Platinum Chef

Ladies and gentlemen, as you can tell from the long time lag between my posts, I’ve fallen off my 52-weeks challenge. Life’s just been a bit busy lately. Even though I don’t have time to cook a new dish every consecutive week, I do get in a new one here and there.

Instead of tracking my attempts at cooking something new by week #, each dish cooked will be numbered in sequential order until I get to #52. So without further ado, I will now showcase dishes #7 and #8:

Dish #7 - Mom’s Spareribs

As you can guess form the name of the dish, this delicious recipe for spareribs is an original from the lady who taught me how to cook. When I was a kid, I would sit on a stool in the kitchen and watch my mother work her magic on the stove. Simmer small pieces of spareribs in a mixture of dark soy, light soy, rock sugar, ginger slices, and garlic for at least one hour and then serve hot over some jasmine rice.

It just can’t be any easier for a great tasting Asian style dish.

Dish #8 - Roasted Chicken by Jamie Oliver

This roasted chicken recipe comes straight from Jamie Oliver’s The Naked Chef cookbook. The spices used underneath the chicken skin are basil, parsley, and marjoram. Lemon, bay leaves, and rosemary were stuffed inside the chicken. And the chicken was patted with kosher salt and ground black pepper and drizzled with olive oil.

For a 2.5lb - 3lb chicken, cook at 425F for about an hour. Served with some whole wheat couscous and grilled vegetables.

During week 3, I had some buddies over for some warmth-inducing udon noodle bowls. I’ve been making udon noodles bowls quite often lately trying to get the soup base just right and the right mixture of extraneous “stuff” to accompany the udon. So that’s not the new dish. The new dish was the shrimp tempura that went alongside the noodle bowls.

First, I peeled, devined, washed and drained about 40 medium sized fresh shrimps. That took a little longer that I would’ve liked. Next, dip and coat the shrimp in the sequence of flour, egg, and Japanese breadcrumbs. And finally, deep fry in 350 degrees Canola oil or Corn oil for less than a minute on each side. (Stay away from vegetable oil because it gives fried foods a burnt oily taste)

The color was a little dark, which means the frying time could’ve been reduced.

On week 4, I made an experimental fish dish for my girlfriend. First, I made a couple of tin foil pouches. In the pockets, lay down slices of onions and chunks of garlic, add fillets of tilapia (or some other white fish), add slices of tomato and chopped basil, drizzle on some olive oil, add some salt and pepper, and finally add light/sweet white wine. Use decent wine for this because the fish will absorb the flavor of the wine you chose.

Seal up the pockets to make sure they’re air tight and bake in the oven at 375 degrees for 15-25 minutes. The time really depends on the thickness of your fillets and there’s a bit of trial-and-error with this. When it’s done, serve each pocket with some whole wheat couscous that’s cooked with chicken broth.