Vegemite Chicken with Kai-Lan

Vegemite's mighty taste with chicken! I admit to scrunching my nose up onVegemite-slathered bread but love adding it into meat dishes as a soy sauce replacement. It's so easy to do and tastes really good as is.

Where Vegemite is concerned, I feel it isn't really necessary to combine it with other condiments or sauces to make a recipe better or a dish tastier because it's already flavourful enough on its own.

Vegemite Chicken

As long as I have Vegemite in the cupboard, you can bet that I will be making this chicken dish for dinner simply because it's easy to work with and goes yum with rice and plain porridge.

Ingredients (estimates):
- ½ chicken (cut into smaller pieces)
- 2 cloves garlic (chopped)
- ½ cup carrot (cut into wedges)
- ¾ cup white clamshell mushroom
- 1 cup potatoes (cut into wedges)
- 2 to 3 tbsp vegemite
- 2½ cups water
- A dash of white pepper
- 1 tsp corn flour (diluted in 1 tbsp water)
- Cooking oil

Serve with greens:
- 1 plate blanched kai-lan (blanched in water)

How-to:
1) Heat oil in pan. Saute garlic.
2) Add chicken, potatoes and carrots.  Stir to combine.
3) Add two tbsp vegemite, mix well. Stir for a minute or two before adding in the water.
4) Simmer covered on low heat until chicken, carrots and potatoes are cooked. Then, taste and stir in more vegemite, if necessary. Season with a dash of pepper.
5) Add clamshell mushrooms. Stir and cook uncovered on high heat until the water reduces to just about one cup of gravy.
6) Switch the fire off, stir in corn flour immediately and mix thoroughly.
7) Serve on top of blanched kai-lan.

Top : Ingredients (left), Coating the chicken with vegemite (right)
Bottom : Blanched kailan (left), Mushrooms added into cooked chicken (right)

Vegemite Chicken with Kai-Lan

Enjoy!

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Tauhu Bola (Tofu Balls) - Gluten Balls

There's always something interesting to be found in that little supermarket I frequent.
 

Tofu Balls of Crispy Lightness

These fried tofu balls are cute, aren't they? It caught my attention because it looked like a huge necklace. That's not a good reason to buy it, I know. But I did and got myself something new to try. I figured I could get some help from the internet.

Google..google....huh? Google wasn't giving me the 'tofu balls' I wanted. I couldn't find anything. I asked a friend instead and went by trial and error. 

How it's like - very light and crisp...very good for juggling too (no, don't do that..). It softens instantly in boiling water but remain crisp under cold water (I tested only minutes). What kind of soft? Something pleasantly flat and spongy but not difficult to tear.

It's a little oily. I would soak it in hot water for awhile and drain off or squeeze off excess oil.

Fried Tofu Balls - The insides are as crispy

After breaking the balls in half, I decided to fill it with a mixture of pork stuffing. I left it to simmer (stuffing facing upwards) without ever turning it over until the meat is cooked. That worked well for me considering how squishy soft this tofu was.

I also threw in some plain pieces into the same wok, swirling it around. It was done in minutes. On it's own, it is plain tasting. With gravy, yum!

To conclude, I find this tofu great in soupy or gravy dishes (steamed, simmered, braised). Until I explore further...

Updated 23rd Jan 2014:
A note from a dear friend.

This "Tauhu Bola" is called 'mean kan' (spoken in Cantonese). This is made from wheat flour (tepung gandum). It goes through a tedious process of kneading the flour under running tap water whereby all the flour content is washed off and what is left is a tangy and very elastic residue. Small 'balls' of this residue are then deep fried - the result is "Tauhu Bola" ~ Sue P.

In short, these are gluten balls. Tofu ball is a direct translation from the word "tauhu bola" (Malay) which is the product description on the packet I purchased.

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Oven-Baked Teriyaki Plum Sauce Chicken

A simple marinade, frequent basting, good food! This dish was the result of a nothing-too-fancy day for me. I kept the wok aside, yawned at the thought of cooking rice and two accompanying dishes.

I felt so uninspired that I grabbed two bottled sauces off the shelf and decided that it was all I was going to have for a chicken marinade. Teriyaki and plum sauce? You can never go wrong.

Oven-Baked Teriyaki Plum Sauce Chicken

How did it taste? Finger-licking flavourful sweet!

Ingredients:
For the chicken
- 4 drumsticks
- 1 tbsp teriyaki sauce (bottled)
- 1 tbsp plum sauce (bottled)
- ¼ tsp dried rosemary

1) Marinate chicken with teriyaki sauce, plum sauce and dried rosemary.
2) Line baking tray with foil before laying drumsticks on top. Leave aside.

For the potatoes and asparagus
- 4 large potatoes (cubed - one for each ramekin)
- 1 tbsp butter
- ¼ tsp dried rosemary
- Pinch of salt
- 8 to 10 stalks of asparagus (cut to fit into ramekins)
- A handful of shredded cheddar

1) In a bowl, mix potatoes, butter, rosemary and salt together.
2) Place potatoes into ramekins. Cover with foil.

How to:
1) Place baking tray with marinated drumsticks and ramekins with potatoes into oven.

2) Bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 40 minutes (until everything is cooked).

In between baking time
Baste drumsticks with marinade on the 15th minute. Baste every 7 minutes after.

Remove foil from ramekins 10 minutes before end of baking time. Add asparagus. Continue baking until asparagus is cooked (about 8 minutes). Then, sprinkle shredded cheddar on top. Bake for a minute and you're done.

From left (top): Marinate drumsticks. Buttering the potatoes. Place potatoes into ramekins.

From left (bottom): Put everything into the oven. Baste drumsticks and remove foil from ramekins to add asparagus. Finally, top with shredded cheddar.

Oven-Baked Teriyaki Plum Sauce Chicken

Wait a minute... this recipe sounds like a lot of work. I could have sworn I started out determined to do things as 'easy' as possible.

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