Chicken and Veggies in Creamy Mint Sauce

Here's my first ever recipe on YouTube and it's my wonderfully delicious recipe for Chicken and Veggies in Creamy Mint Sauce. Hope you like my recipe. For more such easy and tasty recipes, follow me on my blog, Goodness Gracious Food.

Enjoy!

Thanks to Rohit, who helped me shoot this recipe!

Much love,

SaloFalo x

Lee's 3 Cup Chicken - Taiwanese Recipe

3 Cup Chicken 

Taiwanese Recipe

Today, I am delighted to share with you, my friend Lee Fang Hao's signature Taiwanese recipe for 3 Cup Chicken. The first time Lee cooked this for me and my friends, he completely impressed us with his cooking skills to the extent that the next time he invited us over, we asked him to prepare it again. Only this time, I took note of how he made it, so that I can try it myself. Read till the end to find a picture of Lee! Single girls, contact me if you find him cute ;) Perhaps I'll be able to arrange a date :p

Coming back to the recipe, it calls for equal parts soy sauce, rice wine and sesame oil to create a deep red sauce for coating chopped pieces of boneless chicken. These are the "three cups" as the dish's name suggests. Although it says 'cups', it needs no more than a 'bottle-cover' measure of each of the three main ingredients. However, this Taiwanese delicacy is not just about the "three cups". It gets its wonderfully distinct flavours from chunks of garlic & ginger and the wonderful spiciness from its chillies. So, what are you waiting for? Get together your ingredients and let's begin!

Ingredients

Boneless chicken pieces

100 ml sesame oil

100 ml soy sauce

100 ml rice wine

a handful of basil leaves

2 inches of ginger sliced finely

8-10 garlic cloves

Spring onions and mushrooms, chopped (optional)

3 huge red chillies, sliced

1 tbsp brown sugar

Procedure

Heat sesame oil in a pan and add the ginger and garlic. Fry till golden brown. Add the chillies and  keep frying. 

 Add brown sugar and stir.

 Add boneless chicken and stir.

 Add soy sauce and stir till the chicken is well-coated.

 Add rice wine in equal amount to the soy sauce.

 Add sesame oil in equal amount to the rice wine and soy sauce. Toss it all in the pan and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the sauces are absorbed by the chicken and it is cooked through. Make sure the sauces don't completely run dry. You want your chicken to be juicy.

Last but not the least, add the basil leaves and stir well till it turns limp and absorbs the juices.

...and it's ready! Serve it with steamed rice!

That's Lee and that's his usual facial expression... for almost everything ;) 

Hope you like this recipe! Comment below and let me know how it turns out for you! If you love pork, try it with pork or even prawns! Whatever you do, it turns out best with chicken! This is me Salo signing off for now, until next time! Ciao!

No-Bake Cheesecake Recipes for Chocolate lovers

No-bake Cheesecake Recipe

Known of a cheesecake that doesn't require baking? Well, now you will! This easy recipe doesn't need you to use eggs, flour, butter and an oven! As a result, it is loved by pure vegetarians and can be safely made by kids too! All you need is a mixing bowl and a spatula!

If you still haven't found reason enough to read the rest of this post, I'll give you three more reasons. In this post you will learn to make three varieties of no-bake cheesecakes. 1. Regular Chocolate Cheesecake 2. Nutella Cheesecake 3. Oreo Cheesecake

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Nutella Cheesecake

Oreo Cheesecake

So lets get started!

Ingredients

(For the base)

Butter
Digestive biscuits / gram crackers
Caster sugar

(For the filling)
Cream cheese
Whipped cream
Gelatine (optional)
Lemon juice (very little)
Vanilla essence (optional)

(Chocolate cheesecake)
Cooking chocolate
Butter
Icing sugar
Chocolate chip (for decorating)

(Nutella Cheesecake)
Nutella
Walnut (for decorating)

(Oreo Cheesecake)
Finely crushed Oreos
Walnut and Oreos (for decorating)

Here I have used 3 different types of containers to show you that you do not always need a spring form tin to make cheesecake. I have made the chocolate chip cheesecake in a round plastic container, the Oreo cheesecake in a spring form tin and the Nutella cheesecake in a wine glass.


