Busy Bee Cafe

I haven’t had Chinese takeaway for a while now. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I had Chinese takeaway that I think it must be before Little Bee was born.

I was ill with chickenpox for the last couple of weeks and as I didn’t have much energy to cook most nights or even care about eating, hubby bought Chinese takeaway for himself one night.

Then the other day, I saw a picture of lemon chicken that someone made in a group that I’m in on FB and suddenly I started thinking that maybe I’ll just pick up the phone and order Chinese takeaway, but I stopped myself. Even if I do order takeaway, I still have to cook for Little Bee as I prefer her to have home cooked meal and she’ll be wondering why we’re not eating with her as we always have the same food together.

So I made it. OK it’s deep fried but surely knowing what I put in it is better than just dialing for the food to be delivered ready to eat but not knowing what’s in it.

The sauce is separate from the chicken above as Little Bee was having her bath and I didn’t want the dish to be too soggy, so I kept it separate until everyone was at the table.

Ingredients:

400g boneless chicken cut into bite pieces
2tbsp light soy sauce
2 eggs, beaten
30g corn flour
1/2tsp baking powder
A pinch of fresh ground white pepper
Oil for deep frying
30g sugar
250ml water
Juice of 1 lemon
3 slices of lemon
1 cube of chicken stock
1 1/2 tbsp corn flour
2tbsp water

1. Combine the chicken and soy sauce in a bowl, mix and set aside for it to marinade for 30 minutes.
2. In another bowl, combine the eggs, corn flour, baking powder and pepper. Mix well and tip the batter into the bowl of chicken and soy sauce and coat the chicken pieces with the batter.
3. Heat oil in a wok, if you don’t have a deep fryer like me, on high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and deep fry the chicken pieces in batches until fully cooked. Place the cooked pieces on paper towel to drain acces oil.
4. In a pan, add sugar, water, lemon juice, lemon slices and cube of chicken stock and heat on medium heat. Dissolve the corn flour and water and pour it into the lemon sauce. Simmer until it’s mixed well and the sauce has thicken.
5. Pour the sauce over the chicken and you could sprinkle some sesame seeds over, which I didn’t here as I forgot Serve with rice and vegetables.

Whenever you see the word ‘mee’ on any of my post, it stands for noodles. That’s what we call it in Malaysia and that’s what I call it where ever I am.

It has been freezing lately in London. Too cold for it to be March. So cold that a nice bowl of soup would be lovely indeed… and guess what? It was lovely. So lovely that Little Bee picked every sweetcorn up with her chopsticks!

There are many recipes for mee soup. Some are very elaborate but when you’ve spent the whole day at work and then dragging your child home and getting you child ready for the evening, all you want is something really simple, and this is very simple!

Oh… I used capelli d’angelo as I didn’t have egg noodles but obviously you could swap it with egg noodles or any other noodles that you fancy.

Ingredients:

Capelli d’angelo, cooked, drained and leave to the side in cold water
1 tbsp oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 boneless chicken breasts
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
1 cube vegetable stock
500ml water
1 carrot, jullienned
2 large Chinese cabbage leaves, sliced
1 small tin of sweetcorn
2 spring onions, sliced

1. Heat oil in a pan, add garlic and fry for a minute. Add the chicken and let it seal which takes about a couple of minutes. Add the ginger, vegetable stock and water. Bring to boil.
2. Reduce the heat and add the vegetables. Cover and let it simmer until the chicken is cooked.
3. Drain the pasta/noodles and put it into the bowls to be served. Ladle the soup into the bowls. Put the chicken breasts on to a chopping board and chop them into bite size. Put the chicken into the bowls on top of the noodles.

You can garnish it with corriander leaves, sliced chilli and sprinkle soy sauce over it. But I like it as it is

I made Hainanese Chicken Rice (a recipe for another time) on Sunday. And we had leftover roast chicken.

Mondays is usually my lazy day. First day back at work and too tired by the time I get home that it’s usually just opening cans of soup and dunking bread into it.

Tuesdays it gets a bit better and I just boil pasta and add frankfurters and cream and vege.

But, yesterday, a Monday, as I had leftover chicken, why not combine it with my usual lazy Tuesday food! Plus, at least I won’t forget about it in the fridge and throwing it away in a weeks time!

Win for everyone.

