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. 

My current fried chicken recipe

As noted previously, I've been on a fried chicken binge that was spurred on by my need/strong desire to use a package of Tazah coating for broasted chicken.

Then things spiraled out of control from there, I started contemplating my own desires out of fried chicken in terms of flavor and texture. Should I try egg? Should I try buttermilk? Can you marinate too long? I spun off from the original goal of just trying broasted chicken to making my own original - monster effort in it's own right.

I think my goal was to replicate fried chicken that my mom had made ONCE when I was young but it had a memorable enough flavor profile.

I cut a leg quarter into 3 pieces to make cooking (and eating all of my test runs) easier.

Let it soak in a marinade of:

2 chopped garlic cloves
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 Tsp Fish sauce
sprinkle pepper

It hung out in this marinade for 24 hours because the husband wouldn't let me deep dry when I got home late from work.

It got dredged in a flour mix of:

2 Tbsp potato starch
1 Tbsp rice flour
and 1/4 tsp of baking powder

Fry for 12 minutes total, turning at the 6 minute mark.

Then bake for 20 minutes @ 400 F

It was fortunate for this to cap off my fried chicken experimentation because this was awesome. Other than working on residual greasiness, the taste and texture are where I want them to be. I was afraid of it being salty because of all the marinating time, but no - this was awesome.

I would've taken a picture, but I ate it. My cast iron pans are pretty well seasoned now. I'm logging this for my reference, since for the sake of my health, I gotta take a fried chicken break.

Chicken Adobo: The Family Exchange

I got to see my uncle/godfather for the first time in 17 years. One thing that I found interesting was how similar I am to my uncle. The common interests were very apparent.

I've been cooking adobo for almost a decade and only now do I honestly feel that there's little to no need for experimentation. Once I tried my uncle's adobo, I realized why my adobo always seemed off and I learned to trust that you don't need an extensive amount of ingredients to make something good. Lastly, mistakes are not always a bad thing.