Beer Braised Chicken and Onion

I have the inspiration to cook something with beer when I tried Beer Beef Stewed from Le Petit Déjeuner last saturdate with Mr. J. And then, I came across this recipe from Simply Recipe 

Well, long story short, let's just cut to the chase. Here's the recipe or you can go to that link above for more step by step direction :D

Beer Braised Chicken and Onion

Cooking time : 2-3 hours

Serve : 2 hungry couple

note that I halved this recipe and slightly change some of the ingredients. And I find the liquid and meat ratio from Elise's recipe really perfect.

Ingredients:

1 tbs olive oil

3 chicken tight

salt

3.5 cups yellow onion, sliced

1 tbs brown sugar

1 bay leaf

3 stems fresh thyme

1 tbs dijon mustard

175 ml dark beer (I use Guinness, since it's easier to get)

125 ml chicken stock

black pepper

1. Pour the olive oil in a large pot with lid, over medium-high heat. Place the chicken tight skin side down in the oil. Salt the meat side lightly. Brown the chicken real nice on both sides. Remove the browned chicken from the pan and set aside.

2. Drain off the fat from the chicken skin and left about 2 tbs in the pan. Do not remove the browned bits yet. Lower the heat to medium and add the sliced onion to the pan. This is optional, but in this step you can the brown sugar to intensify the sweetness of the onions. Cook the onion slowly, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown. That's about 15 minutes.

3. Add the beer and chicken stock, bay leaf, thyme, mustard and salt to the onion. Scrape up any browned bits in the bottom of the pot using a wooden spoon. Add the chicken tight and bring to simmer.

4. Cover for 45 minutes, then uncover the pot and simmer well until the liquid is reduced and the meat starting to fall off the bone, about 1 hour. Taste if you still need seasoning. You can serve it over chicken noodle, pasta, rice or just vegetable (carrot and broccoli)

5. If you find it too oily, you can scoop off the oil using a large spoon. Drag the edge of the utensil just under the layer of oil to collect it. You will end up discarding a little bit of the soup, but this is unfortunately unavoidable. If you're using butter (instead of olive oil like me) you can place the soup in the fridge and the fat will solidify and make it easier to scoop.

Note : this soup is even better the next day, after you heat it up and simmer it more, the soup will reduced more and creates more intense flavour

Egg Benedict

This dish is inspired by E. I asked her, how does she like her eggs? And without even thinking, she answered Egg Benedict! Well, because of her answer that day, I made this. As simple as that :)

 

Recipe from here along with the tips and trick. I use a store-bought whole wheat dinner roll to make my life easier. There was some kind of disaster happened when I make the hollandaise sauce, I forgot to close the lid when I use my blender to mix the sauce. Fireworks happened in the kitchen that day. Except this was "Sauceworks" hahahahaha I guess my sauce here was too thin in attempt 1.0. There will be attempt 2.0 for sure :)

And I love how my poached egg turned out. It is not as hard as it sound. I was always intimidated to make perfect poached egg before. You only need the secret ingredient : lemon juice, or vinegar will works too.

Inside the poached egg. Just perfect.

Up close!

Baking Marathon

It's a good thing your aunt has a nice built-in oven and she rarely use it. My cousins use it sometimes, though :) and out of nowhere, we decided to have a Cousins Baking Weekend. Yay~

Right out from oven

We had a long talk that week before decided what to bake. Choices were brownies, apple crumble, cake pop, banana or carrot cake, scones, and many more. Then we tried to narrow down what we want to bake, Jw wanted to bake brownies because her son love it much, L wanted apple crumble because her colleague did a great job with apple crumble and she wanted more of it, C went with everything she can eat, and I can really bake anything cause I miss oven so much! But because of the time limit, I guess we can only choose two of them, so we go with apple crumble galette and banana quick bread.

#1 Banana Quick Bread
I got the recipe from Food Network Magazine, the article only gives you the ingredients proportion, not the actual recipe.
1 : Choose your fruit. We go banana!
2 : Choose your adds in. I bought my favorite nut, almond, and I still have peanut butter chip in the fridge that I brought along. Plus chocolate chip for sure!
3 : Prepare your batter.
4 : Mix mix mix. Pour the batter to the greased loaf pan.
5 : Wait for the Ding! moment

Well, turned out we got so much time to kill. After we finished putting the banana quick bread batter into the oven, we have to wait about 55mins. So Jw thought we can do extra cake, let's go for brownies! Fortunately, we have all the ingredients ready.