1 tbsp olive oil
Leftover hainanese roast chicken shredded (this was marinated in soy sauce, ginger juice, honey and 5 spice; and it was one breast, one drumstick and two chicken wings leftover)
A bowl of cauliflower (Little Bee is in her cauliflower phase)
A handful of sugarsnap peas
300ml single cream
1 vegetable cube
2 spoonfuls of the stock from the roast
5 handfuls of penne pasta (boiled and set aside)

1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the shredded chicken, cauliflower and sugarsnap peas. Stir and cover the pot and let it steam for a minute or two. Do check and stir to make sure they don’t burn!
   
2. Add the cream, stir and reduce the heat and let it bubble for 5 minutes. Again keep on checking that it’s not burning (a bit difficult when I was also giving Little Bee her bath).
3. Crumble the vege stock and add the roast stock and stir in the pasta. It’s ready to serve when the cauliflower is nice and soft. I tend to break the cauliflower into little pieces for quicker cooking time

I found this recipe on justbento.com (currently my favourite site). I don’t eat pork or anything that comes out of a pig but I don’t mind finding alternatives to feed my little family. So, now I am quite happy that I’ve found a substitute when a recipe has ham in it.

I have to say that my first go was OK but verging to disaster as it was a bit salty. My fault for being lazy and not rinse the chicken breast properly. But I am getting better at it and am happy to share my take on the recipe… as I decided to use what is in the cupboard, I don’t have sea salt as in the justbento recipe, I just used normal salt. It might taste better with sea salt… I’ll try it one day..,. when I remember to add sea salt to my shopping list.

Ingredients:

1tbsp clear runny honey
1tsp salt
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
1tsp dried thyme
1tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 freezer/ziplock bag
cling film

1. Put the honey and salt in a freezer bag and squish the bag around to mix it.
2. Add the chicken breast into the bag and squish it around again to coat the chicken breast with the mixture.
3. Add thyme and pepper and squish the bag again to evenly coat the chicken.
4. Squeeze the air out of the bag, seal it and leave chicken to marinate in the fridge for 48hours.
5. After 48hours, take the chicken out of the bag and rinse well under the cold water tap. Leave it to soak in plenty of cold water for an hour to desalinate.
6. Bring a pot of water to a boil. While the water is heating up, take the chicken out of the cold water and wipe off access liquid with paper towels.
7. Lay the clingfilm down and roll the chicken breast tightly. Seal the edges by twisting them like a candy wrapper. Then take a smaller piece of clingfilm, roll it around the chicken again to secure the edges.
8. Reduce the heat and let the water simmer. Drop in the wrapped chicken and let it simmer for five minutes. Take it off the heat and cover the pot with a tight fitting lid and leave it to poach for at least an hour.
9. After an hour, you can take it out and slice it and it’s ready for your sandwich or bento box

I tend to make more than one chicken breast at a time but when I do this, I still put each chicken breast in separate bag and cling film.

I really have no idea why I thought making chicken stock was difficult and time consuming when in actual fact, after fiding a recipe here and making it a few times, it’s such a time saver and, the plus side, I know what in the stock and how much salt is in Little Bee’s food!

OK, it takes a few hours to cook and wait for it to cool down and pack into individual freezer bags and cooling it further in the fridge before putting the bags in the freezer, but preparation time is 10 minutes tops! After that I just left it on the stove for a couple of hours and that is a couple of hours where I can just forget about it and do my chores, entertain Little Bee, gardening or have a nap with Little Bee.

And the reward is lots of stock to use for lots of dishes.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut into 4 pieces
3 celery, roughly chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
1 large onion, quartered
1 head garlic, cut in half
Mushroom stems
1 leek, roughly chopped
4 bay leaves
5 sprigs of fresh thyme
A handful of parley stems
1/2 tsp salt
1tsp black peppercorn
4 liter water

1. In a large pot, combine all the ingredients and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 hours.
2. Remove from heat and strain through a fine sieve into another container.
3. Remove the meat from the bones and reserve it for other use, i.e. sandwich filling, add to pasta sauce, etc. Discard the bones and vegetables.
4. Let the stock cool completely and refrigerate overnight. Skim any fat that forms on the surface. I them put 300ml in individual freezer bags and freeze for when I need to use it.

 I got this recipe from one of my Periplus Mini Cookbooks that I bought when I was in either Malaysia or Singapore or Bali. I have always been interested in cooking Thai but kept thinking that the dishes are complicated. Silly me… they are no more complicated than Malaysian cooking.

