Homemade Sweet Chili Sauce {!!} & Chicken & Prawns ...

Ok ... so I found a recipe in a cookbook to make your own sweet chili sauce. I had to modify it a fair bit since it had heaps that we can't use at the moment. Here's what I came up with.

For the Meat ...

2 chicken breasts, chopped into bite size pieces
As many prawns as you like ... I think we did about 5 each
2 kaffir lime leaves, get rid of the middle 'rib' and chop the leaves small
juice of one lime
2 tablespoon peanut oil

Mix lime juice, oil and kaffir lime leaves. Soak chicken and prawns (I soaked in two separate bowls) while the BBQ heats up. Cook on BBQ.

For the sweet chilli sauce ...

1 TBLS peanut oil
2 coriander roots, washed and chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
5 long red chillies ... to taste (seeded and chopped)
a few squirts gold label (or you could use fish sauce)
1/2 cup palm sugar, grated
1.5 TBLS coconut, desicated
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup water

Use stick blender to blend chili, coriander roots and garlic (with 1 TBLS water) into a paste.

Add mixture to saucepan with remaining ingredients. Boil and simmer, til sauce thickens. ( I think it took 10/15 minutes)

Serve on a bed of steamed baby bok choy with BBQ'd chicken and prawns ... drizzled with sweet chilli sauce and a sprinkle of cilantro (fresh coriander leaves) !

Garlic and Coriander Chicken

I got the original recipe here. I've changed it a fair bit as the chicken was deep fried in that recipe ...

Chicken Breast (chopped) - 200g
corn flour - 3 TBLS
Black pepper - 1/2 tsp
Oyster Sauce - 2 TBLS
Soy Suace - 1 TBLS
Sugar - 1 tsp
Coriander (Cilantro) - 1 bunch - chopped
Chicken Stock - 10ml
Garlic - 3 cloves, finely chopped
Oil (for frying)

Coat the chicken with the corn flour. Cook in a fry pan with a bit of oil. Set aside. Stir fry the garlic and coriander til brown. Add remaining ingredients. Mix in chicken and serve over rice.

I also added chopped bean sprouts. And served with steamed bok choy on the side.

Serves 2

Wonton Soup

I made this for dinner last night because I had almost everything to make it. I thought it was only OK but will make it again for sure. I didn't have bok choy so I used spinach. I think it will be much better next time when I use the bok choy. I used a chicken stock powder. Next time I will use a nice chicken stock that I will make myself. I didn't add noodles. Next time I will.

I got the recipe here ...

Here's how I will make mine next time :

Make gyoza following this recipe, but don't cook them.

I'm going to cut and paste the next bit from the recipe listed above ....

"In a large stockpot, add all but 2 cups of the broth and bring to a boil. The 2 cups of reserved broth should be room temperature or just slightly chilled. Turn the heat to medium-high and add the wontons. Bring pot back to a gentle boil.

When it reaches a boil, add 1 cup of the reserved broth. Bring back to a boil and again, add the remaining 1 cup of reserved broth.

Keep the heat on the pot on (you still need to cook the noodles and bok choy) while using a spider or sieve to scoop up the wontons and distribute amongst the bowls. Cook the noodles in the pot according to the package instructions. Add the bok choy to the pot during last minute of cooking noodles and let simmer, until cooked through. Ladle broth, noodles and bok choy to bowls. Serve with chili garlic sauce if desired."

Make sure you use a good chicken stock or your soup will be very bland. Like last night, the soup just tasted like boiled water !! Grace told me today how to make a good asian chicken stock. I'm going to try it next time. Just use garlic, leek and a small whole skinnless chicken. Boil for an hour and a half. That's it. She said if you want the stock to be sweeter, add some onion too.