Tag: chicken stock

• 

  Welchy’s Wonton Noodle Soup

  And so I’m back

  From out of space

  I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face …the sad face I am referring to is that of my older brother’s. I have been a bit busy and whilst I have been taking lots of photos – I then never got around to writing the actual blog. So here goes…

  My boyfriend loves Wonton Noodle Soup and will only eat it from one place (International Food Court in Morley if you ever get a chance). It’s divine – with slivers of pork, crunchy bok choy for texture, a gorgeous broth and then these silky full of flavour wontons… it’s basically Heaven in a bowl. And to top it all off they scatter crumbled pork crackling over the top.

  I finally convinced him to let me have a go at cooking my own and suffice to say the results were amazing. Like most men (my younger and ‘opinionated about food even though he never cooks’ brother is one) if he goes for a second helping then you know you are onto a winner. It’s a little fiddly so unless you make it on a weekend, try and make the wontons ahead of time as they can sit in the fridge until you are ready 🙂

  Ingredients:

  For the Soup

  • 2½ cup chicken stock
  • 2½ cup water
  • 1 tsp. soy sauce
  • 3 garlic cloves, smashed
  • 3 to 4⅛-inch thin fresh ginger root slices (approximately 1 oz.)
  • 2 green onions, cut in halves
  • salt and pepper to taste

  For the Wonton Filling

  • 4 oz. ground pork
  • 1 tsp. soy sauce
  • 1 tsp. Shaoxing wine (Chinese cooking wine, you can substitute with dry sherry)
  • 1 tsp. cornstarch
  • ¼ tsp. sugar
  • ¼ tsp. sesame oil
  • ¼ tsp. ground fresh ginger root
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • 1 green onion, finely chopped
  • small pinch of black or white pepper
  • 20 square wonton wrappers

  For the Garnish

  • chopped green onion
  • Cilantro leaves

  Method

  1. In a medium/large pot, add all ingredients for the soup. Cover, bring it to boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Turn off heat and let all the flavor come together. Meanwhile, let’s make wontons!

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for the wonton filling and mix well with a spoon until cornstarch incorporated with other wet ingredients.

  3. Take a wonton wrapper on your left hand(if you are right handed) and paint edges of square lightly with cold water using your finger tip. Put ½ teaspoon of filling in centre of wrapper. Fold in half, triangle shape and seal it tightly by pinching edges together with your fingers. Paint one of lower side corners of triangle with water and bring right and left corner together (water painted side down) and press well to make traditional curved wonton shape. Place wontons 1 to ½-inch apart on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Repeat until you finish with wonton filling and wrappers.

   

  4. When your wontons are ready, discard solid ingredients from soup base and bring it to boil.

  5. Carefully add wontons and cook for 10 to 15 minutes. wontons will be fully cooked in 3 minutes, but cook it longer so all flavour from wontons will melt in to soup. Taste and add salt and pepper to your taste at this point.

  

  6. Transfer to a serving bowl, garnish with green onion, cilantro and pepper to your taste.

  

  And then…being super sneaky…I fried a couple of the wontons while the wontons were cooking in the soup. So totally worth it! Would be amazing on a cold night, but no matter the weather I’d eat this haha.

  

  Katie

  Related Links:

  • see more Welchy posts here

  Written by

  lilwelchy

  ·

  December 22, 2016

• 

  PK Makes Rick Stein’s Chettinad Chicken

  This is by far my favourite recipe from the TV series and book, ‘Rick Stein’s India’ (see BBC link here).

  In my family’s version we keep the heat factor low and serve it with lightly steamed vegetables to keep it kid friendly. Well that is what my wife (who hates chili and curries in general) tells everyone but you didn’t hear it from me. Also in my defence, she shouldn’t have bought me a book full of curry recipes :).

  

  Despite the shameful lack of chili and heat, our version of this dish is still amazingly dry, peppery and oh so flavoursome. I think it loses some of the colour that so defines these type of curries however. I hope I am forgiven though as the result is very tender, sticky chicken calling out for some rice and sides of your favourite green vegetables :). Edit: I now use ground annato seed to impart a natural red colouring but one without the heat of chillis.

  A couple of recipe notes:

  • This dish calls for the use of a lichen called dagarful and I beg you to try it. I used cinnamon as a substitute originally but I have used the real deal in this post and there is no going back.
  • I use my home-made chicken stock instead of water.
  • Please check out my masla making tips in PK’s Curry Paste Kit before you start.

