Soyed vermicelli with spicy almond chicken

An easy dish that comes together without much fuss. For the chicken I followed the basic recipe for Sichuan kung pao chicken, but made a few substitutions based on what I had on hand. For peanuts, I used almonds; for sesame oil, grapeseed oil; and for cornstarch or water chestnut flour (which makes a lighter crust than cornstarch) I subbed tapioca flour.

Ingredients:
•2 boneless chicken breasts, about 6 ounces each, cubed
•8 red chillies, halved
•Bunch of green onions, chopped
•About a dozen almonds
•3 cloves garlic, minced
•5 - 7 slices of fresh ginger
•Oil for frying, about 2 tablespoons

Marinade:
•1 tablespoon soy sauce
•1 teaspoon Chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)
•2 teaspoons cold water
•2 teaspoons tapioca flour
•2 teaspoons grapeseed oil (but a more flavoured oil like sesame oil is BEST)

Sauce:
•1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
•2 teaspoons light soy sauce
•1 tablespoon black or red rice vinegar, or red wine vinegar
•1 tablespoon chicken broth or water

Vermicelli
•2 50g packages of bean thread vermicelli
•2 tablespoons soy sauce
•1 tablesooon brown sugar

Preparation
1. Combine the marinade ingredients and add the chicken pieces. Let sit for half an hour.
2. Heat oil and stir fry chicken pieces until almost done. Set aside.
3. Stir fry chillies and almonds. Add ginger and garlic and stir for a few minutes.
4. Add the chicken and sauce to the pan and cook for 5 minutes.
5. Turn off heat and add sliced green onions and give it a final stir.

To make the noodle, simply boil about 100g of bean thread vermicelli until al dente. Drain off the water, keeping the noodles in the pot, and add about 2 tbsp of soy sauce and a teaspoon of brown sugar. Stir thoroughly, dump into a bowl, add as much of the chicken as you like. Enjoy.



PS At the last minute, I also decided to throw in some young, tender yellow beans we'd just picked from the garden. Extra green goodness!

Biko at last!

I've had a few kitchen flops and I don't mind talking about them. When I was first learning to cook I remember roasting a whole fish for hours in the oven hoping it would get brown. Only much later on I realised I should have used the broiler instead to get a crisp golden skin. I could also have covered the fish for a while and then uncovered it in the last stages. And added a bit of oil instead of letting the fish essentially poach in its own juices.

I also remember making a truly soggy eggplant/veggie lasagna that I forced my poor sisters to take home. I'm sure there were other disasters that my friends and family will remember :-)

More recently I tried my hand at making cassava cake (or cassava bibingka) the Pinoy way. It was tough and chewy and a total waste of ingredients. But I know now each flop is a great learning opportunity. That cassava disaster told me to never use ground cassava flour (tapioca flour in the supermarket) if I want good results. Grated cassava is the ONLY way to go.

So when I decided to try making biko with latik topping the other day it was with some trepidation. I love Filipino style desserts so much -- hello ginataan! hello suman sa lihiya, kalamay at latik, bibingka at puto bumbong! -- but have not really made many of them. I guess when I was living in Hong Kong I was spoiled. I knew that the next visit home was never more than two or three months away and failing that, there were always sources of Pinoy food at Worldwide House in Central. But living in Canada makes access to my food heritage a bit more difficult since I don't drive and public transit in our area is limited.

To satisfy my biko craving I did some research and after some tinkering came up with this recipe. It worked out well -- so well in fact, that my husband ate 3/4 of a pie-plate-ful of the dessert in 48 hours. He very generously left a few forkfuls for me, isn't he sweet ;-)



Here's the recipe. It makes enough to fill a 9-inch pie plate with about 3 cups left over. If I had a rectangular 11' baking dish I would have used that. You can use any pan you like. The biko should fill the pan around 1 inch to 1.5 inch deep for best presentation...most people prefer a thicker topping instead of a thicker rice-cake bed.

Biko at latik
(Rice cake with caramel topping)

For the biko
•2 cups cooked malagkit (sticky rice) (I used the rice cooker)
•3/4 c. brown sugar
•Around 3 cups freshly squeezed, or canned, coconut milk
•3 - 4 tablespoons of butter
•optional - strips of sweetened langka (jackfruit, which you can also buy prepared)

Topping:
•1 15 oz can condensed milk
•3/4 cup rich coconut milk
•2 tablespoons flour or tapioca flour, to thicken

While still hot, combine the cooked sticky rice with the brown sugar and coconut milk. Add butter and optional langka strips and stir well. Transfer to the baking dish and bake in a preheated 300 F oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile make the topping by combining the topping ingredients in a heavy-duty saucepan and stiring constantly over low heat until the mixture thickens.

Pour topping over the rice mixture and return to the oven, baking until the topping turns golden brown, around 15 minutes.

This is wonderful hot or cold -- and especially, I'm thinking, with an icy glass of Coke!

Quinoa muffins

Today I made quinoa muffins since we had some leftover quinoa in the cupboard and I wanted to ty Martha Stewart's quinoa muffin recipe, with some variations of my own.

Verdict: 2.5 out of 5 stars. If you like quinoa, you might even give them a 3. These were healthy and moist and held together well. With the added apricots and almonds they also looked lovely. But I found the quinoa taste a little off-putting. Frankly I'll stick to using it as a substitute for rice, couscous or potatoes for meals from now on.

Oatmeal-quinoa muffins with fruit and nuts
Makes 12

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa, rinsed
• 1/4 cup grapeseed or any neutral tasting vegetable oil
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup wheat germ
• ½ cup quick cooking oats (not instant)
• 3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup currants or raisins
• 1 dozen whole almonds
• Dried apricots, chopped to make 1 cup

• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small saucepan, bring quinoa and 1 cup water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover, and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, around 10 minutes. Let cool.
2. Meanwhile brush a standard 12-cup muffin pan with the vegetable oil. You can also use melted butter. Dust with flour and tap out excess. Or just use a non-stick pan, and use paper muffin cups.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, wheat germ, oatmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt, currants, chopped apricots and 2 cups of the cooked quinoa.
4. In a smaller bowl, whisk together oil, milk, egg, vanilla and cinnamon. Add liquid mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Stick two almonds into each muffin.
5. Bake 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Store in an airtight container up to 5 days.