The recipe used pork, but obviously as I don’t consume pork, I changed it to chicken breast and omitted the 1/2 tsp of salt as I feel the soy sauce and fish sauce is salty enough.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

2 fresh coriander stems and roots
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp white peppercorn
1 chicken breast, minced
1 can (300g) corn kernels, drained
1 egg
1 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp corn flour
1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tbsp fish sauce
5 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
Vegetable oil for frying

1. Pound the coriander stems and roots, garlic and white peppercorn using a pestle and mortar until fine. Put the pounded ingredients in a mixing bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Stir and mix well.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan or wok over medium-high heat. Scoop tablespoons of mixture and carefully slide each patty off the spoon into the hot oil. Cook on both side until golden brown. Remove and drain on kitchen roll. It’s nice on its own or serve with some chili sauce, hot or cold.

Ages ago, I bought a Crock Pot. I never really warmed to it. The first dish I tried to make was bolognese sauce and I didn’t like it. I thought the mince tasted funny.

But about a month ago when I started to get addicted to Pinterest, I found this slow cooker Crock Pot recipe. Out came the Crock Pot and I started experimenting.

And now that Little Bee has dinner instead of milk before bed, it turned out to be a great gadget indeed. Warm home cooked meal when I get home with Little Bee… what more can a working mother ask for? Instead of having the TV babysit Little Bee while I cook… or buying ready meals… or making her fish fingers rather than proper food… I actually get to spend a bit more time with her in the evenings.

I still find the beef tastes a bit weird… not bad weird as it is still tasty. The chicken tastes great! And this chicken recipe was the first I made.

Ingredients:

3 pieces of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite size
50g plain flour
1tsp ground black pepper or paprika powder
2tbsp cooking oil
1tsp balsamic vinegar
3tbsp tomato ketchup
200ml orange juice concentrated
2tbsp brown sugar

1. In a ziplock bag (or use a dish if you don’t have it) mix the flour and black pepper or paprika powder. Toss the chicken cube into the flour mixture until well coated.
2. Heat oil in a frying pan over moderate heat and brown the chicken for a couple of minutes. The chicken does not have to cook through as it is going to go into the Crock Pot for hours! Put in the chicken in the Crock Pot.
3. In a bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients and pour it over the chicken. Cover and cook on low for minimum 5 hours… or like me from 7am until 5:30pm when I get home.

Serve it with rice and it does rival any Chinese takeaway sweet and sour chicken!

What do you do when you have chicken nuggets on the menu and then you discover that you don’t have any breadcrumbs?

For me, I either had a choice of going out in the cold to buy some breadcrumbs or bread to make breadcrumbs… or I could raid Little Bee’s stash of rice krispies and stay warm indoors. I chose the latter

Ingredients:

50g plain flour
2 eggs
75g rice krispies
a handful of fresh chives
a dash of smoked powdered paprika
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed

1. Preheat oven at gas mark 6/200C.
2. Place the flour in a ziploc bag or a dish, if you don’t have a bag. Beat the eggs in a bowl and set aside. Blitz together the rice krispies, chives and paprika in a blender to make crumbs and place it in a separate dish.
3. Toss the chicken cubes in the flour until well coated, dip them in the beaten eggs and then cover them with the rice krispies crumbs. Place them on a baking tray in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, until golden and cooked through.
4. Serve them with a dollop of ketchup and don’t forget to buy a box of rice krispies later or the next day, to replace the ones you took

A few weeks ago, Little Bee and I went to a Malaysian Christmas Meetup gathering with Alice. For starters, there was chicken wings and Little Bee really tucked into them, sucking the bones and all! So this is my attempt to replicate when I saw this recipe.

Sticky Chicken Wings

Ingredients:

750g chicken wings
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 inch cinnamon stick
2 star anise
3 dried chillies
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp sweet soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
80ml water
1 tbsp ginger, minced

1. Remove the wing tips and cut the wings into two pieces.
2. Heat the oil on moderate heat and add the chicken wings when the oil is really hot. Cook the chicken wings until they are golden and add the cinnamon stick, star anise and dried chillies. Reduce the heat and cook for a further couple of minutes until fragrant.
3. Add the light soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, sugar, water and ginger. Stir and bring the sauce to simmer. Cover and let it simmer for a further 10 minutes.
4. Increase the heat slightly and uncover. Stir it occasionally until the sauce is reduced to a thick glaze. The wings are now ready to be served. ENJOY