Hello everybody! I’ve been MIA for a very long time. For those who didn’t manage to figure it out, I was busy having a baby =) My little girl is 4 months old now and having the privilege of mothering her has been both delightful and extremely challenging! I’m handling most of the childcare on my own while my husband is at work, so time is now a scarcity and fun activities like cooking have become a luxury.

This means, of course, that fuss-free and delicious recipes have become my best friend. And I was pleased to discover one such recipe last week in Jamie’s Dinners. This recipe is easy-peasy, doesn’t require any chopping (hooray!), is intensely flavourful and a wonderful dish for a Sunday dinner at home with the fam.

I reproduce the recipe here almost wholesale, with some minor tweaks to the instructions and to the quantity of cream (to avoid having your chicken floating in a moat of cream like you see in my picture above!). (Don’t you think my chicken pieces look strangely like koi?). Though unlikely bedfellows, the corn, chicken, banana, wine, cream and bacon when all put together are simply divine.

Chicken Maryland

(Taken from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Dinners with slight adaptations)

Ingredients:

• 4 chicken breasts, skin removed
• 4 fresh corn on the cob (or 1 can of fresh cut whole kernel corn)
• 1 x 410g tin of cannellini or butter beans, drained (I skipped these)
• 2 bananas, peeled
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 wineglass of white wine
• 150ml double cream
• 55g (4tbsp) butter
• 12 rashers of smoked streaky bacon or pancetta
• A handful of fresh mint, leaves picked (I bought mint and forgot to use it! Aargh!)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 220°C. Set aside a roasting tray in which you can comfortably fit the chicken breasts side by side.

2. If you are using fresh corn, run a knife down the length of the raw corn cobs to remove the corn. Add the corn to the tray and discard the cobs. Using a fork (or your fingers!), squash half your cannellini or butter beans to a pulp and add these, with the unsquashed beans, to the tray.

3. Place the chicken breasts on a chopping board. You will notice that each breast has a little strip or flap of meat on one side. If the flap is large enough you can just squash half a banana in between the flap and the rest of the breast. If the flap is not large enough, fold it back and use a knife to make a cut along the base of the flap, forming a little pocket inside the chicken breast into which you can then squash half a banana. Fold the flap back over to cover the banana up and season the chicken with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

4. Turn the chicken breasts the other way up and carefully place them on top of the corn and beans. Add your wine and double cream, then cut the butter into small pieces and scatter these all around the tray. Drape the bacon or pancetta slices over the chicken breasts and bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until the bacon is crisp.

5. Serve with a handful of fresh mint thrown over.

If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you might recall the Ice Cream Slice recipe I posted a little over a year ago. Many of you tried the recipe with much success and wrote to tell me about it, so since then I’ve been keeping an eye out for another easy and delicious frozen recipe to share with you.

In the issue of BBC Olive from which I got the Bacon Cornbread recipe, I also chanced upon this simple recipe for Strawberry Coconut Ice. The ingredient list is encouragingly short – coconut milk, dessicated coconut, strawberries, heavy cream, vanilla, and a tiny bit of sugar. And the method is very similar to the Ice Cream Slice method – you whip your cream, stir in your milk (in this case coconut milk instead of condensed milk), stir in your other stuff, and freeze. A few hours later, you get a visually-pleasing frozen dessert.

The problem with the original recipe, though, is that it doesn’t ask for nearly enough sugar. Everyone who tried the dessert agreed that it could have been significantly sweeter (not something you hear that often about a dessert!). So in this post I’ve tweaked the recipe a little, to incorporate more sugar and more strawberries. It’s fundamentally a good recipe – cool, creamy and sweet, with a tinge of sour from the strawberries. I just think it’d be much better if you up’ed the sweet and the sour =)

Strawberry Coconut Ice
(adapted from August 2011 issue of BBC Olive)

Ingredients:

• 300 ml thickened/heavy/double cream
• 6 tbsp caster sugar
• 300 ml coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 120g desiccated coconut
• 250g strawberries, hulled

Directions:

1. Get hold of a regular 8-inch square cake pan, and line with either aluminum foil or parchment paper. (To line with parchment paper, arrange two strips of parchment paper in a cross shape inside the pan. Make sure both strips are long enough to go up the sides of the pan with a bit of overhang.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat the cream with 2 tbsp 0f caster sugar till soft peaks form. (Be careful not to overbeat the cream.) Gently stir in the coconut milk, vanilla and dessicated coconut.

