Ginataang Manok (Chicken in Coconut Milk)

[recipe shared by lsc]
Thanks, lsc!

Ingredients:
chicken wings - you can substitute this with any other chicken parts or whole chicken
oil
3 sliced ginger
water
4 Tbsp vinegar
5 cloves of garlic - you can add more if you want
peppercorn - or ground pepper is fine
pinch of salt
1/3 can coconut cream - if you can't find coconut cream then just use coconut milk
1 can coconut milk
3 chayote - peeled, cubed (take out the seed in the middle) - i suggest to cut this like an apple take out the core and cut into cubes

Procedure:
- heat up some oil
- add ginger
- add chicken, sear
- add water - just barely covering the chicken
- add vinegar, garlic, peppercorn and salt
- do not stir and let it boil (they say when you stir it, it'll taste sour bcuz of the vinegar not cooked yet)
- let it boil till water is half the amount - if you don't want to wait that long for the water to boil out, then just add less water
- add 1/3 coconut cream
- add coconut milk
- stir and let it boil
- once it's boiled, add cubed chayote
- cover and let it simmer till chayote is done
- serve

Hainan Chicken

When we still had a meal plan (note the past tense, hehe), there was actually one meal where, for some reason, I was not too lazy to get the camera and take some pictures.

Day #2 of Week #5 of our MEAL PLAN: Hainan Chicken
(September 2007)



Hainan Chicken with its soup
Hainan Rice made with "Jade Bamboo" rice & coconut oil
Green Onion-Ginger sauce

Rubbed the chicken with shaoxing wine and salt. Poached the chicken in water and some stuff (onions, cilantro, other good stuff). Made a soup with the resulting chicken broth by adding minced onions, diced tomatoes and cucumbers.

Made "Hainan Rice" by cooking rice in the broth and some coconut oil. (The rice is a "Jade Bamboo" Rice, whatever that means. It was just a nice green color so we bought it.)

Green onion-ginger sauce: Infused veg oil with grated ginger. Added green onion and salt.

Here's another shot of the dish:

My on-again love affair. . .

. . .with gelato!

Seems a fitting Valentine's Day post, don't you think?

Prior to this week, I've gone a long time without gelato. Sure, I taste here and there, random flavours as root beer float or black sesame or butterscotch -- but that's purely professional. Have to know if the quality is still up there, after all.

This week has been strange, body-temp-wise. For some reason, I feel hot all week. My brain tells me it's winter, but my body feels like spring is about to spring. On Monday, I woke up around 4am because I just felt too hot.

Turns out that somebody has turned up the thermostat to 28 degrees! No wonder I've been having "hot flashes" or "flushes." (Don't know what the correct terminology is.)

So I've been cooling down with gelato. More specifically, with lemon sorbetto, paired with a berry flavour, usually raspberry, as that is my favourite among all the berries.

It might also be a function of age, but I find I do not need to keep "choosing" my flavours. No need to have tasters or samples: I know what I'm having.