Commercial Break : Brining

I have a non-secret to share with you all. BRINING.

Result: Super tender and moist chicken...Literally, "sarap to the bones"...even the white meat comes out so tasty!

What you need:

Enough brine solution to cover the chicken (1/4 cup salt to 1 liter of water)

chicken

Marinade:

1 lemon (or calamansi equivalent)

cilantro, sage or any of your favorite herb

lots of garlic (I used 1 head for 4 pieces of chicken thigh--> the more the many-er)

olive oil

Before you head out to the grocery to buy chicken, prepare the brine. Use hot water so the salt will be fully immersed in the water or else, the salt will settle into a part of a chicken or worse, the skin. It will make that part too salty. I learned that the hard way...GAWK!

Soak the chicken in the salt water overnight. Make sure the brine is cool before using it!

Prepare the marinade right after you put the chicken in the fridge. This will allow the oil to soak up the flavours of the garlic, lemon and herbs.

You can put the marinade in the fridge as well.

Right after you've had your breakfast of pancakes with eggs and bacon, prepare the chicken. Throw away the brine and make sure the chicken is dry. Put the chicken in a plastic bag or container with the marinade. Store this in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

...after 4 hours...

Because you would rather look like Nigella Lawson than Gillian McKeith, you will sneak in some butter under the skin of the chicken.

AND because you are like me, who HATE burnt garlic, you will hide the garlic pieces under the skin as well...

Use fan-forced grill at 180C, 20 minutes on each side.

Y.U.M

Ladies Man

"Ya, OK!"

expression of the week

Commercial Break : Melon Juice

The Melon Scraper Has Been Located

We don't know why you suddenly crave for things you would normally never crave for back in Manila.

Sam's school wants the parents to bring a dish to the annual Christmas party. Since we are sure that the buffet table will be filled with enough cupcakes to rival a cupcake store, we decided to bring melon juice.

You will need:

Half a melon

Water

Syrup (1 cup of hot water with about 8 tbs of water)

Condense Milk (optional)

This melon scraper* was so hard to find in Sydney! But we found it!!! (....doing the Dance of Joy from Perfect Strangers)

It just took 2 minutes to scrape the whole thing out.

Fill the pitcher with water and add the syrup. Allow the syrup to cool before adding it.

Variation 1: Serve cold. YUM. Takes us back to Virra Mall days.

Variation 2: Before serving, add a couple of (a whole lota) dollops of condense milk to make melon milk. YUMMIER.

* Manila Sari-Sari Store -Shop 38, Level 2, Lemon Grove Shopping Center, Chatswood, NSW

Commercial Break : Soban

Soban

http://www.soban.com.au/

1 Anderson St, Shop 602 Level 6 Westfield
Chatswood, NSW 2067

We have been to Soban about 6 times. To tell you the truth, we have only tried 2 dishes. And we will probably only get to EVER try these 2 dishes because they are sooooo good. We wish we have 3 tummies each so we can try other dishes.

Kimchi Fried Rice with Seafood Cream Sauce

Pork Belly Mu-chim

Sam loves the vinaigrette in this Pork Belly Mu-chim. He couldn't get enough of it and decided he owned the plate.

Kodak Moment

These are the moments...

Commercial Break : Chicken Recipe

What you will need:

1.5 tbs of paprika

1 tbs of salt

1 tbs of sugar

1 tbs of garlic powder (optional)

a bit of oil

6 pieces of chicken thigh, skin on

Marinade the chicken with all the ingredients listed above for at least 4 hours. Pierce the side of the chicken with no skin to let the spices penetrate the chicken. Think about your annoying officemate while you are doing this. Store in the fridge until ready to cook.

Put the chicken in a roasting pan. Skin-side down.

Set the oven at 180C. Use fan forced grill so the skin will turn out crispy. Start with bottom side of the chicken for 20 minutes. Turn the chicken over and cook for another 15 minutes. You can stop thinking about your annoying officemate now. That would be too cruel.

Turn off the oven and let the chicken sit in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Sam is a picky eater who will eat toast with Vegemite everyday if you let him. The fact that he finished this plate makes this dish a W.I.N.N.E.R!!!

Caveat:

I am not an expert and may have broken all known cooking principles. But the chicken turned out so yummy. Credit goes to nana!

Left-over update:

Microwaved the left-over chicken for next day's dinner. The skin was still oh-so-crispy! YUM!

Besties

Teacher 1 : Sam and BFF are really good friends. Today, we put a hat on Sam. BFF must not have recognized him because he started crying and saying, "Sammy gone! Sammy gone!" Then I pointed out Sam to him.

Teacher 2 : BFF was so happy. He started dancing and jumping up and down with joy!

*Mommy misses her besties