CHICKEN COCONUT CURRY

Hey guys! 

Its 3 days to Christmas. Hope you all have your trees and decor up! I certainly do. I love how glorious Christmas is. I love celebrating Christ daily and a holiday to do just that is truly a plus. I'm super excited to spend my first Christmas married to the hubz. I'm thankful to God for life, salvation and for each and every one of my loved ones. I'm also extremely thankful for the growth of this blog and for open doors and all the closed ones that God has guarded us from.

So yes on to food things! I have been meaning to make a meal using coconut milk. I love how diverse of an ingredient it is, used in indian food, swahili dishes, and even thai cusine! I had some chicken thighs and a can of coconut milk so I decided to make a spicy meal yesterday together with some rice and steamed veggies. I also asked the hubz to buy some nans from one of our favorite Indian restaurants that complimented this meal perfectly.

Ingredients [serves 4]

Chicken [6 thighs/ 4 breasts cut in big chunks]

2/3 can coconut milk

140 gr tomato paste [two packets tomato paste]

1 onion

4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon chopped ginger

Dhania

1 tablespoon royco

Olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

2 tablespoons chicken masala

2 tablespoons curry powder

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 yellow/red hoho/ capsicum

1 courgette

1 1/2 cup rice

1 packet mixed veggies [sliced carrots, french peas, brocoli]

Start of by cooking your rice. [Remember its double the cups of water per cup rice so in this case 3 cups of water for 1 1/2 cups rice] I used a rice cooker with a steamer so I used the lower part to cook the rice and the to part to steam my veggies. Season veggies with olive oil, black pepper and salt and leave to cook with rice.

For the chicken, peel and chop onions, garlic and ginger and cook them with olive oil in a sufuria.

Add the chicken masala and curry powder and allow to cook. <Use a few tablespoons water just incase the spices start to stick to the bottom of the sufuria.> Add the tomato paste and also allow to cook with the spices. Wash and chop the yellow pepper and courgette and add to the sufuria. 

Shortly after, add the coconut milk, a hint of salt and allow to cook with the spices and veggies.

After a few minutes, add chicken and leave to cook.

Mix 1 tablespoon royco, cayenne pepper, black pepper in a 1/4 cup water and add to the sufuria. Finish of with adding the dhania/coriander and seal with lid. <By adding it in the end it gives the curry a boost of flavor>

Allow to cook for another 15 minutes. Note that white meat tends to cook very fast. Make sure that the sauce is thick and light brown color.

 Remove from heat and serve with rice, nan and steamed veggies.

Enjoy.

As always, I'll have you know:-

-I'm up to 15000+ pageviews-thank you Jesus! and thank you all for following and trying out my recipes.

-I'm now on Youtube, you can subscribe and check out the video here: CookingwithJaz

-I am officially on twitter on this account (@cookingwithjaz)

-I am also on facebook on this page "cooking with jaz"
-You can also find me on instagram under the handle, "cookingwithjaz"

-If you want to be featured on the "GUEST AND RECIPE OF THE WEEK" email me on "cookingwithjaz@yahoo.com"

-If you have tried any of my recipes, do tag me or send me the pics on any one of my social media pages

Have a lovely week :)

Sincerely,

Jaz.

VEGGIE STIR FRY WITH PAN FRIED FISH

From my kitchen to yours, HELLO!!!

Another day, another recipe, another blog post.

Today I'm blogging about last nights meal which was absolutely superb.

One of my loved ones is keeping away from red meat so vegetables and fish was the order of the night.

For those who checked out my recent Chinese meal, do you remember the "Blue dragon" Chinese sauce I used? Well I have discovered that these are definitely the best sauces to get when you're making Chinese food at home and they're only 75 shillings.  They have a variety of about 5 flavors ranging from chilli to spring onion and oyster sauce to the garlic one that I used last night to stir fry my veggies.

I didn't want to drown the taste of the fish with spices so I kept it simple with pepper, garlic and lemon and pan-fried the fish and my oh my SIMPLE IS THE WAY TO GO! The tilapia was simply superb!!

Hope you'll enjoy this simple meal.

Note: That I boiled my pasta and veggies together before I stir-fried them since I wanted to save up on time.