3. Pour half the coconut mixture into the cake pan, smoothen it out using a spatula or the back of a spoon, and put in the freezer. Put the other half of the coconut mixture into the refrigerator.

4. Using a blender, puree the strawberries with the remaining 4 tbsp of caster sugar. Remove the coconut mixture from the refrigerator and stir in the strawberry puree. When the plain coconut mixture in the freezer is almost frozen, pour the strawberry coconut mixture over it, smoothen it out, and put the pan back into the freezer.

5. When it is time to serve, remove the strawberry coconut ice from the pan, sprinkle remaining desiccated coconut over the top, and serve in slices.

Happy shopping =)

Sia Huat Annual Warehouse Sale
15 – 18 September 2011
10 am – 8 pm
20 Pandan Road, Singapore 609272

As promised on my Facebook page, here’s the second follow-up to the Corn Fritters post. Last week I suggested what you could  do with the leftover buttermilk; this week I focus on the leftover cornmeal.

When my husband and I were in London last month (thankfully before the rioting started), I picked up a whole bunch of lovely magazines, among which was BBC’s delicious Olive magazine. When I did a cursory scan of the magazine the first recipe that caught my eye was this one for corn and bacon bread. I’m always on the lookout for alternative ways to use up the cornmeal that I can’t ever seem to finish using, and this recipe seemed just the ticket.

Today being a public holiday, I thought it would be the perfect time to try out this new brunch recipe. Besides having to fry the bacon (which I always find a bit of a pain), the recipe is super easy, and gets you one nice loaf of very fragrant, savoury bread that pairs really well with scrambled eggs. Definitely a keeper =)

Bacon Cornbread
(adapted from “Corn and Bacon Bread” recipe in August 2011 issue of BBC Olive)

Ingredients:

• 130g (1-1/8 cup) self-raising flour
• 120g (slightly less than 1 cup) cornmeal
• 180g (6 oz) drained sweetcorn kernels from the can
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp caster sugar
• 240ml (1 cup) whole milk
• 170g butter (plus some butter to grease the loaf tin)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 6 rashers streaky bacon

Directions:

1. Fry the bacon till crisp. Cut into 1/2-inch to 1-inch strips.

2. Pre-heat oven to 190 degC. Butter a regular 8×4-inch loaf tin and set aside.

3. Sift the flour into a bowl. Add the cornmeal, baking powder and sugar. Stir through with a fork. Add sweetcorn and use a fork or spoon to mix well.

4. Put the milk and butter into a pan and melt over low heat. Pour milk mixture into the flour mixture along with the beaten egg, and mix till well combined. Add half of the bacon strips and season with salt and pepper.

5. Pour the batter into the buttered loaf tin, and sprinkle over the remaining bacon strips.

6. Bake for 40 minutes, till the top of the loaf is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Leave cornbread to cool in its tin. Serve slightly warm with butter (and pair with scrambled eggs or smoked salmon if you like).

After I made my most recent batch of corn fritters, I was left with the age-old problem: What to do with the leftover buttermilk? Besides using the buttermilk to make pancakes or red velvet cupcakes (neither of which I felt like making), I just didn’t know what to do with it. Then the solution landed on me like a ton of bricks: BISCUITS! Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

I love buttermilk biscuits. I think the infatuation started from the time I was in college when, every few months, my roommate and I would brave the New England cold to visit the Popeyes nearest our dorm. There we would sink our teeth into a wholesome meal of fried Louisiana chicken and biscuits. Oh how I loved those biscuits! You can imagine my delight when Popeyes finally found its way to Singapore a few months back.

So anyway, I did a quick search and found this recipe on the internet for Southern Buttermilk Biscuits. It looked easy enough and was well-reviewed, so I thought I’d give it a go. And as it turns out the biscuits were (a) extremely easy to make and (b) fabulous! Buttery (without actually containing too much butter), fluffy and delicious. Such a good recipe!

