Grilled Sasame Chicken Mid-Joints

Apart from the "Water Chestnut, Ginkgo and Lean Pork Soup(马蹄白果瘦肉汤)" (recipe HERE) which I have tried from the cooking show, here is another dish known as "Yong Ge Kao Ji Chi(永哥烤鸡翅)". This dish requires minimum ingredients such as light and dark soy sauce with garlic cloves as seasonings. And the end product taste great with a layer of beautiful char-grilled colour skin and lightly sesame fragrant that comes from the sesame oil and seeds.

Ingredients: (makes 8 Mid-joints)

8 Chicken Mid-Joints
4 Teaspoon of Light Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon of Dark Soy Sauce
1 Teaspoon of Cooking Wine
4 - 5 cloves of Garlic, lightly smashed
1.5 Teaspoon of Sesame Oil
1 Teaspoon of Sesame Seeds, optional

Method:-

1. Rinse and pat dry the mid-joint, make a small slit at both side of the joint so that the marinade will get into the flesh.

2. Marinate the mid-joint with light and dark soy sauce, cooking wine and garlic cloves for at least 20 minutes or more in the fridge.

3. Before baking, drizzling 1.5 teaspoons of sesame oil on the marinated mid-joints, toss well and arrange them on baking tray.

4. Bake in pre-heated 180 degree oven, on grilled function for about 20 20 - 30 minutes or till golden brown and cooked through. Alternatively;

5. You can bake the prepared mid-joints in oven toaster for about 30 minutes, turning occasionally between each 10 minutes to get that evenly brown colour.

6. Drizzle sesame seeds on the mid-joints at the last 2 minutes of baking time.


If you want to serve this as a one dish meal, perhaps you can used the de-boned chicken drumlets with thigh portion and serve this grilled chicken chop with steamed rice and salad or salad and fries too.

Another way of preparing Chicken Mid-Joint

Baked Sweet Chili Chicken, recipe HERE.

Thanks for all your "BUZZ(s)" and support friends. Grilled Sasame Chicken Mid Joints post has make it to FoodBuzz Today's Top 9, 08th March 2011.(Here)

Featured On: FoodBuzz Today's Top 9, 08th March 2011.(Here)

Marble Cake

Marble cake is a very common cake that can be easily found in most bakeries. It has a dotted or either mottled appearance achieved by very lightly blending of light and dark batter which is usual vanilla and chocolate mixture.

I still remember during my secondary home economic class, marble cake was one of the recipes that we love and it always made the class crazy because of the beating, mixing and swirling of batter. But after all the hassles we often enjoyed our freshly bake marble cake at the school canteen together with those male classmates who waited patiently for their treats.

Recently I was craving for some marble cake after reading Ju's (from"Little Teochew") Marble Cake post(HERE) where she shares a very beautiful and tempting marble cake recipe from BBC Good Food. 

Ingredients: (makes 7 - 8 mini loaves)

227g Unsalted Butter, softened
220g Caster Sugar
4 Large Eggs, 60g each
225g Self-raising Flour
3 Tablespoons(50ml) Fresh Milk
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
2 Tablespoon Dutch Process Cocoa Powder
Some Valrhona 70% Dark Chocolate, chopped into bite size pieces


Method:-
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree and line cake tin with greaseproof paper.

2. Cream soft butter and sugar in a big mixing bowl till light and creamy (about 2 - 8 minutes on medium low speed).

3. Next beat in egg one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

4. Fold through the flour, milk and vanilla essence until the mixture is smooth.

5. Divide the mixture between 2 bowls and stir in sifted cocoa powder into one of the bowl.

6. Take 1 - 2 spoons of the chocolate and vanilla cake batter alternately into the prepared tin.

7. When all the mixture has been used up, tap the bottom on the tin on your work surface to ensure that there aren't any air bubbles.

8. Take a skewer and swirl it around the mixture in the tin a few times to create a marbled effect.

9. Bake the cake for 25 minutes (using my mini loaf tin) until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

10. Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool. Will keep for 3 days in an airtight container or freeze for up to 3 months.


For this recipe, instead of baking it using the usual round or rectangle pan I decide to use my "Mini Loaf Pan" which can make around 7 - 8 loaves that I could share it among a few households. Overall the texture of  the marble cake was rich, fluffy and moist but somehow or rather it seems to be too soft that it always tends to break apart.

[Value Set Lunch] Nanxiang Steamed Bao Restaurant

Last week I went down to Nanxiang flagship outlet at Plaza Singapura to collect my dinning voucher which I have won from on one of their Facebook event. To be honest, I have not try any items from their 4 outlets even though I am very interested to find out more about their King Size Nanxiang Steamed Soup Bun(蟹黄灌汤包) which comes with a straw for customer to sip the soup broth.

My S$20.00 Nanxiang Voucher from their Chinese New Year Facebook event.(read more HERE)

While collecting my voucher, we were attracted to their Set Lunch promotion menu which comes in two different different category such as Signature Value Set Lunch (S$27.60 for 2 pax) and Superior Value Set Lunch (S$35.60 for 2 pax).

Both of their value set lunch categories have similar items except on the "Steamed Bun and Home Made Style Dish". So after comparing both the menu, we decided to have the Superior Value Set Lunch because I wanted to try their "Salted Egg Yolk Prawns" and "Spicy Crabmeat and Pork Filling Steamed Bun".

