Chicken and Sausage Stir-Fry

This is just one of the lutong-bahay recipes I'll be practicing from now on. I bought the ingredients for this dish two months ago, and it wasn't until last Friday that I was able to make it for dinner (:sheepish grin:). If you love Chinese sausages, then you'll love this dish.

My brother, who loves anything salty, thought the dish was too bland for his taste. He suggested frying the sausages first, before adding it in, to make the dish more flavorful.

Ingredients:
8 pieces chicken thighs (you can use whole chicken cut into serving parts)
1/4 cup rock salt
1/4 cup corn oil
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 to 2 T oyster sauce
1 tsp 5-spice powder
1 tsp pepper mill grind black pepper
1 cup water
2 to 3 pieces Chinese sausages, sliced diagonally
3/4 cup sliced canned button mushrooms
3 cups bok choy (pechay Tagalog or Taiwan pechay), cut into 2-inch lengths
2 T cornstarch dispersed in 1/4 cup water

Procedure:
1. Rub the chicken with salt. Rinse and pat dry.

2. Heat oil in a frying pan. Add the garlic and the onions and saute until onions are transparent. Add chicken pieces and continue to cook until chicken changes color. Add oyster sauce, five-spice powder and black pepper. Pour in the water and the sliced sausages and let boil. Simmer until chicken is done. Add the mushrooms and the pechay Tagalog and continue to cook until the vegetables are done. Disperse cornstarch in water and add to the pan. Continue to cook just until the sauce thickens. Serve immediately.

It's been so long since I last posted something. I wasn't able to take good pictures of some of the viands I cooked, so I didn't bother posting them. I have been baking a lot of cookies though, for the cookie business that a friend and I are starting. It has been exhausting, working the whole day, then baking at night. But nothing beats the rush I get after the cookies are done. Especially when they come out moist and flavorful. :)

I have been so busy with work these last two weeks that I have hardly had time to bake anything. I just got home from a China trip, and I promised myself that I would bake two batches of cookies in order to meet the deadline I set with my partner. Well, half the week is almost over now, and I'm stuck here at home, down with fever and flu. I did consider baking even with my sick conditions, but decided against it, as I didn't want to spread the virus to our beloved taste testers!

Aside from that, Mike and I are tying the knot next year, as I posted in my other blog . Yay! So aside from the wedding preparations, I need to brush up on my culinary skills as well. I can't be baking cakes and pies for dinner every night. Hehe. I have to admit that I have never tried my hand at cooking Filipino dishes. Oh wait, I did try to make adobo during our stay in Canada. I didn't have a recipe for it, so I ended up with a different recipe instead, which I call Chicken with Caramelized Onions. I honestly did not know that making adobo does not require onions. The chicken dish tasted nothing like adobo, but it tasted good na din! A cross between chicken terriyaki and bistek Tagalog.

I need to do so many things. Develop cookie recipes. Practice more cooking and less baking. But I can't start because I'm sick! I'm taking erythromycin, and Mike said that one of the side effect of the drug is that you're hungry all the time. Now, I don't know if this is how other parents treat their sick children, but here in our household, when we are sick, we can't eat anything with oil in it. (Does this hold true for other parents as well? Enlighten me, please.) So, I am stuck eating oil-less foods like bread with pork floss, fruits, etc. Which is hard, since I'm craving for oily pizza, oily adobo, oily pasta all the time. :)

Spaghetti ala Carbonara

Anything with cream in it, I like.

I just feel that everything tastes better with cream. Creamy soup, creamy pasta sauces, whipped cream in my frapuccino, cream frosting....YUM!

I have been wanting to try this recipe for the last few weeks. But laziness got the better of me so I postponed and delayed and postponed some more until one Sunday afternoon, I just couldn't stop craving for carbonara. Coincidentally, our maid prepared spaghetti noodles for that day. Yay! At least there are noodles ready.

This recipe is from Chef Gene's pasta class. I have to admit though, that this is one of the best carbonara recipes I have tried. And I have tried a lot!

Ingredients:

1 box (225 grams) spaghettie, cooked al dente
150 gm. pancetta, sliced (*use bacon if pancetta not available)
3 pcs. garlic, minced
2 cups heavy cream
3 pcs. eggs
3 pcs. eggyolks
1 c Parmesan cheese
freshly ground black pepper
salt
pinch nutmeg

Procedure:
1. Pan fry pancetta. Remove fried bits. In pancetta oil, brown minced garlic.

2. Add cream. Allow to boil then lower heat. In a bowl, whisk together eggs and eggyolks. Pour a little hot cream into egg mixture, and whisk back into pan. Mix for at least 30 seconds.

3. Remove from heat and add the cheese. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Toss into hot pasta. Serve at once.

Hope you like this as much as I did!