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Happy Mooncake festival to my dear friends, hope you have a nice gathering with your family. Living in the US without family, we celebrate most of the Chinese festivals with our friends. So grabbing a bite of mooncake and just hanging around friends, nothing better than just chill. Back home in Malaysia, traditionally we will light up lanterns, eat mooncake with Chinese tea, and sometimes we will do hot pot. Here we basically just have simple dinner.

Anyhow I wanted to make Chicken Rendang (Malaysian Rendang Ayam) for a long time. This week I finally did it. Rendang is a dry curry version of stew meat dish, slowly cooked in coconut milk and other spices. It is an authentic Malay cuisine, yet a very popular dish served during celebrations or special occasions. The meats are stewed for several hours depending on the meats used. Chicken or duck uses shorter time, beef needs to cook for 2 up to 4 hours.  The slow cooking process allows the meat becomes tender and absorbs all the spices and herbs. Some of the herbs used are galangal, tumeric, ginger, lemon grass and chillies.

However I haven’t really master Rendang recipe, so this time I only used premade Brahim’s Rendang paste my mum brought over from Malaysia. I have added additional spices to make it more flavoring. Rendang is even better when cooking for 2nd or 3rd day. It serves well with coconut milk rice or white rice. If you have a good Rendang recipe, please do not hesitate to share with me.

Ingredients:

4 drumsticks or 1 Leg quarter & 1 chicken breast (cut into pieces)
2 stalks lemon grass (use only the bottom white part, pounded)
1 pack Brahim Rendang Paste
1/2 can coconut milk
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
a bunch of curry leaves
1-2 tsp sugar
Few dashes of salt & pepper to taste

Additional Ingredients:
2 red chillies
2 shallots
2 clove garlic
5 slices ginger
4 slices galangal
4 slices tumeric

Serve 2-4 people

Cooking Method:

1. Finely chopped all chilies, shallots, garlic, ginger, galangal, tumeric.
2. Heat a pot with 2 tbsp cooking oil over medium, add in lemon grass stir fry a bit, followed by chopped ingredients, chillies, shallots, garlic, ginger, galangal, tumeric, stir fry till fragrant.
3. Add in rendang paste, cook over low heat for couple minutes.
4. Turn to high heat, add in chicken pieces, stir fry and combine well.
5. Add in coconut milk, bring to boil. Add in coriander seeds, turmeric powder, cumin powder and curry leaves.
6. Simmer the dish over low heat for at least 1 hour to 1 and half hour, stirring ocassionally.
7. Add in sugar, season with salt and pepper.
8. Serve with Nasi Lemak or white rice.

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Green bean (French bean or string bean) is definitely one of my top three favorite veggies. I like the fleshiness and sweetness of it. It’s so special! A simple dish like stir-fried green bean with chicken is good enough for me to gobble 2 bowls of steamed white rice. Nothing fancy is needed for this dish. Just few simple steps will give you a simple yet appetizing dish.

Another favorite green bean dish of mine is the干煸四季豆 (literally translated as dry-stir string bean). It is essentially a popular dish to be served in most Chinese restaurants and I will order it mostly. I will post the recipe for it next time.

Ingredients:

1/2 piece of skinless chicken breast (sliced)
10 green beans (cut into 1 1/2 inch length)
2 red chili peppers (sliced)
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
2 dashes white pepper powder
1 dash sesame oil
3 tbsp water

Cooking Method:

1. Heat up a pot with 2 tbsp cooking oil. Sauté the garlic until fragrant.
2. Add the chicken and stir fry until almost cooked.
3. Add the green beans and stir for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, white pepper powder, sesame oil and water. Stir well for another 2-3 minutes.
5. Dish up and serve.

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Massaman curry is believed to be one of those earliest Thai recipes of the 19th century AD. Not sure how many of you had tried this curry dish but I rarely order it (or not even once) when dining in the Thai restaurant. Most likely it seems to be an unpopular dish for me.

This coconut-based curry is usually prepared with beef, potatoes and roasted peanuts and its flavor is kind of hot and sour. You can always make this dish with your favorite meats like chicken, duck, or pork. Tofu can be used as well to make a vegetarian dish. As with most curries, you can easily pick up the Massaman curry paste at the Asian food market.

Although it’s not my favorite kind of Thai curry, it is served well with steamed white rice. Try it! Probably you might like it.