  You will be:

  1. Making the dry masala.
  2. Cooking the chicken.
  3. Serving.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • Dry Masala
      • 1 Tbsp fennel seeds
      • 1 Tbsp cumin seeds
      • 1 Tbsp coriander seeds
      • 1 Tbsp black peppercorns
      • 1 tsp kashmiri chili powder (go 1 Tbsp or more if allowed)
    • Chicken
      • 1kg skinless boneless chicken thighs, chunky sliced, short ways
      • 200g red shallots, diced
      • 200ml home made chicken stock
      • 50ml olive oil
      • 1 tsp fennel seeds
      • 8cm cinnamon stick
      • 1 Tbsp dagarful, rinsed and rough chopped (or an extra 3cm cinnamon stick)
      • a very large handful of curry leaves (the more the better)
      • 4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
      • 4cm ginger, peeled and grated
      • 1 tsp raw sugar
      • 1 tsp table or ground rock salt
  •  Equipment:
    • a chopping board
    • a long sharp knife
    • a frypan
    • a dry mixer
    • a deep frypan for the chicken

  Steps:

  Making the dry masala

  1. In a frypan, dry roast the 1 Tbsp fennel seeds, 1 Tbsp cumin seeds, 1 Tbsp coriander seeds and 1 Tbsp black peppercorns.
  2. Allow to cool and then and to your dry spice mixer.
  3. Add 1 tsp kashmiri chili powder as well and then give it a quick pulse.

  Spice heaven:

  

  Coarsely ground dry masala (looks and smells amazing):

   Cooking the chicken
  

  1. Peel and dice the 200g of red shallots.
  2. Chop the 1kg of chicken thighs short ways to get roughly 2.5cm chunks.
  3. In a deep frypan heat the 50ml olive oil.
  4. Add the 1 tsp fennel seeds, 1 Tbsp dagarful and the 8cm of cinnamon stick and stir for a few minutes.
  5. Add a very large handful of curry leaves and the 200g of red shallots. Stir until the latter are soft.
  6. Add the 1kg of chicken and stir for a few minutes.
  7. Add and stir for a few minutes the:
     1. dry masala
     2. 4 cloves garlic
     3. 4cm ginger
     4. 1 tsp raw sugar
     5. 1 tsp table salt
  8. Add the 200ml chicken stock.
  9. Cook for about 45 minutes or until the sauce is much reduced and sticky.

  I love the colours of this dish’s ingredients:

  

  Sauté the spices, red shallots and curry leaves:

  Add the chicken, stir and then add the garlic, ginger, sugar, salt and dry masala:

  Cook until the sauce is thick:

  

   

  Serving

  1. Cook your favourite rice, mine is basmati :).
  2. Steam some green vegetables for a splash of colour.

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Here are more Indian cuisine posts and Rick Stein recipes:

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  December 13, 2016

• 

  Bish’s Chicken Congee for the Soul

  The health benefits of your favourite comfort foods should not be underrated. Traditional recipes especially because they have been handed down  from generation to generation for a reason.

  Special guest blogger Bish writes:

  I’ve been crook most of the week, and as a result I ended up cooking one of my “comfort” foods, congee, or rice porridge.

  The thing is, when you are feeling sick, you really don’t feel like doing much, and you sure don’t feel like taking photos of the food you are doing for a potential blog down the road, so PK is going to have to steal some photos from elsewhere to illustrate this post.

  Congee is eaten in many parts of the world, and it’s called all sorts of other things in other languages, but in my house (and my mother-in-law’s house) it gets called congee. My mother-in-law and I do bond a bit over cooking and gardening and she’s taught me a few things over the years – like adding dried scallops to my congee while it is cooking.

  Anyway, congee has to be one of the simplest dishes to cook and (placebo or whatever) always makes me feel better.

  You’ll need:
  • Uncooked white rice
  • Stock (like Ben’s medicinal chicken broth or PK’s slow cooker chicken stock)
  • Other stuff you might want to throw in, like dried scallops
  • Condiments – soy sauce, sesame oil, dried shallots and white pepper are my favourites

  To make it:
  When I cook up a batch of stock, I freeze it into those takeaway containers that you have lying around, and so there’s always a few of these stored in the freezer – I should label them “in case of illness, make congee with this”. So I’ll start on the assumption that you have some in the freezer…

  Here we go:

  1. Take the frozen block of stock out of the freezer, and chuck it in a saucepan on low heat.
  2. Go take some more cold and flu medications while it defrosts, and turn up the heat a little as you get more liquid.
  3. When it comes to the boil, chuck in the optional bits you like, and a cup or two of uncooked rice. The amount you put in depends on how much you want to heat, as you’ll probably need to play with the liquid ratios anyway – two cups would do about four big bowls of congee.
  4. Intermittently come back and take a look at the pot – if it is too dry, add water (or if you have more stock, add more stock), if it is too wet, you can chuck in a bit more rice – but I tend to need to add more water than rice. It’s done when the rice has broken down into a sort of slurry (I know that’s not appetising).
  5. Turn off the heat and ladle out a bowl full of it. Then you want to finish it off; add in a splash of soy sauce (watch how salty your stock was), a few drops of sesame oil, white pepper and dried shallots. Then go and rug up, and sit and eat it all up. Usually, I then go and have a sleep for an hour or two and then come back, turn the pot back on, warm up the congee, and eat more, then repeat.
  6. If there’s still some left in the pot that evening, I throw it in the fridge overnight (pot and all) and then have it again for breakfast.

  This is not the most amazing recipe in the world or anything, but if you are feeling lousy from a cold or whatever, it’s really easy to make and it does seem to help me get over colds and flus quicker.

  I’m going back to bed now.

  Bish

  Here are more southeast asian inspired cuisine and posts from Bish:

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  July 27, 2016

• 

  Bish’s Chicken Porridge for the Soul

  Comfort foods’ health benefits should not be underrated. Traditional recipes especially because they have been handed down  from generation to generation for a reason.

  Special guest blogger Bish writes:

  I’ve been crook most of the week, and as a result I ended up cooking one of my “comfort” foods, congee, or rice porridge.

  The thing is, when you are feeling sick, you really don’t feel like doing much, and you sure don’t feel like taking photos of the food you are doing for a potential blog down the road, so PK is going to have to steal some photos from elsewhere to illustrate this post.

  Congee is eaten in many parts of the world, and it’s called all sorts of other things in other languages, but in my house (and my mother-in-law’s house) it gets called congee. My mother-in-law and I do bond a bit over cooking and gardening and she’s taught me a few things over the years – like adding dried scallops to my congee while it is cooking.
  Anyway, congee has to be one of the simplest dishes to cook and (placebo or whatever) always makes me feel better.

  You’ll need:
  • Uncooked white rice
  • Stock (like Ben’s medicinal chicken broth or PK’s slow cooker chicken stock)
  • Other stuff you might want to throw in, like dried scallops
  • Condiments – soy sauce, sesame oil, dried shallots and white pepper are my favourites

  To make it:
  When I cook up a batch of stock, I freeze it into those takeaway containers that you have lying around, and so there’s always a few of these stored in the freezer – I should label them “in case of illnesss, make congee with this”. So I’ll start on the assumption that you have some in the freezer…

  Here we go:

  1. Take the frozen block of stock out of the freezer, and chuck it in a saucepan on low heat.
  2. Go take some more cold and flu medications while it defrosts, and turn up the heat a little as you get more liquid.
  3. When it comes to the boil, chuck in the optional bits you like, and a cup or two of uncooked rice. The amount you put in depends on how much you want to heat, as you’ll probably need to play with the liquid ratios anyway – two cups would do about four big bowls of congee.
  4. Intermittently come back and take a look at the pot – if it is too dry, add water (or if you have more stock, add more stock), if it is too wet, you can chuck in a bit more rice – but I tend to need to add more water than rice. It’s done when the rice has broken down into a sort of slurry (I know that’s not appetising).
  5. Turn off the heat and ladle out a bowl full of it. Then you want to finish it off; add in a splash of soy sauce (watch how salty your stock was), a few drops of sesame oil, white pepper and dried shallots. Then go and rug up, and sit and eat it all up. Usually, I then go and have a sleep for an hour or two and then come back, turn the pot back on, warm up the congee, and eat more, then repeat.
  6. If there’s still some left in the pot that evening, I throw it in the fridge overnight (pot and all) and then have it again for breakfast.

  This is not the most amazing recipe in the world or anything, but if you are feeling lousy from a cold or whatever, it’s really easy to make and it does seem to help me get over colds and flus quicker.

  I’m going back to bed now.

  Bish

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  July 27, 2016

• 

  PK’s Slow Cooker Chicken Stock

  This was the first time I have made my own stock. Up until this point I had thought it wasn’t worth the time and effort required. I couldn’t have been more wrong :).

  After a quick bit of prep I left it to its own devices overnight. In the morning I recovered the left over ingredients, filtered the stock and froze it in 2 cup batches.

  I got so much joy and reward from making this stock because I:

  • got to be in the kitchen cooking :).
  • gave a second chance to some carrots at the back of the fridge.
  • picked fresh vegetables from the garden with my young son.
  • used parts of chickens that normally go to waste.
  • didn’t add any packaging to landfill.
  • recovered the cooked vegetables for my compost bin.
  • recovered the bones to make my own bone meal for soil improvement (post coming soon).
  • retained some rendered chicken fat for cooking (hey I never said this was a good health blog hehehehe).
  • got an amazingly tasty stock that is salt, sugar and preservative free.