Out of the 6 items from the "Shanghai Cold Dish" column we decided to try their recommending "Nanxiang Drunken Chicken(南翔糟鸡)" and leave the "Chilled Tofu with Century Egg" on our next visit. Their Drunken is lightly infused with Chinese wine fragrance that does not overpower the taste of the chilled chicken.
À La Carte Price: S$6.80 per plate

Making a decision between crab roe and crabmeat could be something difficult especially for those who loves to eat crab. Here at their Superior Steamed Bun column, you can either take up the non-spicy "Crab Roe and Pork Filling Steamed Bun(蟹黄小笼)" or be more adventure like us and try their "Spicy Crabmeat And Pork Filling Steamed Bun"(香辣蟹肉小笼).

At first we thought that their "spicy crabmeat" might be something similar to Din Tai Fung's Chili Crab Xiao Bao Long but when we get to taste it, it was totally different. This one at Nanxiang, the soup broth is rather clear with hint of spiciness from the spices used which makes it taste like a bit overdo for the combination.
À La Carte Price: S$11.80 per basket of 6 steamed buns

For Dim Sum pastries usually I would prefer something sweet rather than savoury. But for this round I am attracted to this "Salt and Pepper Cashew Nut Pastry(椒盐腰果酥)" which I am curious about it's taste. Overall this little treat taste great with bites of chopped cashew nut that mixed with their tasty seasoning which wrapped in layers of crispy dough pastry.
À La Carte Price: S$3.30 per plate



This "Salted Egg Yolk Prawn(黄金虾仁)" is the main reason why I choose their Superior Value Set Lunch(S$35.60++ for 2 pax) rather then the Signature Set (S$27.60++ for 2 pax). Each prawn is shelled for your convenient, coated with flour batter, deep fried till golden and crispy before coating with a luxury layer of salted egg yolk sauce. Thumb up for this!
À La Carte Price: S$12.80 per plate

To complete the value set, you can choose any 2 items from the Fried Rice/Noodles category. From the menu, we picked this "Shanghai Vegetable Rice(上海菜饭)" which might look plain but the taste is definitely better than some other fried rice that I recent tried in another Hong Kong cafe.
À La Carte Price: S$7.00 per plate

Other than Fried Rice we also try one of their noodle item which is the "Nanxiang Dumplings with Noodle Soup(南翔小馄饨汤面)". Sad to say although the texture of the noodle is springy and good but their dumplings were just average in taste, nothing fancy. 
À La Carte Price: S$8.00 per plate

Other then those dishes from the Superior Set Lunch above, we also order this Must Try "King Size Nanxiang Steamed Soup Bun(蟹黄灌汤包)" it will be serve with a straw to drink the soup broth.
À La Carte Price: S$6.80 each

The rich broth is being concealed in the thick layer of bun skin together with generous amount of crabmeat and roes. Each sip leaves you with that warm and sweet taste release from the ingredients used, but I find the taste a bit too strong to my liking.  And for your information those bun skin is rather hard for consuming as it is especially made to hold the soup broth but by all means you can still tear it open to enjoy the remaining pieces of crabmeat and roe after you have done with the soup.


If you are interested to try out their any of their steamed bun or Shanghai dishes, Nanxiang has 3 restaurant outlets(detail HERE) in Singapore whereby their new flagship outlet is situated at level 2, Plaza Singapura. And there is also a Nanxiang Express takeaway Xiao Long Bao, pastries and etc at NEX Mall, Serangoon Central. You can also take a look at their ONLINE MENU that comes with photo and price list HERE.

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant(南翔馒头店)

68 Orchard Road
#02-01 Plaza Singapura
Singapore 238839
Contact: 6337 7446
Website: http://www.nanxiang.com.sg/index.php
Facebook Page : Click HERE

Operation Hours:
Monday to Friday:  Lunch 11.30am - 3.00pm,  Dinner 6.00pm - 10.00pm
Saturday, Sunday and PH: 11.00am to 10.00pm

[Enjoy 1-FOR-1] New McGRILL Burger @ McDonald

This morning I received a tweet from McCafeSG on this "1-FOR-1" coupon which we can redeem 1 FREE item from the A la carte Burgers, Chicken Nuggets and McWings. And the FREE items will be the same as the purchased item. [Eg: For any McChicken Value Meal purchased, you will get 1 FEE McChicken Burger.]



Since last week I could not make it for their official media launch event, today We decided to take this opportunity to try their new launch McGRILL Burger by using this 1-FOR-1 coupon .

The tender and juice Chicken is grilled using chicken thigh meat that is marinated with teriyaki sauce and topped with fresh whole-leaf lettuce, red tomatoes slices which then sandwich in between their Bakery style Sourdough Bun and Chargrill Sauce. Each mouthful taste great with the sweet and chargrill fragrance that is release from the chicken and its' sauce.

For your information this "Teppanyaki Chicken McGrill Burger" will be sold at S$5.50 (a la carte) and S$8.00 as an Extra value meal.

So if you prefer grilled chicken over deep-fried version, do grab this opportunity and download/print this coupon at their website here http://makeitbetter.sg/coupon.html or visit their official website for more detail @ http://makeitbetter.sg/index.php. Promotion Valid till 07 March 2011.