26 August 2011

Sinful Seafood Spaghetti - BeMyOwnChef Recipes

This Recipe is a challenge for all seafood spaghetti lovers out there. One may add other seafood ingredients and bring the challenged out of this sinful dish.




Ingredients

  • 1/2 pound spaghetti
  • 4 tablespoons butter, divided
  • 3 shallots, minced
  • 1 cup diced fresh mushrooms, mix any types you like 
  • 1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered or you may use large tomatoes and dice
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • garlic salt and ground black pepper to taste
  • 1 pound uncooked medium shrimp peeled and sea clams, any white clams you like 
  • 1/4 cup white wine
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 2 cups torn fresh spinach leaves
  • 1/2 cup cooking cream milk
  • 1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese and Feta cheese

Directions

  1. Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Stir in the spaghetti, and return to a boil. Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta is cooked through, but still firm to the bite, about 12 minutes. Drain; toss with 2 tablespoons of the butter.
  2. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat, and cook and stir the shallots and mushrooms until the mushrooms are tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the grape or dice tomatoes and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook and stir until tomatoes are heated through, about 3 minutes. Add the shrimp and clams, and cook until the shrimp just begins to turn pink, stirring occasionally, about 1 minute. 
  3. Stir in the white wine and lemon juice, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until shrimp are opaque and clams starts to open, about 3 minutes. Stir in the spinach and once spinach has wilted, stir in the cream milk and Parmesan / Feta cheese. Simmer until all ingredients are heated through and the sauce is slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Serve over the cooked spaghetti. Serve 4 - 5 person.

13 August 2011

Chicken On Skewers - Teriyaki Style - BeMyOwnChef Recipes

If you're looking for something easy. This is the real star dish that you can enjoy just by itself or mix on top of rice or pasta. You can use this recipe with other meats as well if you like. Taré literally means 'dripping' and is a general term for thickened sauces, for example, Yakitori Sauce and Teriyaki Sauce.



Make your Teriyaki sauce:

4 tbsp Sake
6 tbsp Shoyu (Japanese Soy Sauce)
1.5 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp castor sugar

Combine all the Taré ingredients in a pot and bring to boil over medium heat. Simmer for 5-6 minutes, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and set aside.


Ingredients:

12 chicken thighs, with skin, boned
12-18 spring onion (scallions), white parts
24 pre-soaked bamboo skewers (15cm/6in)
24 small okra, trimmed
Seasalt
Lemon wedges to garnish
Sansho pepper and/or Shicimi (seven-spice chili) powder (optional)

Directions:

Trim the fats from the chicken thighs and cut into 4cm square cubes. Cut the spring onions to about 4 cm or similar length to that of okra. Alternatively, chop all your assorted vegetables (1 tomato, 1/4 cucumber and 1 small onion) into roughly the same size as the chicken pieces.

Keep the bamboo skewers soaked in water until the last minute. This will prevent them from burning. Alternatively, wrap the ends of the bamboo skewers with foil pieces. It will not burn this way.

Thread 3 pieces of chicken meat on each skewer to make a total of 24 skewers. Thread 3 spring onions and 2 okras alternatively onto each skewer to make 12 skewers. I did a mixture of both, alternating chicken pieces with vegetable pieces. Grill or barbecue on high the chicken pieces for 3-4 minutes. Then turn over and grill 2-3 minutes until both sides are lightly browned. Remove from heat, one at a time, and baste with the Taré and return to the heat to dry the sauce. Repeat this process a few more times until all chicken skewers are golden brown.

Alternatively, half the skewers can be white-grilled ans sprinkled with seasalt instead of basting. Grill the vegetable skewers in the same way as chicken, but for a shorter time, 1-2 minutes on each side. Arrange skewers onto serving plate and serve hot, garnished with lemon wedge together with Sansho pepper.
Serve 4 to 5 person.