Korean Boneless Spicy Chicken

I once made a Korean style spicy chicken wings  and really loved it.  However, I never make it again because I don't buy chicken wings (the fattest part of a chicken so I want to eat less of it), but my husband loved chicken wings so sometimes he would buy a bucket of buffalo wings to eat.

The other day, we ordered a spicy fried chicken dish in a Korean restaurant and I thought it would be wings and drumettes and was pleasantly surprised that it was actually chicken thigh.   I wonder why I never thought of using the skinless and boneless thigh to make this before!  It gave me such a great idea that I wanted to make this dish again.  Now I can enjoy this dish more often but wondering would it be as good without deep-frying the chicken first?

Adapted from Korean style spicy chicken wings.

Ingredients:

2-3 skinless and boneless chicken thigh meat, cut into pieces
Sweet potato starch/ or cornstarch
Toasted sesame seeds

Sauce:
2 Tbsp. gochujang/ Korean chili paste
1 Tbsp. raw honey
1 Tbsp. mirin
1 tsp. sesame oil
1/8 tsp. white pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp. minced garlic
1 1/2 Tbsp. minced ginger
1 1/2 Tbsp. chopped scallion

Method:

1.  In a bowl, add in all the sauce ingredients, mix until combined.  Set aside.

2.  Heat up your wok with oil.  Coat the chicken thigh with sweet potato starch.  Deep-fry until golden brown or cooked.  Drain on paper towel.  Set aside.

3.  Pour away the oil.  In the same wok, add in the sauce, stir to warm.  Add in the fried chicken thigh and mix and coat each piece with the sauce.  Dish out and serve on a plate.  Garnish with toasted sesame seeds before serving.

Stir-Fried Arugula

Since I was introduced to arugula by mistake a while back, we learned that we actually like this veggie, even my girls liked it (even though it is slightly bitter and lemony). However, this veggie can be kind of fibrous, so I like to cut each leaf into half before stir-frying.  We really loved the Spicy and Sweet Tuna Arugula Pasta and I hope you will get a chance to try it too.  Because my girls like it so organic arugula has been in my vegetable rotation for my family.  I have since added organic arugula and organic baby kale into our vegetables of choice.  I tried to incorporate as much variety of vegetable and fruit into our diet each week as possible.  Sharing with you this easy stir-fried arugula recipe!

Slow Cooker Whole Chicken

This is one SUPER DUPER easy slow cooker whole chicken recipe.  All you need are two ingredients, one whole chicken and a packet of Emperor Chicken spice mix.  In your slow cooker, add in the washed whole chicken, pour the Emperor Chicken spice mix on top of the chicken and give it a good rub to cover all sides of the chicken.  Put it breast side up and turn it to High for 5 hours.  When the internal temperature register as 180'F, it is done.  Soft and tender that it will be easily tear off with your hand.

A tip I learned from my friend's mom, to prevent the cover from moving, stick a piece of white paper in between the cover and the crock pot as shown.  It prevents the moving and  thus the noise and the sprinkling of water on the countertop.

Korean Soy Sauce Pickled

After a while of hiatus from Korean Food, I finally back on with a new Korean soy sauce pickled dish to introduce to you all.  I was introduced to this at a Korean friend's house.  She took this out as a side dish/ banchan for a fish paste kelp soup that she made me.  I totally loved it especially I learned that it can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a year!  I bet it can be kept longer than that.  :-P  So, I came home and made my own.  I used the vegetable that I liked to eat, but you are free to add any vegetable that you like.  All these vegetable will fully absorb the flavor of soy sauce, sugar and vinegar, so it is like sweet, salty and tangy at the same thing when you bite into one.  Go well with rice!

Crisp Citrus Cookies

This Crisp Citrus Cookie is really easy to make by using a food processor.  This is requested by Evy and also I wanted to test out the new cookie cutters that I bought from Amazon.  I think I scored this cookie cutters pretty cheap at Amazon, each pair cost less than $2 each, but I can't remember the specific amount.  Since it was shipped from China, it took awhile to arrive but I can't complain since the shipping was free. If you are in the US and want this kind of cookie cutters, you can buy it via Amazon.  They have a lot of different characters to choose from as well.

Easy Pineapple Rolls

Easy pineapple rolls for a lazy me!  Or should I named it Lazy Pineapple Rolls??  What to do if I want to eat pineapple tart or roll but don't want to spend a whole day of making it?  I gotta think of a short-cut!!  With the earlier Red Bean Pastry Roll, I got the idea of making my pineapple roll the same easy way.  Granted it was not as pretty as the traditional method but I got my pineapple rolls and my girls were happy!  This is mostly for overseas moms who want some CNY treat but don't want to spend too much time of making it.  It's easy, so for those moms who were too scare to attempt it before (or too lazy), you can make this easy version!!

This is not the melt-in-the-mouth pastry, but not too bad I might say.  After years of making the CNY cookies every year, I have gotten lazy so this year I pick or create an even easier cookie recipes to make.  Now my girls are getting bigger and they look forward to my yearly CNY cookies, so I would make some for them.  Last time, I used to make a lot to give to friends but now just for my family consumption.

Simplified Yu Sheng (Yee Sang) for the Year of the Horse

It is the year of the Horse as my Yu Sheng will tell you if you can read Mandarin.  My girls requested I created a running horse on the Yu Sheng, I tried doing that but it was not easy so I settled with this.  Because I didn't have the wonton skin, I made my own fried cracker here, I just used flour, sea salt and water to make the dough.  The trick was to roll it very thin and deep-fried it twice to make it crunchy.  I made the crackers a day before so it made it easier.   Happy to use my homemade raspberry vinegar ginger here and this year no colorings was used in the creation of this Yu Sheng.

Get the simplified Yu Sheng recipe here.

Red Bean Pastry Rolls

A friend shared a link to this recipe via Facebook and it interested me because I had a pack of red bean paste that needed to be used and this recipe looked easy.  I simplified the recipe further by using a food processor and with a ready made red bean paste, this was really easy to make. 

The pastry was crispy on the day it was baked and not as crispy day 2 onwards.  However, it was still a delicious treat.  A change from the usual CNY cookies!