Ingredients:

1 piece of skinless chicken breast (sliced)
2 potatoes (cut into cubes)
1 onion (chopped)
3 tbsp roasted peanuts (or as preferred)
3 tbsp Massaman curry paste (Mae Ploy brand)
3 cups coconut milk
4 tbsp palm sugar
4 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp tamarind paste (or as preferred)

Cooking Method:

1. Heat up a pot with 2 tbsp cooking oil. Add in the curry paste and stir with medium heat for 2 minutes.
2. Add chicken meat and stir for 2-3 minutes.
3. Pour in the coconut milk, palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind paste. Keep stirring until everything is mixed. Bring to boil.
4. Add in potatoes, onion and roasted peanuts. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are soften.
5. Dish up and serve well with steamed white rice.

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Most of you must know that to cook a good Hainanese Chicken Rice (海南雞飯) or White Cut Chicken (白斬雞) involves a lot of work. These are the dishes that we can easily order in a Chinese restaurant but not to cook by yourself. This  is why we haven’t had a chance to make the Hainanese Chicken Rice yet. But to satisfy the craving for Chicken Rice, this is a trick that we learn to do. We only buy the chicken breast and thighs, not the whole chicken, then just steam or boil the chicken parts. Cool down in a icy bath and chop up the chicken into pieces.

You can either choose to steam the chicken or boil the chicken. The appearance might not be as nice as what you can get from the restaurant, however this is definitely an easy chicken dish that you want to learn. The most important thing is to make a dipping sauce to go with it. You can serve the chicken with chicken flavored rice or plain white rice.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breast
2″ ginger (sliced)
2 stalks scallion (cut into 2″ in length)
Few drips cooking oil

Dipping Sauce
2 tbsp minced ginger
2 stalks scallion
3 tbsp oil
Few drips of soy sauce
Few dashes of Salt

Cooking Method:

1. Bring a pot of water to boil, enough to cover the chicken, add in sliced ginger, scallions and few drips of cooking oil. Add in the chicken breast or thighs. Turn off the heat, cover for 30 minutes. Check the chicken for doneness. If it is still pink, bring the water to boil again and turn off, cover for another 15 minutes.
2. Once the chicken is cooked, soak in a nice ice cold water bath.
3. Set chicken on the cutting board and slice/chop the chicken into pieces. Place it nicely on a platter.
4. Heat up a sauce pan with cooking oil, add in minced ginger and scallion. Stir fry quickly till fragrant. Note: you don’t have to stir fry ginger to turn brown, just heating up basically. Add in salt and combine. Remove.
5. Serve chicken with ginger scallion dipping sauce on the side.

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Yellow curry is another kind of Thai curry, commonly found in the Thai restaurants in Los Angeles here. Comparing with other Thai curries, yellow curry is normally creamier and richer. This is because coconut cream is being used instead of coconut milk. However, I preferred watery curry instead of a creamy one, so I used the coconut milk this time.

Potato is a must-have ingredient to be added in the yellow curry as I heart potato for life. Who doesn’t? Other than potato, I put in okra (lady’s fingers), carrot and red chili peppers as well to give it a more colorful version.

A buddy of mine asked me, how the heck do you know how to cook so many kinds of Thai curry? I just told him to follow the recipes I provided. Just cook few more times, try an error then you will know the answer. Enjoy!

I heart curry! Do you? Check these: panang curry, red curry and green curry.

Ingredients:

1 piece of skinless chicken breast (sliced)
2 potatoes (cut into small cubes)
1 carrot (sliced)
2-3 red chili peppers (sliced)
1 onion (chopped)
3-4 kaffir lime leaves
3 tbsp yellow curry paste (Mae Ploy)
2 cups coconut milk
1 cup water (Add more water if you want it to be more watery)
1 tsp sugar

Cooking Method:

1. Heat up a pot with 2 tbsp cooking oil. Add in the curry paste and stir with medium heat for 2 minutes.
2. Pour in the 1 cup coconut milk and keep stirring until the curry paste is dissolved.
3. Add in another cup coconut milk and chicken meats. Heat until boiling.
4. Add in potatoes, carrot, onion and water. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are soften.
5. Add in red chili peppers, kaffir lime leaves and sugar. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
6. Dish up and serve well with steamed white rice.