And the great thing about Buttermilk Biscuits is they work as a savoury food and as a pastry. You can eat them with fried chicken and gravy, or you can do with them whatever you do with scones (slather on cream and jam and such). I had my first two with jam at tea-time and it took some effort to convince myself not to reach for a third…

Perfect any which way!

Buttermilk Biscuits
(Taken from here with some minor adaptations)

Click here for printable recipe.

Ingredients (yields 10-12 biscuits):

• 2 cups plain flour, and some for dusting your work surface
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp baking powder (the original recipe says to use baking powder without aluminum but mine had aluminum and the biscuits turned out fine)
• 1 tsp salt
• 85g (6 tbsp) unsalted butter, very cold
• 3/4 cup buttermilk

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 230°C (450°F).
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, or in the bowl of a food processor.
3. Cut the butter into small pieces and rub into the flour using a fork and/or your fingertips, until the mixture resembles course meal. If using a food processor, just pulse a few times until this consistency is achieved. (Work quickly – the biscuits turn out best if you don’t overhandle the dough.)
4. Add the buttermilk and use a wooden spoon or silicon spatula to mix until just combined. (If the dough appears dry, add a bit more buttermilk.)
5. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface.
6. Gently pat the dough out until it is about 1/2-inch thick. (Do NOT roll with a rolling pin!)
7. Use a round cutter to cut out rounds. (I used a cutter with scalloped edges). (The recipe owner says you can gently knead the scraps together to make a few more biscuits but they won’t be as good as the first ones.)
8. Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet. If you like soft sides, put them touching each other. If you like crusty sides, put them about 1 inch apart (not that these will not rise as high as the biscuits put close together.)
9. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the biscuits are a beautiful light golden brown on the top and bottom.

*You can make these biscuits, cut them, put them on cookie sheets and freeze them for up to a month. When you want fresh biscuits, simply place them frozen on the cookie sheet and bake at 230°C (450°F) for about 20 minutes.

Hello everyone! I am back in action after another long break… Thanks so much to those of you who’ve been checking on my blog during this time.

I thought I’d ease into blogging again with a very simple recipe that I got from the Straits Times long ago. Well what actually happened was I cut the recipe out of the newspaper, tried it, loved it, and promptly lost it. So when I recently decided I wanted to try it again, I contacted the lovely Ms Tan Hsueh Yun (food writer for the Straits Times) who kindly provided me with another copy of the recipe. (Check out Hsueh’s facebook page here – lots of good bite-sized updates on the Singapore food scene!)

These corn fritters are fragrant, flavourful and easy on the tummy (unless you’re allergic to gluten). Great as a tea-time snack, or as an accompaniment to curry or some other meat or fish dish. I’ve made them a couple of times now and enjoyed them every time. Another thing I love about this dish is that it just looks so very festive!

So without further ado…

Corn Fritters
(Recipe from Tan Hsueh Yun, with a tiny bit of paraphrasing)

Click here for printable recipe.

Ingredients (yields about 20 fritters):

• 2 large red chillies
• 3 stalks spring onion
• 2 sprigs coriander
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 tsp double-acting baking powder
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 2/3 cup buttermilk*
• 2 eggs
• 200g whole corn kernels, drained
• 25g softened butter
• Sour cream to serve
• Chutney to serve

*If you don’t want to buy buttermilk, then just squeeze 1 tbsp of lemon juice into a measuring cup, add whole milk till it reaches the 1 cup mark, and leave to stand for 5-10 minutes. Voila, buttermilk!

Directions:

1. Chop the chillies, spring onion and coriander, and set aside with the corn kernels.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, double-acting baking powder, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir through with a fork to combine.

3. Use a fork to roughly beat the eggs in a bowl, then add the buttermilk and stir. Pour the mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well with a fork or spoon. Finally mix in the vegetables.

4. Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat till it is hot. Brush some softened butter over the surface. Scoop heaping tablespoonsful of the batter onto the pan, making sure to space out the blobs of batter so they don’t merge with one another. Cook for two minutes, then flip over and cook for one minute on the other side. Transfer to plate. Repeat with the remaining batter, brushing the pan with butter before each batch.

5. Serve warm with sour cream and a chutney of your choice on the side.

What do we do when we want to bake something but our mind draws a blank? Easy. We ask the husband what he wants to eat.

