Lunar New Year 2021 and the Texas Snowpocalypse

-Lunar New Year-

I kept things simple this year. I just poached a chicken while ordering out dumplings. The poached chicken recipe I like to follow is the one by Ming Tsai that he discussed on a Lunar New Year special. It involves carrots, scallions, basil, ginger and a chicken being poached in chicken stock. I remember loving it the first time, but the only way I can access the recipe is by buying the book since I can't find it posted online. 

So I following the directions for the Star Anise braised chicken using the ingredients in some random formation. The outcome was good, but what was better was eating the cold the next day with a poached chicken sauce found on Woks of Life. The baby loved it. 

There was a lot of residual gelatinous broth from the poaching liquid and as such it made me realize that - though the whole chicken only poaches for a little while, next time I will strip all of the meat off the bones and further simmer the broth for more hours to get more of that collagen out of the bones. Store bought broth is expensive. If I have a whole chicken, I may as well make stock or a broth.

-Snowpocalypse-

I live in Texas and the state is currently shutdown since we don't have the resources to combat this kind of natural disaster. So we have to hunker down and essentially make do with what we have in the house, which is a decent amount since we had stocked up before due to the pandemic. We're ok for now and I enjoy a challenge of creativity under pressure.

-Chicken Adobo-

I had some thighs that needed to be used. For a change of pace, I tried a variation on a recipe from ATK that adds coconut milk. The sauce was quite good, though following the instructions yielded meat that was still a little pinkish inside. Next time, I will low simmer for 35-40 minutes each side and go for 180 degrees. 

Marinade in everything but the vinegar. Place meat skin side down in a cold pan to render out fat, then remove fat from pan. Mix all sauce ingredients except sugar and simmer. When chicken is done, remove, reduce sauce and add sugar. To this, I added eggs and daikon. It was good.