Smoky Wok

I absolutely love braised chicken wings, not sure why I took this long to feature this simple and comforting dish.  Anyway, for today apart from the requisite ginger and green onions, I took a slightly different route and added some chicken abalone sauce from Yuen Chun to the mix and the result was a pleasing mixture of abalone flavour mixed in well with the ginger and green onions.  Apart from marinating the chicken wings for at least 30 minutes, I also pan-fried the chicken wings with the green onions and ginger before adding the liquid for braising.  Another thing to take note is that the chicken wings should be out of the fridge for at least 1 hour before you plan to cook to avoid tough meat.



This is an extremely easy dish and would definitely prove to be popular as most of us love chicken wings right? This is great on its' own or with hot steamed rice.  Enjoy!  This post is part of my Yuen Chun Recipes, an ongoing project on this blog.

Grilled chicken is great on its' own but sometimes topping it off with a tangy and spicy sauce really enhances the simple dish!  For today, I took a leaf from the famous Mexican dish of salsa and modified it to my taste.  To be honest, I am not a big fan of Mexican food despite having lived in San Diego where Mexican food is very popular.  Anyhow, I do like salsa to an extent and so I made my own version as you can see today.



The chicken chop (I prefer boneless thighs) were grilled and then simply served with a concoction of Thai sauce from Yuen Chun, chopped tomatoes and capsicum.  Very easy and definitely appetizing.  This post is part of my Yuen Chun recipe series.

Here's a sweet start to the new year! I hope that all of you had a great new year's and today's feature is fitting - a festive cake to kick start 2013.  This is an extremely easy cake and looks pretty to boot.  This is one of the talented Donna Hay's delicious creations.  The original recipe called for it to be baked in a rectangular tray but as I wanted two cakes, I used two 5 inch round pans and they turned out great.  I adjusted the sugar slightly as I didn't want the cake to be too sweet as well.



So, what are your new year's resolutions? One of my big ones is to not let unimportant people or events affect my moods :O.  It is truly not worth it as it is just so important to be happy and enjoy life, is it not? I hope I will be able to keep this important resolution, takes some effort for an OCD person like yours truly but definitely worth the effort, I should think.  My loved ones will probably heave a collective sigh of relief at that.  Too many times I have allowed unimportant individuals affect my daily moods and life so this has to stop.



With that, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy 2013 and may this be a great year for us all!