Coconut Chicken

I call this coconut chicken, but the recipe is actually called Evil Jungle Prince Chicken from Pepper Fool. In fact, I think this dish is more like Thai chicken curry without the curry. It's quite easy to make and still very delicious.

Chicken Tikka Masala

(Click photos for larger image)

You know what is ridiculous? Chicken Tikka Masala take-out from an Indian restaurant. Whenever we order this, we only get about four pieces of chicken with a lot of sauce. It's like I'm just buying a tub of sauce to dip my naan in. This is why I've decided to make my own chicken tikka masala. It's a lot of spices, yes, but once you have your cupboard stocked, you'll be able to make a ton of other things too. (Also it might help if you knew the Chopping Block... because that's where all my spices came from. :D)

Cantonese Soy Sauce Chicken

I don't think they serve this dish at many Chinese restaurants in America because this is just too... Chinese? I just know that this stuff is delicious and we used to eat it infrequently as a kid. I'm not sure why, but that was how it was. If you have access to a well stocked Asian grocery, you should be able to find bottled soy sauce chicken marinade similar to this. That's similar to a soy sauce chicken marinade as far as I can tell, and that stuff is delicious.

Serious Eats' Halal Cart-Style Chicken And Rice With White Sauce

The Chopping Block came over and gave me all sorts of Indian spices. I'm talking about like 20 pounds worth of Indian spices! She's so nice, right?! So I decided to make some sort of quasi Middle Eastern/Indian food. I saw this Serious Eats recipe a while back and bookmarked it. Now that I have my turmeric and ground coriander powder, I have no excuse not to make it.

Japanese Curry

I think I picked up on another craze in addition to the burger craze. It's curry!

Being a weirdo, I've never really had Japanese curry before. That is, it has never crossed my mind to order curry when sitting at a Japanese restaurant. I had, however, tried a spoon or two of the curry off someone else's order. It had never strike me as good enough that I would pass ordering sushi for curry, so I continued to eat just sushi to meet my Japanese food requirement. Stupid, I know. That's just like only eat phở and say that I always eat Vietnamese food. Silly me.

To rectify this problem, I made Japanese curry found over at No Recipes. Don't worry, he provides recipes.

Sweet & Tangy Oven Roasted Chicken

So this was my attempt at making some Korean BBQ chicken, otherwise known as Dakgalbi, but as you can tell from the title, it didn't really come out tasting like Dakgalbi. It was sweet and very oniony with a very pungent sesame taste. It wasn't bad though! It's actually pretty good, so... it's a win, right?

Lunch Date Recipes

So I don't really go out to eat much any more. So making food-related dates special means putting a little effort into lunch. Mostly, this meal is comprised of assorted leftovers and arranged to look pretty.

So the recipes of each of the dishes are, starting with the meat:

Terriyaki chicken

1 frozen chicken breast
honey
soy sauce
sake

Nuke the chicken until it starts to cook.
In a skillet, place enough sake and soy sauce to just barely coat the pan. Add a touch of honey, (maybe 1/2 a tablespoon?)
Chop up the chicken into tiny bits, and add to sauce after honey has melted.
Stir chicken until it is evenly cooked and browned.
Then you're done!

Stir Fried Rice Noodles

This dish came about because I had a massive honking bag of rice noodles I picked up because they "looked yummy" but had No Idea what to do with them. Letran told me: "stir fry 'em!" I said "With what seasoning?" "Vegetable oil, soy sauce and sesame oil." Me: "Oh, I got those things!"

So...boil rice noodles, fry them in:
Canola Oil
Soy Sauce
Sesame oil

Vegetables in the rice noodles:
Green onion
Cabbage
Carrot
Mushroom

--add these vegies in while the rice is browning. My bag was super big, and so I had to use my wok for this dish. It made a lot of leftovers, some of which were in this lunch.

The broccoli ringing the noodles was frozen, I warmed it in the microwave and ringed the noodles with them.

Chicken Pasta Salad

This was one of those "I'm hungry and don't wanna walk to the store," sorta meals. Very easy.

What I had:

Greek yogurt
green onions
1/4 bag of wheat pasta
lettuce
frozen chicken
sandwich pickles

So chicken salad it is!

1st I cooked the chicken in the microwave and boiled the water for the pasta.

I sliced the green onion, 2 sandwich pickles, and the lettuce.