Procedure

1. Crumble the biscuits either by hand or in a mixer and mix it with butter and caster sugar in a mixing bowl, using a rubber spatula. You should end up with a damp dough-like consistency.
2. Line the insides of the round container or the spring form tin (whichever you're using) and press the base mixture down hard into the bottom of the tin. You can use the bottom of a glass to press it and level the base. Put in the fridge to set.
3. If you're cream is not already whipped, beat it until it is thickened enough to form peaks and hold shape.
4. Fold in the cream cheese until the mixture is smooth. Drizzle a few drops of vanilla essence and fold it in.
5. Add the sifted icing sugar and lemon juice and beat again until you achieve a smooth thick consistency.
6. If you're making a chocolate cheesecake, melt the cooking chocolate with a couple of tablespoons of butter on a double boiler and then add it to the mixture. If you are making a Nutella cheesecake, just add Nutella to the mixture and if you're making an Oreo cheesecake, add finely crumbled Oreos to the mixture. 
7. If you are very particular about the cheesecake holding shape even after being sliced, add in some gelatine mixed in quarter cup of boiling water. 
8. If you're making an Oreo cheesecake, firmly line the inner walls of the tin with separated Oreo cookies, the designed side facing outside and then pour the filling in the centre. If you aren't using Oreos, simply pour the filling onto the base and spread, put the tin/ round container back into the fridge until the topping has set. That may take a few hours. 
9. If you are making it in a glass like I made the Nutella cheesecake, simply skip the biscuit base and use it instead as a layer in the middle. For my Nutella Cheesecake, I substituted digestive biscuits for Oreo biscuits to add that extra bit of cocoa flavour.
10. I have topped the plain chocolate cheesecake with chocolate chip and the Oreo cheesecake and Nutella cheesecake with a walnut each.

Try out this wonderful no-bake cheesecake recipe for a Birthday party of an Anniversary of just as a dessert for a family dinner! It's a lovely recipe to involve children into making it. Especially when it's time to clean off the leftover Nutella/chocolate from the mixing bowl ;) Do try variations of your own and post the pictures of your version on my Facebook timeline! I would love to see how it turned out for you! If you liked my recipe, comment below and follow my blog, Goodness Gracious Me for many more sinfully delicious recipes! And, last but not the least, enjoy!

Much love,

SaloFalo!

Vanilla Chicken - My Signature Recipe

Juicy & Succulent

 Vanilla Chicken Recipe

So finally, here's my brand new blog on food and on being a foodie. If you believed that vanilla should only be used in desserts, I'm about to prove you wrong. Since my signature recipe for Vanilla Chicken is something that my friends and family have been giving me raving reviews for, this had to be the first recipe on my blog! This is a recipe invented by me as a result of my boredom from cooking the same quick meals while being on a student budget. I was expecting my dearest friends over, who are very good at cooking and deserved to be served nothing but exceptionally exotic flavours on their plate. I made this for them and they absolutely loved it. In their opinion, this was the best dish I ever cooked for them. So I dedicate this recipe to none other than, the charming couple and my dearest friends in Bristol, Alex & Alexis.

This blog post is also dedicated to Rasika Tembulkar, Harsha Shetty, Mary Dias, Cheryl Akshikar (my mom) and all my lovely friends who requested this perfectly juicy and flavourful recipe. So without any further delay, here it goes! (Read till the end for an extra recipe to go with the chicken!)

Ingredients

(serves 2-3)

• 500 gms chicken (Preferably drumsticks/thighs with skin)
• 3 medium red onions, finely chopped
• salt to taste
• pepper to taste
• 3 tbsps tomato ketchup/ puree
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, halved lengthwise
• 1 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped
• 3-4 tbsps chilli powder/paprika
• 2 tbsps vanilla essence
• 1 1/2 tbsps soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar (optional)
• a generous splash of tequila or rum (optional)
• dried mixed italian herbs or fresh herbs, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup spring onion greens, finely chopped
• olive oil

Method

To prepare your chicken, take your chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before it is cooked. Wash and prick with a fork or make gashes with a knife. Marinate with salt, pepper, chilli powder and tomato ketchup/ puree for about half an hour to one hour. If you're in India and it's summer time, you may want to keep it in the refrigerator to marinate.

Drizzle some olive oil in a sauce pan or a deep frying pan and fry the garlic and ginger until they begin to turn brown. Add the onions and fry until the mixture becomes dry and turns golden brown. Drizzle a little more oil and gently add the chicken pieces to the saucepan. As you hear the sizzle, drizzle the vanilla essence, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar (optional) and tequila  rum (optional) over the chicken and cover with a lid for about 5 minutes. Then stir the chicken and add water in the saucepan till 3/4th of the chicken is submerged under water. Cover again and cook for 15 more minutes or until chicken is completely cooked. Check by piercing the chicken with a knife or fork. Once cooked, add the herbs and toss the chicken in its own sauces. 

Serve hot, with a slice of lemon and garnish with spring onion greens. 

As promised, here's an extra tip! Fry your already cooked rice with the vanilla flavoured sauce of the chicken until it's all coated or absorbed by the rice. Alternatively, fry par boiled potato wedges in the sauce until it is absorbed or well coated and voila! You've just made a lovely meal by combining vanilla and chicken!

Do try this wonderful recipe and let me know how it turns out, in the comments section below. Feel free to substitute ingredients with those of your choice and share your ideas with me. Also, share this recipe with your loved ones and it will surely steal their hearts! Kindly let me know what recipe you would like me to cover for you, soon. Looking forward to your valuable feedback.

Much love and good wishes!

SaloFalo!

xoxo