Korean Marinaded Chicken Filet, Brussel Sprouts with Balsamic Glaze, and Toasted Avocado

Hello! When I first started this blog, I had a lot of posts that featured my own cooking and recipes, but as the blog developed, it mostly revolved around restaurant reviews. I have had a couple of friends telling me about how much they enjoyed my recipes and how they learnt how to make a specific dish from my blog. Hearing such things has always made me so happy so I will make it a point to include more cooking/recipe posts!

This was a meal I made for T and I didn't take too many step by step pictures as I was not originally planning to post this! T is always talking about his salads and chicken breasts and I wanted to make him something just as healthy but a little bit more interesting. I got my Brussels Sprouts recipe from The Pioneer Woman and just made some minor adjustments. The recipes here are super simple and T seemed to have quite enjoyed it even though he was suffering from a raging hangover :)

Korean Marinated Chicken

Ingredients
- Chicken filets
- Korean Marinade (you can get these in most supermarkets but I am certain they have it at City Super and the supermarket in SOGO. The one I used was actually for beef kalbi but it worked really well with the chicken too!
- Ziplock bag (This is not essential as you can also marinade the meat in a bowl but I had to bring the ingredients to T's house to cook it therefore the ziplock bag was very convenient)

Directions
1) Wash and pat dry the chicken filets with paper towels.
2) Poke holes into the chicken filets with a fork. This will help the marinade penetrate the meat more. 
3) Place chicken filets in the ziplock bag and pour in a decent amount of marinade. I did not measure the amount but you need to make sure that there is enough marinade for all the chicken pieces to be submerged and exposed to the marinade.
4) Close the bag (duh) and massage around the chicken to ensure that the marinade is distributed evenly and that all the pieces of chicken are covered. 
5) Place in fridge and marinate overnight. 

The next day

1) Heat olive oil in a frying pan and allow the pan to get quite hot in order to get a nice browning on the chicken.
2) Cook each side for approximately 5 minutes. After browning the chicken for around 1 minute, turn down the heat or else it will be burnt. 

Brussels Sprouts with Balsamic Glaze 

Ingredients
- 2 packs of Brussels Sprouts (I forgot to check how large each bag was but you can get a estimate of the amount from the pictures. These were washed and trimmed already but I still trimmed off some stalks and gave them a quick rinse anyways)
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar 
- Salt and Pepper 

Directions 
1) Preheat oven to 375˚F/180˚C
2) Trim and wash the Brussels Sprouts. Lightly pat dry with paper towels. Do not get rid of the leaves that fall out, they turn deliciously crispy when baked! 
3) I preferred my Brussels Sprouts to be halved but I kept the smaller ones intact. 
4) Line a baking pan with aluminum foil and pour in the Brussels Sprouts. 

5) Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Toss to distribute evenly. 

6) Bake for around 25-30 minutes or until the Brussels Sprouts are nicely golden. The glaze takes around 15 minutes to make so plan accordingly. 

Tip: do not be fooled by the color on the top, it will be slightly golden but the bottom of the sprouts which are touching the foil will be very nicely browned. If you wait until the top is very brown the bottom will most likely be burnt! 

Making the Glaze 

1) Pour 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar into a pot and simmer for 15 minutes until the vinegar is nice and thick. The Pioneer Woman recipe called for sugar too but I felt that the reduced vinegar is quite sweet enough. 
2) Drizzle the glaze over the Brussels Sprouts and toss around. 

Toasted Avocado

This is pretty straight forward, you can easily eat the avocado as it is but T wanted to contribute to the cooking and I do think that the toasting of the avocado does make it slightly more creamy :) Sprinkle with some black pepper. 

Tada!

Bruschetta

Bruschetta is one of my favorite things to make, its simple, fast, and so delicious.

Ingredients 
Serves 4 people 

1. 2-3 tomatoes depending on the size 
2. 2 loaves of french bread 
3. Fresh basil leaves
4. 1 tablespoon of finely minced onions
5. 1 clove of garlic
6. Balsamic vinegar
7. Olive oil 

Directions

1. Slice and dice up your tomatoes 

2. Finely mince a clove of garlic. Some recipes rub the bread with the garlic but I like adding it to the actual bruschetta mixture.

