Recipe: Empire Roast Chicken (Jamie Oliver's Recipe)

Essentially, I was bored of the normal lemon + garlic roast chicken, so once day I googled roast chicken recipes and stumbled upon Jamie Oliver's Empire Roast Chicken. I had almost 95% of the ingredients so proceeded to try it out. The first time I made it, I only marinaded it for 15 minutes, but the second time I made the chicken, I marinaded it before I went to work and cooked it around 10 hours after marinading it. The several hours of marinading really did the trick as the chicken was more juicy and the flavors burst through the chicken.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken - roughly 1.6 kg ++

1 heaped tablespoon fresh ginger grated or chopped finely - roughly 1.5 inch

1 heaped tablespoon garlic, grated or chopped finely - roughly 3 cloves

1 fresh chilli, grated (I couldn't grate it so I just roughly chopped it)

1 heaped teaspoon turmeric powder (I also added fresh grated turmeric)

1 heaped teaspoon garam masala

1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander - I didn't add but I'm sure it would be a great addition

1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin 

1 heaped tablespoon tomato puree

2 heaped tablespoon natural yoghurt

1 whole lemon, zested + juice

Salt + pepper season

Basically chuck everything into a plastic bag, massage all the ingredients under the chicken skin and leave to marinade at least 20 minutes. Ideally overnight.

Cooking Method

1. Preheat oven 220°C, line oven tray with foil/ greaseproof paper
2. Add cubed potatoes (scrubbed and washed, salted), then add your marinated chicken
3. Add chicken on top of potato
4. Place in chicken  in oven, reduce heat to 200°C.
5. Cook for at least 50 minutes in the oven. Once cooked (pierce drumstick with a knife, the juice should run clear), take chicken out of oven and leave to rest for at least 15 minutes.

Notes: You can leave the chicken uncovered for 20 minutes, then once the skin starts browning, cover it with foil whilst it cooks.

I usually serve the chicken with buttered + cheese naan bread/ toasts, and yoghurt. You can make raita (yoghurt + lemon + cucumber + coriander) to accompany the chicken if preferred, but the juices from the chicken will make for a good dipping sauce alone.

There might be leftovers, perfect for a quick casserole dinner the following night or some chicken sandwiches to bring to office the next morning.

Pst: For Malaysians, it literally tastes like tandoori chicken hahaha.

Left: Imaan stealing bits of the rested chicken.

Right: Enjoying the naan bread sprinkled with Italian cheese + garlic + butter

Right: Too tired after her dinner. With the turmeric from the chicken staining her pyjamas.

Temerloh & Pantai Chempedak

On Thursday, my mom Whatsapped me and asked if we wanted to go and eat ikan patin at Temerloh on Saturday, Since me and Imaan had just recovered from a bout of illnesses, we were gaaaaame! Anything to do to spend more time with my parents. Now that Imaan walks more, my parents love to take her out.

My dad actually took her out for breakfast of roti canai without telling us first (when his initial plan was just to take her inside the car and let her play with the steering wheel and give a honk or two).

Temerloh is well-known for ikan patin, a freshwater fish in Malaysia, otherwise known as "pangasius" or shark catfish. It is native to Pahang, and the moment you enter Pahang you can see signboards featuring ikan patin everywhere.

Patin is usually served in tempoyak sauce, fermented durian, with birds eye chilli, fresh turmeric and Vietnamese coriander. One always prefers to buy wild patin (usually grown in cages in the riverbanks) compared to those grown commercially, which you can purchase as supermarket, as you can taste the difference in the flesh of the fish. The commercial ones tend to taste more muddy.

This shop is quite famous... there were others who drove from KL just to like, to enjoy the patin.. do note the patin is only available from 12 PM onwards... we arrived at 11.30 so we have 30 minutes to kill.

Snacking on the tiny fishes whilst waiting for the patin. I forgot to the name of it - the texture is similar to White Bait - little crunchy fishes. Could have snacked endlessly on it. The owner explained that it was quite pricey, at RM 20.00/ kg.

Unfortunately, the sauce isn't as good as I remember it to be. The tempoyak flavor was not as strong; it was quite watery and it was crazy spicy (although, need to note, post pregnancy my spice level ain't as strong as it used to be). It's RM 12.00 per portion.

You can see how crowded this place it. People came for the patin.

My dad amazed that his granddaughter was eating chicken.

We detoured to Teluk Chempedak. It's a great touristy spot, too bad the local makan-makan shops wasn't too good. Bad for the locals as the fast food giants such as McD, KFC and Subway that already opened there will be taking over their business.

Imaan cried when we took her next to the sea (she did it previously to a trip to Melaka!!) so we didn't pursue it anymore.

On the way back, we stopped by the riverside of Kuantan and took a few photos. My girl is walking so fast now! She is still wobbly and sometimes trip over, but I'm so proud of her walking slowly. Sometimes, she doesn't even want to hold our my hands.

Asked her to pose, instead she starts digging her ears. Such elegance. Such grace -_-

This is the 'tired-and-sunburnt-and-full' face. We had been driving around for several hours and was full from all the drive and stop to eat activity. 

Thanks Pahang for the memories! It was a daytrip to remember. Sorry for the lack of photos, my phone died and I didn't bring my charger so I hijacked my husband's phone for photos hahaha.

Recipe: One Pot Cheesy Ranch Meatball Pasta

I'm going to start compiling recipes of the things I've cooked that are husband-approved, or daughter-approved, or both.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 - 40 minutes

Ingredients:

1. Unsalted Butter
2. 1 pack Beefballs
3. 1 Cup Fresh Milk (prefer Full Fat)
4. Chicken stock (soup form) or water.
5. 1 Beef Stock Cube (optional)
6. Kraft Buttermilk Ranch dressing (Kraft brand)
7. 4 tablespoon cornflour

Steps:

1. Boil your pasta as pasta pack instructions - keep to al dente. Mushy pasta no good. After cook, strain and keep just a little of the pasta water.
2. Heat two tablespoons of butter over low heat in a pan.
3. Brown your beefballs in the heated butter, remove once cooked.
4. In the same pan, add five spoons of butter. Wait until melted.
5. Add cornflour (tepung jagung) to the melted butter. Mix well.
6. Add in the fresh milk.
7. OPTIONAL: Add beef stock, stir well.
8. OPTIONAL: Add chicken stock (soup form) if you have any.
9. Add the pasta water from the pasta you strained earlier.
10. Add in the Kraft Buttermilk Ranch Dressing and stir well.
11. Add in your cooked beefballs and pasta, stir well.
12. Season well.

Notes: I added some steamed broccoli for some freshness because this dish is really really fattening. Shouldn't eat this every day as the sodium from the dressing and frozen beefballs can be alarming but memang finger licking good la haha. The Kraft bottle looks like below.