Sesame orange chcken

Sesame-Orange Chicken

This one's for Bev....our bubbilicious friend who shares a passion for cooking and always shares her new found recipes with Me!!

My daughter simply loved this so much she's been asking me when am making some more!!!

A quick and easy stir fry recipe for a busy evening!!

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into 1 inch cubes)

For Batter:

½ cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg (beaten)
½ cup water (or as much as needed to make batter smooth)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
salt (to taste)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

For the Sauce-
¼ cup ketchup
¼ cup honey ( I used half of that amount)
2 teaspoons sugar ( I used 1 teaspoon)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
½ cup water
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon sesame oil ( you can use peanut oil or any oil you have)
the juice of ½ orange ( i used the juice of 1 orange)
1 teaspoon orange zest ( i used the zest of 1 orange)
sprinkle of garlic powder ( 1 tsp)
sesame seeds

Cooking Instructions:
Step 1: Heat oil in a deep fryer to 325 degrees. In large bowl combine all of the batter ingredients and mix thoroughly. The batter should be thick enough to coat the chicken but thin enough to flow around the pieces. Set aside.

Step 2: Add the chicken pieces to the batter and set aside. When the oil is hot, Using a fork or tongs remove the pieces of chicken from the batter, making sure it is to coated evenly (one by one). Deep fry the chicken in batches in your deep fryer for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. (or you can fry in hot oil at about 325 degrees in your wok for about 3-4 minutes or until golden brown).

Step 3: In a bowl whisk together ketchup, honey, sugar, water, vinegar, cornstarch, sesame oil, orange juice, orange zest, and sesame seeds. Pour into a wok and cook until the sauce is thickened and bubbly. Mix in a bowl with the fried chicken pieces.

Variations for Step 3: if you want the sauce thinner, use less cornstarch and more water. The sauce cooks real fast so make sure you dont take your eyes of it, the more you cook the thicker it gets.

If you make the sauce thinner am pretty sure you can add pieces of capsicum, baby corn, chinese veg to make it a more wholesome meal!! Use your creativity, the base of this dish is the sauce and its a tangy, sweet sauce. If your someone who thinks more spicy like me.....try using chillies too! You can add them to the chicken batter to give the chicken a spicier touch!! I could go on with the things I could do with this dish.......so am gonna sign outta here!!

Serve on a bed of steaming rice. ENJOY!!

xoxo.....Serena

Chicken Pakodas!! Comfort food!!

I had been craving chicken pakodas from a certain shop in Kolkata but living in Perth that wasn't going to happen. So I began researching recipes , and then after all that reading decided to try something of my own, so here is the recipe:


My hubby and daughter and mom all asked me when I was making these again......that sums up how this pakoda tasted now didn't it?

Chicken Pakodas:


1 kg chicken wings. 


For the marinade:
3 Tbsp soya sauce
Juice of 2-3 limes
1 tsp ginger paste
1 tsp garlic paste
salt a little
1 tsp white pepper
chopped green chilli (optional)
small bunch of coriander leaves chopped.
a dash of white vinegar


For the batter
1 cup plain flour
6 tbsp cornflour.
salt
3 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup (more or less)


Prepare chicken:


Wash chicken and drain on colander till the water drips out. Clean and break each chicken wing into two parts at the joint.

Take each part and pull back the meat from one end of the bone to the other carefully, making sure that you do not pull the meat completely out. Keep aside

Marinade:

Mix all ingredients of the marinade in a glass bowl and then add the chicken, rub the marinade into the chicken for a few minutes , then put it away in the fridge over nite preferably.

Batter :

Next morning mix all the dry ingredients and add the water to form a thick batter. Beat the eggs and mix into the flour batter. The batter should be smooth and should cling onto the chicken. Add the chicken into the batter and mix well and keep aside for a few hours.  

When your ready to fry heat oil and drop chicken into the oil and fry till golden brown.Remove with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Serve with lemon wedges, sliced onion, chutney, sauce whatever you like.

Tip: If your having a party this can be prepared the previous day and just fried once ready to cook. You can also make it the same day but let the chicken marinate for atleast an hour for the flavours to develop, just remember to fry on low heat so the chicken cooks well.

This is not to put you off comfort food but just thought I'd share :

Comfort food, very high in calories(mostly) but you can make low calorie ones, but nothing to beat the deep fried snacks, they give you much comfort and love on a cold wintry day, a lazy sunday afternoon, a rainy day, anytime  you need!! Just remember dont eat em too often, sometimes too much love is so not good specially when it gives you love handles ;-) 






xoxo.....Serena

Baking is Therapeutic!!

I first started baking when I was in my teens, back home In India. My first oven, which I was very proud of was a box oven made of aluminium/steel which you would put on the stove and heat up and then put your cake in to bake.

My first cake was a sponge cake which turned out divine. It was out of the oven in an hour's time and was gone in less than 5 minutes...hahahha my family loved it! and I guess ever since then I was hooked.

I am gonna share with you a recipe for little buns that are pure heaven. The recipe looks scary  and time consuming but trust me its the easiest ever, and when you eat these melt in the mouth goodies, your gonna love em. 

Got this recipe from some site I was googling around ( one of my fav past times is looking at recipes) :-). I did make a few changes only because I don't like very sweet bread, so have made a smaller amount of the glaze than the original recipe.

Honeycomb Bread!!!

Recipe: 

Glaze/syrup. You will need:

1 cups sugar
3/4th cup water
1 tbsp honey
pinch of saffron

Boil the sugar, water and saffron together for a few minutes until it is slightly thickened. Remove from the heat and add the honey. Mix and set aside to cool completely. (if you want more syrup just double the quantities)

For the bread you will need:

3½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk, warmed slightly
2 tbsp milk powder
½ cup water, warmed slightly (might use less)
1 egg
3 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp oil
4 tbsp melted butter
1½ tsp instant yeast
½ tsp salt
6-8 portions/triangles of cheese spread (I used small blocks of Kraft cheese)
1 egg for eggwash before baking


Method

Sieve the flour, then add milk powder, sugar, yeast and salt. Then add the oil and butter and the egg, and mix together. Now add all the warm milk. Start kneading together and gradually add the warm water a little at a time. You might not need it all, so add it sparingly until your dough is nice and soft. Knead for a good 8-10 minutes. The more you knead it the softer the buns will be.

Touch a bit of oil with your fingertips and apply all over the ball of dough. Cover in a bowl and set aside for 40mins to an hour for it to double in size.

Punch it down, and break off tiny bits of dough. You should get about 40 tiny pieces out of this. Take each piece of dough, and stretch it out with your fingers, then add a small piece of cheese in its center. Bring the edges together and form a ball so that the cheese is completely enclosed within the dough. Repeat this with all the dough.

Grease your pan/pans with butter. Place the balls of dough in a 'honeycomb' pattern. Try to get them close to each other so that there are no or very little spaces in between.

Cover the pans and set aside for a second rise, about half an hour.

Now apply egg wash on the balls, preheat your oven to 180 C and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the bread is nice and golden on top.

Remove from the oven and pour your syrup all over the hot bread. ( I did not pour syrup, just brushed the top of the buns with enough to glaze it) Ensure the syrup is cool and the bread is steaming hot straight from the oven. Turn it out and place on a rack to cool and for the syrup to glaze slightly. 

The next time I make this am gonna do it with chocolate filling ( use blocks of chocolate or slightly solid nutella). My daughter loves Chocolate buns so this one will def be for her.

My biggest food critics are my kids......if they love something I made I know it's really really good...........and this one got  a big Thumbs Up!! 

xoxo.....Serena