3. Add in the finely minced onions. It's really important that you mince it as finely as you can because a huge chunk of onion would be quite unpleasant!

4. Roll up your leaves into a tight bundle then slice thinly (saw this on cooking shows hehe)

5. Add to the mixture

6. Pour in balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Start by adding a little, mixing, tasting, then adjusting the flavors.

7. It's ok if its a little watery, when you spoon the mixture along with the juices onto the crusty bread, you will be happy it has all this extra moisture. Yum. You can prepare this an hour or two before dinner time and put it in the fridge so all the flavors have time to come together. 

8. Get your two loaves and slice it so that there is a good amount of surface area. If the bread is sliced too small the tomatoes will be falling all over the place when you try to shove it in your mouth!

9. I like to toast the bread until they are a bit browner than I would usually like. But this is perfect for bruschetta because as I mention before there is a lot of delicious juices from the tomato mixture that will seep into the bread so the extra crunchy will be perfect. Enjoy!

Mothers Day Dinner - Lamb Shank Mint Ragu with Pappardelle

Cooking a great meal for loved ones if one of life's greatest pleasures. It always fills me with such happiness when I see my parents and friends enjoying something that I made. It has been so long since I've posted an original recipe and this one was absolutely delicious so I hope you guys will give it a go! It is quite time consuming though but it is so worth it! I definitely don't think I would make it for just anyone though, I was slaving away in the kitchen from 4 until 8:30, but my parents absolutely loved it which made all the hard work so worth it. I also made bruschetta so I will post that recipe next!

Ingredients

Serves 4-6 (sorry a bit vague, my parents and I were stuffed and I still have a huge tub of leftovers)

Cooking time: 4 hours 

1. 2 lamb shanks
2. Fresh mint leaves
3. 7 tomatoes
4. 1 large onion
5. 3 cloves of garlic
6. 4 shallots
7. Half a can of tomato paste 
8. 1 cup of chicken or pork stock
9. 2 carrots 
10. 1 cup of red wine
11. Pappardelle 
12. Salt and pepper

Some ingredients like the canned diced tomatoes were not used.

Directions

1. Slice up the shallots, dice up the onions, and the tomatoes. Slave away :)

2. Grate up the carrot. It is better to grate it than dicing it up because carrots take quite long to cook and you don't want chunks of carrot in your sauce.

Looks like cheddar cheese doesn't it?

3. Rinse the lamb shanks and pat dry with a towel. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.

4. Heat up some oil in a pan and brown the shanks on all sides. The house will smell like lamb heaven now.

5. After the lamb is browned on all sides remove them and put on a plate. This stuff on the pan is gold. Don't get rid of it! Pour in the garlic, onions, and shallots and sauté until translucent.

6. Pour in the carrots. Sauté.

7. And the tomatoes. Cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat.

8. Pour in the cup of red wine. I used Shiraz but anything is fine. Stir.

9. Pour in a cup of stock, I used pork stock. Stir and cook for a couple of minutes.

10. Add in half a can of tomato paste.

11. Add the lamb shanks back into the pan. It's ok if the lamb shanks are not completely submerged into the sauce. You will be flipping them around. Put the lid on and cook for 2-3 hours on low heat. Check on the lamb shanks every 20 or so minutes to flip them around and  to stir the sauce around.

12. Mmmm starting to look so rich and delicious. Take the lamb shanks out when the meat is tender and cut the meat away from the bones. This should be around 1 and half hours to 2 hours. Slice the meat into small pieces but not too small, you still want a bite to them.

Kind of looks like curry...?

13. Add the meat back to the sauce and continue cooking.

14. Take a couple leaves of mint and dice very finely. The mint was lovely in the sauce but make sure you start out with a little and add more after mixing it and tasting it. You don't want the mint to be too overpowering.

15. Heat up a large pot of water and salt it generously. Cook the pappardelle until al dente.

Beautiful ribbons 

16. Plate up! Make a nice pile of the yellow ribbons of pappardelle onto a plate and ladle the delicious sauce on top. Garnish with a sprig of mint. Enjoy!