Coke Chicken

A reader in the blog suggested me to cook the chicken in coke, after the Beer Chicken post. I do enjoy drinking coke, but cooking chicken with coke is just a little bit too weird. Will the chicken tastes like coke or chicken? Well, there is only one way to find out...

Marinated half a chicken (instead of whole chicken) with coke. This shows how much confidence I had with the experiment..


I was thinking what else can make coke tastes good.. and what will be better than the classic combination of lemon and coke. So, I put in lots of lemon slices:


Added some salts for the seasoning, and left it for 3 hours. Then, I rubbed the chicken with oil and grilled it for 40 mins (flipped it occasionally to get even cooking for both side of the chicken). Once it is cooked, the chicken was removed. Using the juice left by the chicken, I put in the remaining coke to make the sauce (the sauce making step is similiar to the Beer Chicken recipe). To make the sauce tastes even better, I put in a dash of Malibu and here is the end result:


The coke chicken turned out to be quite good. It tastes like lemon chicken - sweet and sour. The Malibu's coconut fragrance reminds me of Ayam Percik that I used to eat so frequently in Kelantan.

Note:
I was so concerned with how the chicken will turn out that I forgot to take photo of the chicken grilling and sauce making process...thousands apologies.

I searched online and tried to see how others cooked their coke chicken. This guy beats me hand down:


Not sure about the taste, but it surely the most creative way of making coke chicken :)

Paella - Spanish Fried Rice

I served this dish to my Chinese colleague the other day. His comment was that it looked and tasted like fried rice. Well, I yet to eat any Spanish fried rice before, Paella could have been the closest form of fried rice after all.

Anyway, here are the ingredients to make it: fish, prawns, mussels, Chorizo (plenty of it), rice, green peas, onions, sliced green/red peppers and chopped tomatoes.


Heats up some oils (I like it oily, to avoid feeling guilty, I used olive oil). Stir fries the chopped onions till they are translucent. Adds in Chorizo and continues the process. Put in the chopped tomatoes, then the peppers.


Adds in the rice. Stir fry for a while.


Adds chicken stock (enough to cook the rice) and some salts. The water level is vital; getting it wrong and you will be ended up eating rice cracker (too little water) or porridge (too much water). Then, adds in the prawns, fish and mussels. Sprinkles the green peas on top.


Covers it, and let it simmers for 20 mins (it should be cooked by then, if not, simmers it longer). Serves it with lemon:


Note: It is quite easy to cook (takes around 1 hour). The hardest part for me is the water level - being so used to rely on rice cooker to cook the rice, I find cooking rice in a pot can be a challenging task. So far, I manage to get 98% cooked properly, with a bit of burnt rice at the bottom of the pot. Well, more stuffs to feed the cat :)

Beer Chicken

I had a few cans of cheap lager lying in the cupboard for ages. Instead of letting them rot (or feeding it the neighbour's cat), I thought of using it to marinate some chickens.

I bought a big, fat chicken, chopped it into half. Marinated the chicken with beer, garlic, rosemary and black pepper.


Let the chicken enjoys the beer for 3-4 hours. Make sure it is drunk enough to cook it.



Then, pan fried the chicken, and sprinkled some salt on it before putting the chicken into the oven for 40 mins (~150 degree celcius):



Once it is cooked, remove the chicken, let it rest. In the mean time, use the juices left by the chicken, add in a bit of flour, the beer, and chicken stock. Simmer it till it thicken...


Here is the finished product:


Note:
Lager didn't give much taste to it. The gravy did have strong beer flavour. Strong flavoured beer such as ale, and stout will be a better choice.

* You might notice the excessive use of rosemary in this recipe. I bought a big bunch of it and I had no other means of using it (other than feeding it to the cat again).

Mussels With Tomato Sauce

Went to this Belgium restaurant the other days with Shawn and Jay in London, and had this wonderful mussels with tomato sauce. Even since then, I have been having cravings for mussels.

In order to please my tummy, I decided to cook it myself. Here are the steps:
Heats up some olive oil in a pot. Once it is hot, throw in finely chopped garlic (3 cloves) and onions(2 medium size ones). After the chopped onions are translucent, put in some thinly sliced celery (5-6 sticks) and fry iit for a while. After that, add a can of chopped tomatoes, a few fresh tomatoes and 2 cups of water into the pot. For seasoning, 2-3 bay leaves and crushed black pepper and salt (to taste).


Then, add in the mussels. Simmer it till the sauce is reduced.


Instead of baked bean on toast, tried it with mussels on toast:


Note:
Something is missing from my version of mussels with tomato sauce; it does not have a slight sour taste in the sauce. This probably causes by not having red wine as part of the ingredients. Ah, well, it is still good, considering it is 3 times cheaper than the restaurant version.

A can, a man and a plan

If you are running out of time to cook, this might be ideal for you. First step, get this can of pickled lettuce from your local chinese supermarket, and some meats (chicken or pork).


The steps are shown below:

1. Prepare a pot, stir fry some garlics with the sliced meats.


2. Once they are cooked, pour in a can of pickled lettuce (or two).


3. Add some water, grounded black pepper


4. Let it simmer for 10 minutes

Serve it with noodles or rice. Eat it while watching your favourite TV series, football matches, or snooker matches.


Oh ya, for the Man Utd Fans out there, better luck next time mate ! :)