When the banana bread is almost done, we put the brownies in oven

#2 Chocolate Brownies
I've made this before. And I realized just now, at this moment, that I never post it before. My bad. I just put some note in my recipe book that this recipe makes a wonderful brownies, it is crisp on top, but fudgy and chewy inside. My kind of brownies. I got this recipe from ZoomYummy.

Last time I made this, I baked it in 20cm x 20cm pan. It came out perfect. But this time, I didn't know what's wrong. Was it the pan? The heat of the oven? Or in the process of making the batter? But it came out wrong. It's still undercooked in the middle. The batter was still runny, even after we cooled it down. So we put it back in the oven for more half an hour . But I guess it's too late. Well, we managed to cut the cooked sides. It still tasted great, the problem was only in the texture.

Ding! moment for banana bread. The result : it was wonderful. The exterior was crisp and flavorful, while the interior was so moist and the peanut butter chip really makes this quick bread one level up!

You see the crisp exterior? That's the best stuff

Extra batter = Banana Bread in cupcake

#3 Apple Galette Crumble
Now, this one, I've made it before, and I've posted it too. This recipe is a combination of two recipes : Cinnamon Apple Galette and Apple Crumble Cake. I just added the crumble thing from the latter recipe to the galette. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of this one :( But you get the picture, crumbles on apple galette.

After this, I hope there will be more Cousins Baking Weekend!


Talking about banana, who doesn't love The Minions from the movie Despicable Me? I looooovee them so much. There will be Despicable Me 2 in July 2013. Have you watched this video? I love it so much, now it's set as my ringtone :D

No-bake Chocolate Tart

I'm still looking for a new oven. So it's been like 5 months I didn't bake anything. But that doesn't stop me for making sweets. Well, a bit, since I can't make cookies. But I can make tart! A no-bake tart. A chocolate tart. Sure is sweet :)

I come up with this tart from so many resources, and try to merge them to an edible tart.

No-bake Chocolate Tart

Serve 10-12 in 8-9" tart pan

For no-bake crust

About 180gr digestive biscuit, I use sari gandum

6 tbs butter

6 tbs maple syrup

4 tbs sugar (you can adjust the sweetness according to the biscuit you use, mine was rather plain so I use extra sugar)

For the chocolate ganache

300 ml chopped dark chocolate (you read it right, it's in ml. I chopped the chocolate in small pieces and put it in measuring cup)

250 ml heavy cream

pinch of salt

Crust :

1. Line the bottom of 8" springform pan with baking sheet. Set aside.

2. Melt the butter in a small bowl using microwave while you crust the biscuit into crumbs. Let it cool a bit.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the biscuit crumbs, melted butter, maple syrup and sugar. Mix until the crumbs are moistened and in a crumbly paste form. Transfer the crust onto lined springform pan. Level and press to the bottom of the pan about 0.5cm thick using hand or spatula and neatly taper at the edge.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and place in fridge about 3hours or until you get the filling ready. Can be stored for 2-3 days.

Chocolate Ganache

1. Chopped chocolate in small pieces and put it in measuring cup to more or less 300ml. Transfer chocolate to big bowl and put a pinch of salt in it too.

2. Heat the heavy cream in sauce pan, just until it start to boil. Slowly pour it to the chocolate bowl. Let it steep for 5 mins.

3. Mix the chocolate and cream gently to avoid any classic

ganache problems, such as curdles or bubbly ganache. Mix until chocolate and cream completely incorporated.

4. Pour the chocolate ganache to the prepared crust. Allow the tart to cool in room temperature before you chill it in fridge.

No-bake Chocolate Tart is ready to serve :)

Caramelized Apple

These caramelize apples are meant to be slightly sweet, not over-tart and thoroughly warming. They are wonderful addition to ice cream or cracker, or just eat them alone! :)

You just need 4 ingredient, which most likely you already had it : apple, sugar, cinnamon and butter.

Melt butter in a medium skillet over medium heat, throw (well, throw gently, of course) sliced apples in the pan, I use granny smith. Sauté for couple minutes, then add sugar, stirring frequently until they just get tender. Sprinkle cinnamon over the cooked apples, toss the mixture gently for another 2 minutes, until the sugar begin caramelized and the apples are crisp-tender.

There's no precise recipe for this, just cook according to your feeling. You can try it with brown sugar, which I am sure is ummhhh.. or you may splash lemon juice over it for more tangy flavor. Again, go by your feeling :)