for a whole day.

hot & spicy seaweed instant noodles

chili queen — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:31:10 +0000

I’m not really in the habit of buying instant noodles. They’re more of a contingency item that I have around for desperate times. My kids don’t like them (thank goodness!).

While accompanying my girl friend to look for wii accessories, we ended up having breakfast and doing groceries. That’s when I spotted these so-called premium instant noodles. I usually buy el-cheapo instant noodles because, well, aren’t instant noodles supposed to be cheap and quick?

This Four Seas Seaweed Hot and Spicy Instant Noodles are premium so they cost double what I normally pay. Taking expensive to mean a bigger pack of noodles with better taste, I went for it.

I added some cabbage leaves to the noodles. Looks good, doesn’t it? I normally don’t add other ingredients except for veggies maybe. To me, instant noodles are supposed to be quick and easy and fuss-free. I know many folks love to add eggs, meat or seafood though.

Well, obviously premium isn’t for me, I couldn’t even get through this bowl of noodles. The seaweeds are healthy, no doubt but the amount of sodium and MSG in it far outweighs any goodness it might’ve contained. I’ll stick with el-cheapo next time .

a no-frills lunch at the Fireman

chili queen — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:46:30 +0000

During the holidays, we chanced upon a spanking new restaurant on the first floor of The Curve courtyard where all the restaurants are located.

Its name, Fireman, promises fiery food and what luck, they were having a promo at the time. The place was empty except for us but since there was a large screen TV playing a Westlife concert, we were quite happy to park ourselves there for lunch.

They serve predominantly Thai food at reasonable prices. This is the Phad Thai, or the Thai style of fried flat rice noodles with bean sprouts and peanuts with a squeeze of lime.

I have no complaints about the taste except that it’s over-salty. Luckily for rm9.90, we get the noodles plus free unlimited refills of green tea so that’s a redeeming factor.

For the same price, we also get green tea with this Thai style Fried Fice with Fried Chicken Drummets and salted egg. The fried chicken is good but the rice tastes wierd to me.

We enjoyed the Westlife video but it was unnerving being surrounded by their numerous staff. Since we were the only table there, I guess they had nothing else to do but watch us eat. As for the food, there was nothing very fiery about it.

the Prosperity Burger is back!

chili queen — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:49:33 +0000

Okay, if you’ve been drooling in your sleep about the McDonald’s Prosperity Burger you had last Chinese New Year, well, it’s ba-ack!

With a vengence, I might add!

The girls and I innocently stepped into McD’s this afternoon and woot, there’s the Beef Prosperity Burger, and then there’s the Double Beef Prosperity Burger for doubly good luck in riding out this economic crisis.

To be on the safe side, go for that Double Beef Prosperity Burger for double the pimples wealth, double the zits money, double the acne good fortune .

Yes, we’re officially one month (give or take) away from Chinese New Year so if you start eating ‘em prosperity burgers now, you’ll be looking nice and fat prosperous by Chinese New Year!

Okay and you can stop wondering now. McDonald’s isn’t paying me in Prosperity Burgers to write this post, okay?