“Blueberry Cheesecake!” come the exuberant reply. Ok – so we make Blueberry Cheesecake.

And what do we do when we are looking for a good cheesecake recipe? We consult the baking oracle:

(If you decide to buy only two cake recipe books your entire life, you should get Dorie’s and Rosie’s.)

The final product was, of course, scrumptious. The best kind of cheesecake really – light, smooth, creamy, and not overly sweet. Dorie has never failed me! Never, never, never, never… I have to admit, though, that the process wasn’t quite as easy as I had anticipated. I made so many blunders I had to stop and laugh at myself. It’s not a difficult recipe to follow – I’m just way out of touch. I can’t remember the last time I actually baked a whole cake. I think it might have been in December…

Anyways my one major major faux pas was not wrapping the base of the cake pan well (and this was in large part because I did not have a length of foil long enough to do the job). So all kinds of water got into the foil and then leaked into the pan, which made for a very soggy crust. The minor faux pas I made that’s worth mentioning was using the wrong size of springform pan. (I only have one and it’s 10 inches in diameter, when really you need a 9-inch springform.) This meant my soggy crust was not only soggy but spread a little too thin.

So the moral of the story is this: make sure you have all the right equipment before you embark on a recipe! (And in the case of this recipe, make sure you start at least 8 hours before you need to serve the cake.)

Billowy Blueberry Cheesecake

(Taken from Dorie Greenspan’s Tall and Creamy Cheesecake in Baking: From My Home To Yours, with some paraphrasing and metric conversions)

Ingredients:

Crust

• 1-3/4 cups Graham Cracker crumbs or Digestives Biscuit crumbs (about 13 Digestives Biscuits)
• 3 tbsp sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 57g unsalted butter, melted

Cheesecake

• 4 x 8-ounce boxes of cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1-1/3 cups table sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1-1/3 cups sour cream or heavy cream, or combination of the two
• 1 cup of blueberries (or any berry you like, except for strawberries which are too watery)

Equipment:

• 9-inch springform pan with sides that are 2-3/4 inches high
• 2 x  16-by-16-inch or larger piece of aluminium foil
• Baking sheet large enough to hold the springform
• Roasting pan large enough to hold the springform with some space around it

Directions:

1. Crust: Butter the springform pan. Wrap the bottom of the pan in the two layers of aluminium foil. (This part is a litte tricky. You have to put your pan in the centre of the foil, and just pull the foil up around the pan,  pinching it tight as you go along the circumference of the pan).

2. Stir the crumbs, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Pour the melted butter over the crumb mixture and use your fingers to stir till all the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. Turn the ingredients into the springform pan and use your fingers to pat an even layer of crumbs over the bottom of the pan and halfway up the sides. (The sides don’t have to be perfectly even.) Put the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes.

3. While the pan is in the freezer, centre a rack in the oven and pre-heat the oven to 180degC. Remove the pan from the freezer, place it on the baking sheet, and bake the crust for 10 minutes.

4. Set the crust aside to cool on a rack while you make the cheesecake. Lower oven temperature to 165degC.

5. Cheesecake: Put a kettle of water on to boil.

6.  Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese at medium speed for about 4 minutes until soft and creamy. With the mixer running, add the sugar and salt and continue to beat for another 4 minutes or so, until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating for a full minute after each addition to get a well-aerated batter. Reduce the mixer speed to low and mix in the sour cream and/or heavy cream.

7. Put the foil-wrapped springform in the roasting pan. Stir the batter briefly with a rubber spatula to make sure nothing is left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl. Scrape half the batter into the springform. Scatter the blueberries over the batter in the springform. Then scrap the remaining batter into the springform; the batter should reach the rim of the springform (mine did not because my pan was too big). Put the roasting pan in the oven and pour enough boiling water into it to come halfway up the sides of the springform.

8. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 3o minutes, at which point the top should be browned (and maybe cracked) and may have risen just a little above the rim of the pan. Turn off the oven and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon. Let the cheesecake luxuriate in its water bath for another hour.

9. After 1 hour, carefully pull the setup out of the oven, lift the springform out of the roaster, and remove the foil. Let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack. When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours; overnight is better.

