Grilled Vietnamese-Style Chicken With Cucumber & Carrot Vinaigrette

I'd been thinking buying a grill pan for sometime now but the problem I'm facing was there's no Round Grill Pan available at the frequent shops and malls I went to. Most of shapes available were Square and Oval... but my cooking hobs are round! It's quite frustrated for me when I saw the 3 shapes in their brochures and they said straight to my face,"If there's none at the display counter, it means we don't have in this outlet. It's the HQ who dispatched the items to us. We don't keep stock such items." Come on... if you don't have THE item I wanted, please indicated in your brochure which outlets the products were available!

I hate to travel 369 kms to IKEA just to get what I want :'-( When are you coming to my area? Sigh... I had to settle for the oven grill... the ole faithful. Well, I knew few tricks to achieve what I want for this recipe but I'm too lazy... actually too tired from the coughings and sore throat problems I had on and off lately. I had to force myself to swallow the %$@# anti-biotics because I don't want to spread it to my family :-(

Luckily, that didn't deterred me from having a hearty meal :-P Actually, I'm trying to clear my refrigerator as much as possible to give her a thorough clean up and rearrange the compartments. I found an edible Double cream which later on I used for Vanilla Ice cream. There were 1/2 box of Low-fat Coconut Milk, 4 chicken thighs, some Kyuri (Japanese Cucumber) and topped it up with other ingredients, I decided to cook the chicken thighs for lunch.

Grilled Vietnamese-Style Chicken with Cucumber and Carrot Vinaigrette

Serves 2

350g - 500 g Chicken thighs/Chicken breasts - skin-on and deboned

For Marinate (to be blended into smooth paste):

2 cloves Garlic-roughly chopped

2 nos Small Red Onion (Asian Shallots*)

½ Tbl Fresh Ginger

60 ml Fresh Coconut Milk or Low-Fat Coconut Milk

2 Tbl Rice Vinegar/Glutinous Rice Vinegar

2 Tbl Fish Sauce

1 Tbl Soy Sauce

1 Tbl Brown Sugar

Cucumber & Carrot Vinaigrette Mix:

2 nos Japanese Cucumbers (Kyuri)

1 nos Carrrot (medium size)

1 ½ Tbl Rice Vinegar/Glutinous Rice vinegar

2 Tbl Peanut Oil or any oil that's light in flavour

1 Tbl Brown Sugar

1 tsp Salt

Method:

1. Wash and pat dry the chicken thoroughly. Place chicken in a ceramic bowl or any non-reactive containers, large enough for the chicken to marinate. Add in the marinade paste, stir to coat evenly and cover (since I used chicken thighs, I made some incisions to let the marinate permeates deeper). Let it sit for at least 15 - 20 minutes at room temperature or at least 3-5 hours for the best flavors in the refrigerator. I left it overnight until needed to have deeper and rich flavor.

2. For the vegetable vinaigrette; Peel the cucumbers and carrot into thin, long strips. In a bowl, whisk the rice vinegar, sugar, salt and oil. Add the peeled vegetables, toss to mix and refrigerate until serving. (I prefer to make salad closer to the end of cooking time to avoid the vegetables become watery and limp).

3. Set the grill in the oven to 220ºC (with 2 upper heaters on or the equivalent in the model you have but you can use grill pan, gas grill, charcoal grill or non-stick electric grill). Lightly oil the rack. Remove chicken from the marinate, shake of the excess. Place the chicken, skin side up (or down if you're using a pan grill) and grill until browned, about 7-8 minutes. Turn and grill the other side until browned for 5-7 minutes. Move the chicken away from the direct heat (turn off the upper heaters but maintain the temperature and place it in the middle rack in the oven). Continue to cook the chicken thoroughly for about 7-10 minutes or until the meat turned opaque.

4. Serve the grilled chicken with the cucumber vinagrette and rice.

Note: The above cooking times were based on the size of chicken cuts I bought. Depends on the size of chicken cuts, cooking time may varied. Please adjust accordingly to your grill also. If you're using pan grill, the browning is faster because of the direct contact with the pan. Make sure it's on medium heat and cook the chicken cuts until done. I'm thinking of getting one of this pan grill for a change-thanks Jamie :-)

*Small Red Onions (aka Asian Shallots): Small reddish purple onions, commonly used in Asian cookery.

These grow in bulbs, like garlic, and are sold in segments that look like large cloves of garlic. They have a concentrated flavour and are easy to slice and grind. You can substitute with your local shallots if you can't find it.

Enjoy!

Jellyfish And Kyuri Salad

It had been long time since my last jellyfish meal :-P Yes, you read it right  j-e-l-l-y-f-i-s-h that floating wobbly, water filled animal with long stinging tentacles that spells out trouble for swimmers and fishermen alike. You can say that's bizarre but it's a delicacy and enjoyed by many people. As for me, I rather eat jellyfish anytime than turtles! 

Ok... I don't know which species of jellyfish I'm eating but I guessed it's edible and not endangered (?) species right? :-D This batch was given to me by my neighbour. I think I got the tentacles part. Almost all the whole jellyfish parts can be eaten as mentioned by foodie blogger Melting Wok.

Jellyfish And Kyuri (Japanese Cucumber) Salad

300 g Jellyfish (already prepared and cleaned by seller :-D)

1 pc Japanese Cucumber (kyuri)

1 stalk Spring Onions

3 tsp Rice Vinegar

3 tbl Sesame Oil

4 tsp Shoyu/Light Soya Sauce

1 tbl  Fish Sauce (Optional)

3 tbl  Sesame Seeds

4 tsp Sugar

Some water to blanch the jellyfish

Method

1. Wash jellyfish in fresh water. Drain and set aside.

2. In a pot, boil some water. When water boiled, pour the jellyfish into the hot boiling water. Blanch the jellyfish in few seconds (you will see that the amount will shrink in size) and quickly plunge it into cold water to stop the cooking. Drain the jellyfish.

3. When jellyfish is cold enough to handle, slice the jellyfish into smaller pieces. Set aside.

4. Wash the japanese cucumber: cut into halves lengthwise and remove the seeds. Slice them thinly. Set aside.

For the dressing

1. In a small pan, roast the sesame seeds without any oil until fragrant and golden yellow. Crush lightly the seeds a bit to release the oil. Set aside.

2. In a small bowl, mix the sugar, fish sauce, vinegar, shoyu until the sugar dissolves. Add in the sesame oil and sesame seeds. Stir the dressing well. Set aside until needed.

To assemble the salad; Mix the jellyfish and the japanese cucumber together. Pour in the dressing and mix well. Adjust the taste to your liking. Garnish with sliced spring onions. If you intend to serve the salad later, don't add the dressing too early or you will end up with watery salad. Few minutes before serving is better because you also want the jellyfish to absorb the dressing...

Variation: You can add on to your sushi or top it up on Donburi meals. You can also add some chopped fresh chillies or chilli flakes to give that extra 'kick' :-)

Jellyfish is one of sea turtles main food and that helps keeping the jellyfish in control but now with the dwindling of sea turtles population these jellyfish is back with vengeance! In countries that were badly hit with the surge of jellyfish population had cost lost of income to the fishermen. Only way to control this situation is to stop eating sea turtles (also their cousins) and their eggs or else we all end up eating jellyfish as food or the other way round!

Enjoy!