Poached Chicken

I love chicken too!

In a large pot, fill it half full with water. Add in a whole large onion (quartered) , a couple sticks of carrots (you don't need to peel, just scrub the dirt off and chop into large pieces) and 1 or 2 heads of garlic (if you want to peel it, that is fine). You can also add a sprig of celery, some leeks or any other kind of aromatic vegetables.

Time to add some herbs! Western style, you can add bay leaves, thyme, black peppercorn. Asian style, try lemongrass, black peppercorns (and some thai basil, lime juice and fish sauce when it's done).

Bring to a boil and add the chicken. You can use a whole chicken or chicken breasts for a healthier meal.

Bring it back to a boil and lower the heat and let simmer.

The cooking time should be 15 min per pound of chicken.

Salt and pepper to taste.

There are a couple ways to serve this meal.

Place the meat in a bowl with some noodles and add some broth.

In a separate pan, sauté some sliced mushroom with butter and add 2 – 3 ladles of the broth and let it reduce by half. Add some cream (table or whipping, depends how rich you want the sauce and how fat you want to look, haha!). Or don’t add it at all if you want to be skinny…

Pour the sauce over the meat with rice or pasta.

What to do with the leftover broth or meat…

You can add any kind of pasta to the broth, boil for 7 mins and there you have Chicken noodle soup.

You can use the broth as a base when making other soups or risotto.

Or just drink it!

Cream of Mushroom

What's better than a bowl of hearty chunky cream of mushroom when it's getting cold outside?

Dice 1 whole onion, 1 sprig of celery and some leeks. The amount is roughly 2 part onion to 1 part of celery and 1 part of leeks.

Sautee all of them with butter over medium heat until they are translucent. Of course, don’t forget to salt and pepper.

Add the sliced or diced mushroom.

The amount of mushroom is roughly 5 – 10 times the celery (depends on how strong you want the soup). You can use regular white button mushroom as it is relatively cheaper.

Just don’t use shitake mushroom!

Continue cooking the mixture until they are soft. You may need to add more butter as mushroom tends to suck up fat pretty quickly.

Stir in about 3 – 4 tablespoons of flour and cook for about 2 mins. This should thicken the soup when it is done. You can add more if you prefer a thicker consistency.

You can add in some dry white wine if you want, but if you do add wine, let it cook for another min.

At this point you can add liquid until it covers the sautéed mixture. You can use chicken or vegetable broth for a stronger taste or you can just use water. I recommend vegetable broth or water. If you use one of those boxed broth, get the low sodium one.

Bring it to a boil and simmer for 30 mins. On another pot, heat about 500mL of whipping cream. You can use table cream, I just like it richer :)

Do not boil!

When the soup base is done, pour into a blender in patches and puree. Add the hot cream to the pureed mixture. Adjust the amount of cream you want to use to your like.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve 4 – 6.

Enjoy!

Beef Carpaccio

I love raw beef! So here you go:

Use sirloin or tenderloin.

Remove any fat tissues (those silver skin) or tendon from the beef.

Heat a pan until it is very hot (almost smoking) and sear the beef on all sides with butter or olive oil or better its own fat about 45 secs per side.

Remove the seared beef from the pan and let it cool down.

Chop 1 part of rosemary and 1 part of sage.

Combine them with salt and pepper and a little bit of olive oil to form a paste.

Rub the paste to the beef and wrap it with plastic wrap.

Refrigerate.

Put it into the freezer for about an hour before serving.

To serve, slice the beef thinly and arrange on a plate.

Use the back of a spoon to flatten the beef if slices are too think (haha!).

Add fresh ground pepper, tiny bit of salt, a bunch of arugula (those peppery taste salad greens), a couple slices of parmesan, and drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top.

1 pound of beef should serve 6 ppl.

Enjoy!