Ingredients:- [Serves 5-6]

1-2 Fillets tilapia [boneless and cut up in chunks]
1 head broccoli
1 pack mixed veggies [ carrots, french beans, peas]
1 red pepper/hoho
1 onion
4 cloves garlic
1/2 lemon
Black pepper
1 pack Blue Dragon Hoi sin & garlic [classic mix of soya beans, soy sauce and spices]
Salt to taste
Vegetable oil/ olive oil
Dark mushroom soy sauce
Macaroni/ any kind of pasta

Start off by boiling the water for the pasta. 

Wash the pack of mixed veggies and broccoli. Cut up the broccoli. Add 3 tablespoons oil and a dash of salt followed by the pasta. About 3 minutes in, add the veggies to boil.

 After about 8-10 minutes, remove when pasta is al-diente. You can also check to see if carrots have cooked well. *a little crunch is always okay* Avoid to over-boil because we wouldn't want the veggies to loose their beautiful and natural color. Drain hot water out and put aside.

In another sufuria/ pan heat oil with 2 cloves garlic and half an onion all chopped up. As they are cooking, wash and chop the red pepper and add to the sufuria to cook.

Follow by adding the full packet of the blue dragon sauce. Add the veggies and pasta and stir well and continuously.

 Add a dash of soy sauce to darken the stir fry and to add that mushroom flavor to the meal. Add salt to taste and remove from heat after 2 minutes.

In another pan heat oil with remaining onion and garlic. Season fish chunks with black pepper and sauce and add to pan. As the fish is cooking squeeze half a lemon over it and some salt to taste.  Pan fry for 5-7 minutes and remove from heat.

Serve over the stir fry with half an avocado.

Enjoy :-)

Also I'll have you know:-

-I'm up to 6500 + pageviews-thankyou Jesus! and thankyou all for following and trying out my recipes.

-I'm now on Youtube, you can subscribe and check out the video here: CookingwithJaz

-I am officially on twitter on this account (@cookingwithjaz)

-I am also on facebook on this page "cooking with jaz"

-If you want to be featured on the "GUEST AND RECIPE OF THE WEEK" email me on "cookingwithjaz@yahoo.com"

-If you have tried any of my recipes, do tag me or send me the pics on any one of my social media pages

 

Sincerely

Jaz

Pilau, veggies & kachumbari

Hey guys! Its tuesday! God is faithful and lets get cooking!
This week Im blogging on a typical kenyan meal made easy-PILAU!

Ingredients *serves 5*
1 and half cup rice 
300gr Beef chopped in small cubes
4 cloves Garlic
2 Onions
3 tomatoes
Tomato paste sachet
Tropical heat pilau masala spice
1 chilli beef cube
Assorted vegetables
Avocado
Royco
Olive oil

Boil water in sufuria, add a dash of olive oil ,some salt and add meat to cook for approx 20 minutes. This way the meat softens and broth is made which shall be added to the rice later on. After meat is boiled, put aside and do not dispose the broth.

In another sufuria put onions and garlic to cook with some olive oil. As the cook, grate over two tomatoes and mix well. After a few minutes add pilau spice, beef chilli cube and tomato paste sachet. Allow to brown as you stir. Once it is good and brown add the meat that you had put aside and mix well followed by the rice, and then the broth(3 cups which is double the cups of rice) Mix well and add salt to taste and cover to cook.

 Pilau should be ready in approx 10-15 minutes. I usually shake the sufuria *side to side* to make sure the rice doesn't stick or burn in the bottom. That way the water the broth reaches all surfaces. 

Once it is ready, leave to cook with its own heat for about 5-7 more minutes. 

For the kachumbari, chop onions,add salt and water to cover and put in refrigerator for approx 20-30 minutes. You can prepare this as the meat is boiling in the beginning. This helps in having a perfectly salted kachumbari. Chop tomato and avocados in the meantime and once the 20 minutes are up you can pour out the water then mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and preserve in refrigerator till serving time. If you intend on preparing kachumbari a day before, avoid adding avocados until right before the meal since they brown very quickly.

For the mixed vegetables: 
First and foremost I advise you to freeze all your fresh vegetables if you plan on using them at a later time. I usually do that and the minute I defrost them, they still have their original color and taste. Defrosting is easy because all you have to do is to put them below running water and within seconds they are separated and ready for cooking.
I defrosted a pack of mixed vegetables*french beans, peas and carrots* and cooked with some olive oil. I didn't add much spice,* only half spoon of royco with 3/4 cup water* because I wanted them to release their natural and sweet taste. They were ready in about 7 minutes, slightly crunchy yet cooked.

And just like that you have a  healthy and tasty meal!