Orange Chicken

My daughter loves meat and prefers a little sweet marinade. So here is what I made tonight.

Ingredients:

Chicken 1 cup

Red pepper juliennes 1

Yellow pepper 1

Sesame seeds 2 tbsp

Onion juliennes 1

Garlic pods crushed 2

Ginger juliennes 1 inch piece

Five spice powder 1 tsp

Honey 1 tsp

Soya sauce 1 tbsp

Oyster sauce 1 tbsp

Oranges peeled and deseeded 2

Oil

Salt and pepper to taste

* although the ingredients list is pretty long the entire thing doesn’t take more than 15 minutes.

Method

Heat oil in a pan and add onion, garlic and ginger and sauté till onion in golden.

Add the chicken and sauté for a minute then add the peppers. Sauté for another minute.

Add the remaining ingredients sauté till chicken is cooked.

Serve on a bed of steamed rice.

Chicken soup for the cold

After leaving me stranded on a weekend my husband is finally back in Hong kong with a bad case of sore throat and cold. And here I have been desperately waiting to talk to him and give him the update on the latest gossip. Lucky for him he is unable to talk and naturally comment on anything. Thats the thing about men though isnt it, they love listening to gossip but act as if thats the last thing they would rather do.

The doting wife that I am, I have decided to make his throat get better. So I am going to fix him my classic chicken soup. I was inspired to make this soup after I moved to Hong kong and love the way they make soup here. Although mine is not the exact recipe of the street version I believe it is a good soup for the rainy days.

What you will need is

water

light soya sauce

spring onions

ginger

brocolli stems

Carrot ends

chicken pieces with skin

boiled egg

bok choy

salt to taste.

Take about a litre and half of water and set it to boil. Add all the ingredients and let it simmer for 30 – 40 minutes. By this time the house will be filled with the soup aroma. Strain the soup and discard everything but the chicken pieces. Debone the chicken toss it back into the soup. You could add some regular egg or rice noodles to make a chicken noodle soup.

Finally pour the soup in a bowl and serve it with some TLC.

Kebabs all the way

I was using the weight watchers approach for quite sometime and it brought me success. The problem with that is, you have to use portion control. If I had that kind of control on my food habits I would not be at weight watchers. If I am allowed to eat everything that is tasty, chances are I am going to slip. And if you are wondering I did slip. I went right up to 70 kg and then I got onto the ‘excuse’ bandwagon and climbed back up to 78 kg. So now I am planning to go with the same approach but make a few changes. Nobody eats carbs at night. So if I haven’t cooked em I wont eat em.

This brings me to the dish of the day ‘Chicken kebab’. You could most easily substitute the chicken and use prawns, salmon or cottage cheese. You could also use all of these and present it as a Kebab platter for one of your parties.

What you will need:

Chicken pieces fat removed. I prefer the boneless kind

Low fat yogurt

Lemon juice

olive oil

The spices:

dry mango powder

garam masala

turmeric

chilli powder

coriander powder

ginger-garlic paste

salt

coriander leaves for garnishing

Once you have washed the chicken pieces add the lemon juice and leave the chicken in it for 15 minutes. Wash the chicken and add all the other ingredients to the chicken and let it marinate for at least 20 min but a couple of hours or overnight would do no harm either.Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Sprinkle some oil on the chicken, remember not generously, we are trying to lose weight here and put them on the skewers and set it in the oven for about 20 minutes. Turn them once after 10 minutes and your dinner is ready.

I am going to have this with a salad tossed in lemon juice and salt. If you still feel hungry there is always the clear vegetable soup to go with it. If you don’t have the recipe you just have to wait for it.

Tip for the kitchen idiots: if you are using wooden skewers please soak them in water for 10 minutes.