  STEPS:

  1. Get some chicken bones
  2. Gather/harvest and chop your vegetables
  3. Slow cooker time
  4. Straining
  5. Storing
  6. Recovery and resuse (optional)
  7. Defrosting

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 2 onions
    • 4 carrots
    • 2 – 4 celery stalks (leaves on)
    • 1 Tbsp peppercorns
    • 1 handful of basil leaves
    • 2kg of chicken bones and/or carcasses
    • 2.5L of water
  • Equipment
    • a chopping board
    • a long sharp knife
    • a tablespoon
    • a 1 cup measuring cup
    • a strainer (like you would use for pasta)
    • a fine mesh sieve
    • a large pot
    • several deep dishes to hold the leftover vegetables and bones
    • a slow cooker
    • freezer containers or glass jars
    • a butter knife when it comes time to defrost the stock

  Get some chicken bones

  There must be tons of methods for doing this but I went to the butchers and bought 6 chicken carcasses. It cost me $5 AUD and they weighed approximately 2.2kgs. There was a little bit of meat on them too.

  

  Steps:

  1. I took each carcass and wrenched them in the middle to separate them into halves. I only did that to help them fit into the slow cooker though.
  2. Put them aside and turn your slow cooker on its lowest setting.

  Gather/harvest and chop your vegetables

  

  Steps:

  1. Take about 4 stalks of celery (leaves on and hopefully fresh from your garden) and give them a good wash. Tap dry and then rough chop.
  2. Rough chop the 4 carrots (skin on) and 2 onions.
  3. Rough chop a handful of basil leaves (not stems). I used some from my garden that I had previously frozen.
  4. Add all the vegetables to the now warmed up slow cooker along with 1 Tbsp of peppercorns.

  Slow cooker time

  

  Steps:

  1. Place the chicken carcasses on top of the vegetables and pour in enough boiling water to cover everything. In my case this was 2.5L.
  2. Don’t worry if the slow cooker is full to the brim and a bit squishy. By the end everything will have shrunk down and there will be plenty of room to stir everything.
  3. Let it simmer for as long as you can but at least 8 hours on low. I didn’t have to add any water the whole time but keep an eye on the water levels.
  4. As you notice a bit of space developing you can start to give it the odd stir.

  In this picture you can see how everything has reduced down:

  

  Straining

  The last few steps can be a little time consuming if you want to make the best use of the left over ingredients.

  Steps:

  1. Pour everything into a pasta colander (or a strainer that will catch most of the larger ingredients but still let the liquid through easily) over a large saucepan. I was worried that using a fine mesh sieve at this point would end with stock all over the place so I used this two part process.
  2. Now run the stock through the fine mesh sieve over the slow cooker and pour the stock in slowly.
  3. Clean the sieve under the tap and then run the stock through it again but into the original saucepan.
  4. Keep putting the vegetables and bones aside if you intend to recover them.
  5. Let the now filtered stock cool in the fridge slightly to get the skim of fat on the top.
  6. Spoon a tiny bit of the fat skim off but don’t be too fastidious as I have a tip for that later. We don’t want to lose any more of the precious stock than we have too :).

  Storing

  At this stage the stock should be super tasty but it will also be oily. I trialled two methods for dealing with this.

  Steps:

  1. Initially I placed a sheet of paper towel on the surface of the stock and let it slowly draw in the fat beads. I carefully removed the paper towel and disposed of it.
  2. I then used a 1 cup measuring cup to ladle the stock into several freezer containers.
  3. I then turned the containers upside down and froze them. This means that most of the fat beads will rise to the surface.

  In this picture you can see the beads of fat on the top and nice clean stock underneath:

  

  Recovery and Reuse

  I will expand on this in a later post but here are a few tips if you want to reuse the leftover ingredients. I had fun doing it but making the bone meal was a labour of love.

  1. Keep the bones for making your own bone meal.
  2. Chuck the vegetables into the compost bin.

  Defrosting

  I would like to show you now the advantage of freezing them upside down in a slightly concave shaped container.

  Steps:

  1. Pop the lid off the container and let it ever so slightly thaw.
  2. Turn the container upside down again and pop the stock out.
  3. Using a butter knife, scrape the fat off the top of the stock block.

  I got about 1 Tbsp of fat off two cups of stock, enough to fry up some potatoes I bet :).

  I would love to hear from you if you have any tips you want to share about making stock.

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  July 6, 2016