Doesn't TaZte Like Chicken

Location: My tiny kitchen

What would you do? Never barbeque anything? No way! Although the BBQ grill is one the top three items in my culinary toy list, I have been able to find other ways to “barbeque” my food. I wouldn’t go so far to say that food cooked with my ways are better tasting than using the grill, but the results are fairly acceptable.

This BBQ chicken wings recipe is a recipe that I created in the early part of my culinary life and it tastes a little different every time I make this dish. The marinate in this dish could be changed easily and I always play with the measurements or swap in different spices altogether. Once you have tried this recipe, play with it and make it your own. And yes, instead of using a BBQ grill, I bake the wings in the oven and they always come out juicy and crispy.

This is for you, S.

Instead of cutting my wings into pieces, I like to leave my wings whole. They have a better chance to become succulent this way. I always pick the biggest wings that I can find and I usually cook 12 in a batch.

For the marinate, you will need:

- Juice of one lemon
- 2 tbsp of coarse salt
- a lot of freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tbsp of onion powder
- 1 tbsp of Dijon or coarse grain mustard
- *1 tbsp of Tabastco sauce
- *1 tbsp of red chili flakes or 1 tbsp of paprika
- 2 tsp of coriander powder
- 2 tsp of oregano
- 2 tbsp of sweet paprika
- LOTS of BBQ sauce

* Reduce these ingredients by half if you don’t want your wings being too spicy

Put the marinate into the wings. Put the BBQ sauce last. What I mean by using “lots” of BBQ sauce is I pour the sauce until every wing is generously coated with it. Usually I use up half of a regular size bottle.

Marinate the wings overnight. Lay them in a pan before baking.

Bake the wings in an oven at 425F for 45 to 50 minutes.

The hot oven gives a crispy skin to the wings. The short baking time prevents the wings from drying out. To make them more spicy, I always sprinkle some chili flakes on them before serving.

Location: My tiny kitchen

I guess there could be an exception on anything in life. I love cooking – in case you didn’t get the hint from my other posts – but I too, have limits on the type of cuisine that I would try to cook. For example, I have never tried, nor had the desire to try, making sushis at home. The thought of mixing the rice in one precise direction with the vinegar, laying just enough ingredients so that none overflows, and finally rolling everything together so that the fragile nori won’t tear – all that work doesn’t suggest fun to me. All these principles of mine change when I had an egg salad sandwich from the high tea at Hotel Vancouver. Not only did the sandwich tasted good (it had the perfect amount of mayo to create the smoothest and creamiest texture), the sandwich was rolled up like a rolled sushi! The roll was then cut into pieces, again like how a rolled sushi is cut, and the presentation just fascinated me. After I had my sushi sandwich, I knew I have to replicate it at home. I’m using tuna salad in this recipe, but egg salad works the same. Hey you never know, maybe one day I’ll buy a sushi-making kit (always one of the most money-grabbing products to me) and start making a rolled sushi!

This is for you, aunt, who has a discerning taste and loves cute-looking things.

This recipe can make about 8 to 10 rolled sandwiches.
Open two cans of flaked white tuna. I use flaked white tuna instead of solid tuna because the former gives the salad a fluffier texture.
Drain all the liquid out of the tuna.

Finely mince two shallots and 3 gloves of garlic.

Finely minced 1 tbsp of capers.

In a pan, put in 2 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Heat the pan and fry the minced shallots, garlic and capers int the oil. When the shallots start to become translucent, turn off the heat and put in a generous amount of freshly ground black pepper.

I LOVE Hellmann’s mayonnaise (who doesn’t?). Whenever I use mayo in a dish, I always use half full fat and half reduced fat. This way I get the rich and creamy taste and I can feel less guilty

Into the tuna put in the shallots, garlic, capers, butter and olive oil mix. Put in 1 tbsp of full fat mayo and 1 tbsp of reduced fat mayo. Mix well and if you feel you need more mayo, then add in more.

Have some sliced bread ready. The bread is the key to the success of the rolled sandwich. To be able to successfully roll the sandwich later, the slices must not be too thick. Try to find sliced bread that are:
- About 1/3” thick, as shown in the pictures.
- Moist but not just freshly out of the oven. If the bread is too soft, it will not roll. If the bread is too dry, it’ll break when you roll it.

Cut the edge off the slices.

Now you are ready to roll. Put a layer of tuna on the bread. Leave the edge near the top of the bread with no tuna.

Gentle lift the bottom of the bread up and roll it towards the upper edge.
Cut the roll into 4 pieces and you are done

To garnish, I sprinkle a little bit of paprika and parsley on each piece. Without the paprika, I think this is a great dish to make a kid smile.

Location: My tiny kitchen

The result was surprisingly amazing. I’ve always been skeptical at the concept of mixing spinach into risotto, no matter how many times I’ve seen celebrity chefs such as David Rocco and Jamie Oliver happily cooked their risotto and spinach on their shows. The idea of eating soft and wilted small pieces of green leaves with starchy, creamy rice suggests only the taste of baby food to me. I don’t know what has gotten to me follow suit – maybe it’s the lack of vegetables and fruits in my recent diet, or maybe I’m just bored of making my regular plain risotto – but wow, that was some great dish of risotto. Of course, the big lump of cream cheese that I mixed into the rice in the last step made everything tasted rich and less like a bland vegetarian dish.

This dish is for you, baby sister, who cooked risotto for 100 people.

This recipe serves 4 people.
You will need 1 1/2 cup of risotto. I don’t know if I’m correct, but I notice that when risotto has been stored for a long time, it doesn’t become very creamy once it has been cooked. My experience is “new rice” or rice that is just bought from store is most creamy.

I used one package of frozen chopped spinach in this recipe. You can use fresh spinach but you will need to blanch, squeeze out the water and then finally chop the spinach. I opted for convenience and I used chopped frozen spinach since it gives the same taste.

Thaw the spinach.

Have 2 cups of chicken stock and 1/2 cup of cream cheese ready.

In a quart pan, put in 1 tbsp of butter, 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp of minced garlic. Heat the butter until it is melted.

Put in the risotto and coat the rice thoroughly with butter, oil and garlic.

Add in chicken stock until the rice is just covered.

Let the soup and the rice to cook. If the rice is boiling too vigorously, turn the heat down to medium and let the rice shimmer. When all the liquid has been reduced, add stock again till the rice is just covered.

Repeat the process of add stock, shimmer till stock is reduced, add more stock until the rice has been fully cooked. You don’t have to stir the rice constantly. I stir the rice only after stock has been added and I leave the rice alone until all the liquid is evaporated.

It took me about 20 minutes to cook the rice. To tell if the rice is cooked, taste them. This is how my rice looked like when they are cooked:

Once the rice is cooked, make sure the heat is at high and mix in the spinach and 1/2 cup of cream cheese.

Thoroughly incorporate the spinach and cream cheese into the rice. After incorporating, pour in 1/2 cup of chicken stock. Turn the heat off and cover the quart pan. Let the rice stand for 10 to 15 minutes. The extra stock will be absorbed by the rice and by doing so, the spinach, cream cheese and rice will bind nicely together to create a sauce.

Once the rice has absorbed the liquid, put in salt and pepper to taste. If you find your risotto too dry, add in a little more stock. Like cooking pastas, it is difficult to say what the exact and correct amount of liquid should be added. It is all about judging how dry the rice is and add in more liquid when necessary. To prevent from adding too much liquid, add only a little amount of liquid at a time and then add in more if needed.

I served my spinach cream cheese risotto with a sliced ribeye steak (you gotta have SOME meat, right?).