I placed the pickles and green onions in a mixing bowl. Added pasta to boiling water. Chopped the chicken into bite-sized bits, then added to the mixing bowl.

When the pasta was cooked, it went in to. I added a dash of garlic salt for taste, and tossed the mixing bowl contents with 1/4 cup Greek yogurt (-ish, sorry, I cook by instinct, not measurement), point is to coat, but not soak. Just a bit, not too much.

The lettuce I placed in the bottom of the bowl (sorry, can't see it in the picture) and scooped some of the chicken salad mix on top.

Very simple,. very yummy!

Chicken & Shrimp Lo Mein

When my friend, Iva's, mom came to visit her, I was invited back for dinner! Yay! So her mom made a seafood lo-mein, and she got all her ingredients from Whole Foods, so there's no need for an exotic trip to the asian grocery store. Her mom's was way better than mine, but I've only attempted this dish a couple of times. Her dish was a little saucy, and she used corn starch (a staple in a Chinese kitchen), which I don't have with me in Pittsburgh and I was too lazy (and cheap) to buy some.

Pasta with Pumpkin and Sausage

I asked the Chopping Block what I should cook, and she suggested a pumpkin recipe from Martha Stewart, except I thought that it wouldn't turn out very well. I think pumpkin has a pretty mild taste, and I didn't think it'd work with pasta. After some searching around, I found a Rachel Ray recipe, albeit I'm not a fan, but it looked more promising than Martha Stewart's.

Tandoori Chicken

I have a problem. Whenever someone talks about a certain food with passion, I immediately have a craving for that food. Whenever I read a recipe, I also have a craving to eat the product right away.

The other day, I was reading David Lebovitz's Tandoori Chicken post on his blog and I said: Gosh darn it! I'm going to make me some Tandoori chicken.

Chicken Marsala

I think the only chicken marsala I've had was at Gypsy's, the old cheap Italian "fast" restaurant for college students near UC Berkeley. Gypsy's food is pretty good. Once in a while, I would come back just to get pesto chicken or their Bronx spaghetti and meatballs.

I never knew that chicken marsala would be easy. Forgive me for being a n00b but I used to confuse marsala (the wine) with masala (the spice mixture). Lame, right? Feel free to point at me and laugh. Those days are over, I have cooked with marsala wine and even took a swig of it (don't try it).

Larb Gai

I've eaten a lot of Thai food before, but never did I order any larb (salad). I want the most bang for my buck, so larbs rarely cross my mind when ordering. Making larb is a different story though, because it's so easy. I found the recipe for Larb Gai from Import Food.

Balinese Fried Chicken

Fried chicken wings. Who doesn't love fried chicken wings? There are so many variations: barbeque wings, buffalo wings, just plain old wings covered in batter, honey lemon wings, etc. I've always have crispy batter-less wings fried with fish sauce from my mom...because I'm Vietnamese unless you haven't noticed already. That can be the story for another day.

Simple Chicken Salad

So I don't know about you, but most place's chicken salad is very goopy and tastes only like mayonnaise - or perhaps I should hang out at better delis. Today I decided to do my own (lighter) take on the very simple chicken salad.

Chez Pim's Roast Chicken

Can't you tell already that I like to peruse food blogs? This dish is a result of hours and hours of reading through more than 60 food blogs. I know, I know, I'm crazy sometimes. Pim from Chez Pim is living my dream life. Travelling all around, meeting all sorts of people (mostly awesome people), and eating extraordinary food. Who can say no to that?

Recently, Pim posted this roast chicken recipe which she learned from her friend, Laurent. One look at it and I decided that I had to make it!

Baked Chicken with Potatoes and Brussel Sprouts

I thought of how to cook this dish all on my own. I said "Baked chicken, pshaw, I don't need a recipe for that, I'm too hip!" And for once in my life, it turned out that I am able to create a dish without a recipe that did not turn out to be a disaster. However, I'm sure during my years of eating and perusing through recipes, I probably have came across this type of baked chicken before. So, I'd like to say that this recipe was inspired by all of those other baked chicken recipes in the world! I love being inspired.

Chicken Satay

I had a mad craving for some aromatic chicken, so I made chicken satay for dinner. Let's get down to business.

Take 1 lbs of skinless and boneless chicken thighs, trim all fats.