10. At serving time, remove the sides of the springform pan and set the cake on a serving platter. (Dorie removes the sides of the springform by running a blunt knife around the cake, then warming the sides of the pan with a hairdryer.)

Berry berry bo-berry banana fana fo-ferry….

My dear friend Wendy came over to my place on Thursday for brunch. I decided to make things easy for myself and prepare what I call the Gordon Ramsay brunch. I came to know of this brunch through Quinn, and have loved it since I first made it.

There’s a wonderful little Gordon Ramsay video in which the masterchef himself shows viewers how to make the perfect scrambled egg, which he serves up on toast alongside grilled portabellos and vine tomatoes. Ramsay says that all his new chefs are asked to make scrambled eggs because if they can make a good scrambled egg, you know they can cook. And Ramsay’s scrambled egg technique is terrific. It’s easy to execute, and it gets you moist, creamy, fragrant scrambled eggs. (If you think my eggs look a tad overcooked in these pictures, you are absolutely right! Perils of yakking with your friend while scrambling eggs =) Anyhows, watch and learn from the master….

Ramsay’s Brunch

(If you don’t feel like watching the video, the process is basically this: Put your eggs and some butter into a pan. Put the pan over heat and stir up the eggs and butter. When the eggs just start to come together take the pan off the heat and stir some more. Then put the pan back on the heat and stir some more. Then take the pan of the heat and, before stirring some more, throw in 1/2-1 tbsp of creme fraiche and some chopped chives. And you’re done! Oh and while your egg is cooking, toast some sourdough, and grill some portabellos and vine tomatoes on the side.)

There’s something about a scrambled egg breakfast that’s just so Easter-y, don’t you think? I’m not a fan of the whole bunny business, but I appreciate eggs as an Easter symbol because to me they represent life, which is what Easter is about to a Christian. As I chomped on my brunch, enjoyed the intimate conversation with my friend, and gazed on the pretty bouquet she brought over, I felt happy and grateful; I remembered the many ways God has upheld me through difficult times this past year and brought life to the dead places.

And so with that, I wish all my Christian readers a very happy and blessed Easter. He is risen – hallelujah!

Who loves Junior Masterchef Australia? I do, I do!

The spritely and oh-so-gifted young ‘uns on that show really put us oldies to shame. How a 9-year old can handle such complex recipes with such deftness and confidence is truly beyond me…

Anyhows, on the show the kids were taught this one recipe, the recording of which keeps playing between programmes on Star World. After watching the recording (and salivating) three times, I decided I should stop living vicariously through the children and actually try the recipe for myself.

The recipe was for Chicken Schnitzel with Grilled Eggplant and Heirloom Tomato Salad. I didn’t realise until a few minutes ago that the recipe is actually available online, so when I tried it yesterday I had to do some guesswork concerning the quantities of the ingredients. But all’s well that ends well, because I was really pleased with the results! The beautiful herby crust was fragrant and crispy; the pork was nice and tender because it was thinly sliced; and the eggplant salad, which was moist and slightly tannic, made for a very nice counterbalance to the schnitzel. I think this recipe has ruined me forever where bread crumbs are concerned. I’ve used pre-packaged bread crumbs before, and they utterly pale in comparison to home-made bread crumbs blended with herbs. Mmm…

Oh I should tell you two more things before I give you my adaptation of the recipe. First, I decided to use a nice pork loin instead of chicken breast because I really like pork schnitzel; second, I will be putting the salad recipe into a separate post.

Without further ado….

Herb-Crusted Pork Schnitzel
(adapted from Junior Masterchef Australia)

Click here for printable recipe.

Ingredients (serves 2-3):

• 1/2 cup flour
• Pinch of salt and pepper
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp milk
• 2 large fistsful of sourdough bread
• 3 tbsp grated parmesan
• 2 sprigs Italian parsley
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 3 sprigs thyme
• More salt and pepper
• 400g pork loin (yields 6-7 slices of pork)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2-3 tbsp of butter

Directions:

1. You will need three small mixing bowls to hold the ingredients with which to coat your schnitzel. Into the first bowl, put your flour and a pinch of salt and pepper. Into the second bowl, crack the egg and pour the milk, and whisk briefly using a fork.

2. In a food processor, blend the sourdough and parmesan.  Add the italian parsley, rosemary and thyme, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, and blend again. In the third mixing bowl, put the bread crumb mixture. Arrange your three mixing bowls assembly-line style.

