Orange Apricot Cranberry Muffins

 Lately, I have taken to baking muffins, and tried several techniques and recipes to get the texture I want - moist and fluffy. These are one of my favourites - super moist, tangy, tasty and fluffy! Simply love the texture.   

Ingredients - Makes 6 large muffins
4 fresh apricots stewed in sugar/honey - cut into chunks

2 tbsp of apricot juice

Juice and zest of 1 large orange

1/3 cup of cranberries

10ml of milk

1/3 cup of brown/castor sugar

1 3/4 cups of self raising flour

1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder

1 egg

90g of butter, just melted.

Prep work

Lightly coat muffin ramekins/pan with butter and dust with flour

Preheat oven to 200deg (fan force)

Cut butter into small squares and place onto a heated up plate - butter will melt itself.

Soak the dried cranberries into the apricot/orange juice.

Mix the dry ingredients ie flour, 2/3 of the sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon powder in a large mixing bowl.

Make a well into flour mixture, pour in melted butter, and mix - to like bread crumbs texture.

Mix the orange juice, zest, cranberries, apricots and juice together in a separate bowl.

Whisk the egg till frothy, add milk to become more frothy (ie creating air bubbles), then remaining sugar to stabilise the mixture.

Pour fruity mixture followed by egg mixture onto flour mixture and combine slowly till flour is evenly moisturised by the wet ingredients.

For fluffy muffins, DO NOT overmix. Minimum mixing is best.

Immediately cook in oven for 18 minutes.

Take out of oven, and place on top of a rack to cool for at least 40 minutes, before serving.

Bon Appetite!

Poached hainanese chicken with wine, served with chicken mushroom risotto

This technique creates super tender and moist chicken, even the breast is moist.

I make use of the stock from poaching the chicken to produce all the sides that complements this meal:-

- chicken mushroom risotto

- prawan chawan mushi (see recipe under "Label - Japanese").

Can be served with Asian salad of lebanese cucumber and mini roma tomatoes.

Ingredients for poaching the chicken

1 whole chicken

1 large onion - cut into small bits.

1 whole bulb of garlic  - which usually have about 12 cloves of garlic. Smashed the garlic.

300ml (cc) cups of chinese cooking wine

2 tablespoon of palm sugar OR 1 tablespoon of normal sugar

4 tablespoon of light soy sauce 

1 pot big enough to put the whole chicken in

About 2 litres of water (or enough just to cover slightly more than 1/2 of chicken).

Ingredients for making the risotto - 4 people

2 cups of arborio rice

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 big French shallot or a few small ones (the small red onions) - sliced finely, or chopped

2 large portobello mushrooms - cut into small 1cm cubes

30g butter

chicken stock made from poaching the chicken above (the usual amount that you would put for steaming rice)

chicken fat cut off the chicken

1/2 cup of chopped parsley

Ingredients for Salad

2 lebanese cucumber - each cut into half lenghtwise, then sliced up.

12 mini roma tomatoes - cut into 4 quarters

1 cup of fresh parsley chopped

Salad Dressing

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp Braggs soy protein (or light soy)

2 tbsp caramelised balsamic vinegar

Juice of 1/2 a lime

1 big tbsp palm sugar

Poaching Chicken

After washing the chicken, cut off the big lumps of fat near the chicken bottom and the neck. Keep the fat for making the rice.

Stuff 1/2 the garlic into the chicken stomach.

Pour cold water into the pot.

Put all the ingredients into the pot of water.

Put chicken into the cold water.

Turn on heat - slow simmer heat for 30 minutes. Do not put on high heat or boil. This way chicken will be very tender and soft. If on high heat, chicken become tough and dry.

After 30 minutes, turn the chicken upside down, and cook another 30 minutes. (As the chicken is only half in the water, we turn it at half time so that both sides get cooked in the water). Only half water is used, so that stock would have good chicken flavour and not too dilluted.

After cooking total of 1 hour, immediately take the chicken out of the stock, put into a big bowl ( I used a steel mixing bowl), cover with clingwrap, and put into fridge freezer! Leave in freezer for 45 minutes. This is to remove heat from the chicken and stop the cooking process.  

After that, carve chicken and serve with some stock, garnish with coriander leaves.

Chicken Risotto

Sautee the chicken fat in a little bit of oil - to release the chicken flavour into the oil. When chicken fat turns golden, remove from pan.

Slightly fry garlic and shallots in the chicken fat oil.

Add mushrooms.

Add butter.

Add rice.

Fry for about 5 minutes to fragrant the rice.

Add about 2 cups of chicken stock into rice, or enough to just cover rice with stock. Stir. Cover for about 5 minutes on low heat, or until stock is mostly absorped into rice. Stir. Add stock to cover rice again. Cover for 5 minutes. Repeat process another time. (ie about 20 minutes process in total).  

Leave rice cover with lid for another 10 minutes. Stir in parsley, and serve.

For time management, I would prepare the chawan mushi while cooking the risotto. Chawan mushi is ready to be steamed when I start serving the guests with the rice and chicken and salad. Guest get chawan mushi piping hot halfway through their meal.

Bon Appetite!