Lemongrass + ginger BBQ chicken

This tasty marinated chicken is (a slight adaptation) from Chelsea Winter's latest book, Eat.  Yum!!  Would work as kebabs, or chopped smaller for in tacos...  

500 g chicken breast (or thigh)

4 stalks lemongrass (hard end removed), bashed and finely chopped

good dash oil (I used sesame) 

2-3 tbsp finely grated ginger root

1 clove grated/minced garlic

1 tbsp fish sauce 

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp turmeric

1 cup fresh coriander

zest + juice of 1 lime

1-2 makrut (kaffir) lime leaves (stem removed), finely chopped

ground black pepper

1 tbsp sweet chili sauce 

Serves 4

1. Cut chicken into chunks (either bite-sized, or slightly larger).  Place in bowl with all other ingredients.  Marinate for a few hours (or overnight, if you're onto it enough to have your dinner planned the day before!).  
2. Cook on hot BBQ or in hot pan (probably need to do this in batches).  
3. Serve with salad (we had roast kumara/green salad, and asparagus).  

katsu round 2

Does anyone else remember The Samurai Pizza Cats?  Talking about katsu makes me think of that show.  Anyway... 

Crumbed food is good.  I mean, who doesn't enjoy a piece of crumbed fish or chicken?  And especially with panko crumbs - the crumb is always so light and crunchy.  Last week I made tori katsu and used it for burgers (which, by the way, were AWESOME!).  So, this week we decided to break out the crumb again - using the same katsu sauce as last week (in fact, it was what was leftover in the fridge - a batch will keep for a few weeks in a jar in the fridge.  Handy!).  

This time however we served our crumbed chicken with brown rice, a spring salad (included blanched asparagus and plenty of fresh mint) and a little extra katsu sauce on the side.  The other differences - a) I added seeds to the crumb (poppy and sesame); and b) rather than dredging the chicken in flour and egg before crumbing, I just marinated it in the katsu sauce and then, when ready to cook, crumbed.  Yum!!  

Chipotle chicken skewers with spring couscous salad

This was a really tasty (and quick and easy) chicken dish.  I loved the veges in the couscous salad too - still a little bit crunchy, which is perfect (I like my veges a little less- then more-cooked).  The Culley's Chipotle Sauce which I used was medium-spicy - kind of like a mixture of BBQ sauce and tobasco.  Really yum!!  But if you prefer your dishes to be a little less spicy then sub the chipotle sauce for a smokey BBQ sauce (Whitlocks is a good one), maybe with a little paprika powder mixed in.  

300 g chicken (thigh or breast) 

1-2 tbsp chipotle sauce

1/4 tsp salt

6 bamboo skewers (optional - you could just panfry the bite-sized chunks of marinated chicken without kebabing them) 

1 zucchini, quartered, chopped into 1 cm pieces 

6 spears asparagus, woody ends removed and cut into 2 cm morsels 

8 cherry tomatoes, quartered

1/2 cup stock (I used chicken) 

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup couscous

1/2 lemon, juice and zest

2 tbsp fresh herbs (I used basil, mint and parsley), chopped up

50 g feta cheese

75 g natural unsweetened yoghurt

1-2 tsp chipotle sauce

1. Soak skewers in water for 10 minutes, if using them.  
2. Cut chicken into bite-sized chunks and marinate in chipotle and salt.  Thread onto skewers (or just leave in marinade bowl, if not skewering).  Cover and place in the fridge until you need it.  
3. Put zucchini and asparagus in a large bowl.  Cover with boiling water and leave for a few minutes to cook.  I drained the water after about 5 minutes and poured over a fresh lot - they're done when the asparagus is bright green and the veges tender, but firm.  
4. Bring stock and salt to the boil.  Remove from heat, stir in couscous and cover.  Leave covered for 5 minutes, to allow the couscous to cook.  
5. Heat frypan to cook chicken.  Cook until cooked through (no surprises there!) and starting to brown/blacken on the outside.  
6. Mix couscous with the drained greens, add in lemon juice and zest, herbs, tomatoes and feta. 
7. Serve with chipotle yoghurt, if desired.   

Tori katsu burgers

 I've come across chicken katsu before - in recipes and in Japanese restaurants.  I always thought it was a special way of cooking/crumbing the chicken.  So yesterday, trawling through some recipe sites (looking for some mid-week inspiration!), I came across chicken katsu burgers and I thought - "YES!  That will do admirably!".  And so I discovered that katsu is both the crumbed chicken (torikatsu) AND the sauce served with the chicken (tonkatsu sauce).  Ah ha!!  

So, it's basically a BBQ-style tomato-based sauce.  It was really easy to make and keeps well in the fridge for some time.  The batch I made was enough for drizzling over 5 torikatsu burgers, with enough leftover for probably another 5 burgers.  We reckon this sauce would also be fantastic with roasted pork, or even good ol' steak and chips.  Maybe with salmon?  Give it a try and see what you think...

1/2 cup tomato sauce

1/4 cup water

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp rice wine vinegar

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp finely grated ginger (I used a microplane for this and the garlic)

2 cloves garlic, crushed or finely grated

1/4 tsp ground allspice (I was out of this so used mixed spice)

1. Mix all ingredients together in a small saucepan.  Stir over low-medium heat for about 10 minutes, until thickening.  Set aside until you need it (can be used cold or heated back through).   

For the burgers themselves I used mezzo breads from Volare (local specialty baker), but whatever burger buns you fancy will do (the photo with the black brioches was from Nadia Lim's MyFoodBag - I forgot to take a decent photo of our burgers before we got hungry and ate them!!).  I liked the fact that the mezzo were light and quite slim.  A bulky bun with crumbed anything can be a bit too much sometimes.  But up to you.  And toasted buns - yes please for me, but again - up to the individual.  

The tori katsu - I cut into 2cm chunks and marinated 500 g of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (trimmed of fat and chewy sinewy bits).  The marinade was just a couple of tbsp each of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, with a couple tbsp grated fresh ginger.  When ready to cook, shake piece of chicken off, dredge in flour, then egg, then panko crumbs, and cook in pan of hot melted butter.  

Build your burgers by smearing some good thick mayo on one half of the bun, pile with coleslaw (ours had grated carrot, red cabbage, beetroot, chopped spinach, spring onions and red onion) and tori katsu, then drizzle with the katsu sauce and top with remaining half of bun.  Yum!!  Sounds labour intensive, but it really wasn't - get the sauce done earlier, and you can even buy some coleslaw from the deli, if time is short.