Hainan Chicken Rice

Bloody good. Too full to type.

Donuts Ahoy!

Best three donut holes

mmm fluffy...

Mum generously gifted me her Russell Hobbs deep fryer (circa 1975). I love my Mum's kitchen gadgets; older appliances seem a lot sturdier than modern ones. Plus, I am reminded of my childhood whenever I use it.

The Chip Connoisseur (Mr W) was obviously delighted at the introduction of the deep fryer. But I managed to convince him to cook donuts with me instead. Yeah, that was hard ... not! I love having W in the kitchen with me. Usually he's happy to steer clear and leave me be, but tonight he's happily setting timers, holding thermometers and ...... standing by with the fire extinguisher. Sigh.

This is The Recipe. Thank you again Mr Gary Mehigan. I must get your cookbook, all your recipes really hit the spot. Your donut squeezing technique produced a much nicer and rounder product compared to the chicken nuggets shapes from the spoon technique.

"chicken nuggets"

Chocolate Ganache Tartlets

Inspired by Fiona from Masterchef.

Sue got impatient .....

Drunken, Bruised and Boiled.

We're back to weekly family dinners and tonight's menu was Alvin's Drunken and Bruised consisting of a liquor poached chicken with a thai-inspired salad. I also made Bak Kut Teh soup which is a peppery Chinese herbal soup with tender pork ribs. The Drunken Chicken was a bit of a let down for me. The chicken was weird and sweet but it was incredibly tender though. The salad however was pretty amazing. I think the hero of the meal for me was the Bak Kut Teh soup. I can't really take credit for it; I used a Prima Taste packet mix. Shame ;)

Leftovers

Roast Chicken, potato and leek Pie

Frangipane Tart

Sundays at my place is a time to try out new recipes and do my housework. I am so lucky to have such a considerate partner in W who is more than happy to help out with laundry and vacuuming to free me to bake a few goodies for Sunday dinner.

Today's theme in the kitchen is leftovers. My challenge is to use up left over bolognaise sauce, fried chicken, fruit and roast chicken. My first dish was a KFC chicken fried rice with chinese sausage, frozen vege and egg. That'll be lunch for the next few days.

Next I made a lasagne to use up the bolognaise sauce. I already had some lasagna sheets so I whipped up a white sauce and dumped in half a cup of left over pecorino cheese. That'll be dinner for tomorrow.

Then I decided to dice up the roast chicken breast and roast potatoes and turn it into a Chicken and Leek pie. I had a spare leek which I fried up and then added flour and stock to form a sauce and dumped in the chicken and potatoes. Defrosted a piece of puff pastry and that was dinner for tonight.

Lastly, I decided to try Matt Moran's Frangipane Tart recipe to use up some strawberries left over from my second attempt at pavlova. This will be dessert tonight.

Pavlova Fail

My first attempt was a bit sad. I think I must have overwhipped my eggs or something coz I didn't end up with stiff peaks. It was more of a syrupy slop. The slop rose in the oven, but it also cracked. Good thing I had heaps of whipped cream to hide the cracks. To fix the lack of height I opted for a double decker pavlova.

Chocolate Cake

I was reminded of this cake recipe when thinking of my London cousins. They mentioned this cake when I visited in 2008. Must have been a good cake because I made it for them over 10 years ago! I hadn't baked it in quite a while so I thought it was the ideal recipe to test out my new flour sieve toy (thanks ebay).

Before I forget, congrats to J2 who aced his piano exams and shout outs to J1 for the entertaining photos on FB on college life in Cambridge. This one is for you.

200g dark cooking chocolate
1 tbsp instant coffee mixed in 1 tbsp hot water
200g butter
200g sugar
5 eggs
150g SR flour

Preheat oven to 170° C and grease and line a cake tin. Melt chocolate. The microwave always works well. Let the chocolate cool slightly. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy and beat in eggs. Add the coffee then chocolate. Sieve flour and fold into mixture. Pour into prepared tin and bake for 50-55 min.