3. Slice the pork loin horizontally into thin pieces (escalopes). Use a mallet to pound the pork slices flat.

4. Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a pan over medium-high heat, and bring your pork to the assembly line. Coat the pork slices with flour, and dust off the excess. Next, dunk the flour-covered slices in the egg, and use your fingers to drain the excess. Finally, coat the meat with the bread crumb mixture (get as much of the bread crumb mix as you can on the pork). (I’ve included some pictures below to help you along.)

5. Gently place the shnitzel into the hot pan and cook for 2-3 mins a side (cook for longer if you like your crust more burnt). When the meat is almost cooked, lower the heat and drop a little butter into different parts of the pan. The butter will help the crust become golden and crispy. Remove schnitzel to a plate lined with paper towels. Plate and serve hot.

Wunderbar!

Dear faithful and patient readers of mrsmultitasker.com,

I apologise for my lengthy and untoward absence these past 7 weeks. It has been an exciting but challenging time for me since I recently entered into my new line of work (which, by the grace of God, is going well).

On top of that, I have been experiencing a gradual healthy-eating awakening, which has led to my:

• Cutting back drastically on my sugar intake
• Switching, wherever possible, from refined carbs to unrefined carbs (I must confess it still takes me a lot of willpower to finish my brown rice)
• Consuming much more of fruits (or their associated juices) that are high in Vitamin C

(On a side note, I find it heartening that Singapore’s Health Promotion Board is going all out to work with hawker centres, food manufacturers, supermarkets, restaurants, caterers and food courts to improve Singaporeans’ eating habits. Can you imagine Char Kway Teow made with whole-grain noodles? Wow…)

So my new job has left me with little time or energy to explore new recipes, and my new eating habits have left me with little motivation to explore any new recipes that are just not good for the body (especially those of the patisserie variety).

I know – what a killjoy =)

But I am full of excuses. Mostly I’ve just been lethargic. So on this quiet evening, while my husband is at an official function,  I’ve decided to start blogging again.

Today’s post doesn’t include a recipe – just a recommendation for a spice mix that I bought at the supermarket (I think it was NTUC?) many weeks ago. Here it is:

I’ve always love Steamed Herbal Chicken. It’s one of those dishes I only get to eat once or twice a year when we’re celebrating some occasion or other, and the restaurant we’re at happens to carry this dish on their menu. So when I spotted this mix while grocery shopping and saw how cheap it was, I figured, “What could be the harm in trying?”

As it turns out, the dish was easy to execute, and just like the stuff you get in restaurants – wonderfully tender and juicy chicken infused with the intoxicating flavour of many aromatic herbs. My husband and I just loved it. We finished almost the whole chicken by our little selves in one sitting!

If you do decide to get the mix, here’s all you have to do:

First, you lay the enclosed aluminium foil in a steamable tin, then you layer the enclosed plastic sheet on top of the foil. Next, you wash and dry your chicken (I used an excellent Sakura Chicken, which is a chicken reared sans antibiotics), and place it on the plastic sheet. Sprinkle the enclosed spice mix inside and all over the chicken, and let the chicken marinade for 20-30 minutes. While your chicken is marinading, bring the enclosed herbs to boil in a pot of 1 litre of water, and boil for about 15 minutes.

Then you pour the boiled herbs inside and all over and around the chicken. Pull up the sides of the plastic sheet over the chicken, then wrap up the lot with the aluminium foil (make sure you pinch the foil tight). Put the steamable dish into a steamer; if you don’t have one, you can place a low rack into a big wok, and sit the dish on top of the rack, like I did. Cover the steamer or wok and steam the chicken for at least 2 hours.

And that’s it! With a tiny bit of effort and some patience, you get succulent moist nutritious Steamed Herbal Chicken. I could try making this from scratch I suppose, but that would cost me more money, and finding the ingredients would take soooo much longer….

By the way, how do you like my headline picture and my process pictures? I took them using our new toy…  The pictures are a little underexposed because the shots were taken without flash, but I really like this camera because it gives really good depth of field for a point-and-shoot. Here are two other shots I took with it…

Not bad eh?

Fondly,
Clare