Honey and Soy Sauce Chicken Recipe

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

A little while ago Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews was running a recipe competition. The idea was that you you needed to use the new Amoy Special Selection Soy Sauce to create a recipe. I quickly added an idea to her blog as the first five bloggers to comment received a bottle of the soy sauce. When my bottle of soy sauce arrived I decided I had to use it to create another recipe. My original idea was to marinate chicken breasts in a honey and soy sauce marinade and then grilling them.

Halfway though I decided to chop them into pieces and make more of a stir fry type dish with them. My thinking was that I would like the marinade to cover more of the chicken. It turned out I could have just cooked the chicken breasts without chopping them as the flavour worked really well. I served it with rice but if you grilled the chicken breasts it would be nice served with new potatoes and green beans. If the chicken breasts were left whole it would also work very nicely on a barbecue.

Honey and Soy Sauce Chicken

Ingredients

3 chicken breasts
1 red onion
1 red pepper
4 mushrooms
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons runny honey

Method

Mix the lime juice, lemon juice, soy sauce and runny honey together in a shallow dish.
Place the chicken breasts in the mixture and leave to marinade for at least four hours, but preferably overnight.
Chop the onion, mushrooms and pepper and the chicken into pieces.
Heat some oil in a pan and stir fry the chicken. When nearly done add the onions, mushrooms and pepper with the remaining marinade sauce and cook for a few minutes until it is cooked though.
Serve with rice or noodles.

The result was very nice and my son remarked it was delicious. I will definitely be trying this again.

Sticky Chicken Recipe

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

I love blogger challenges, especially when they involve cooking and I was recently invited to take part on Geeta’s Chutney Challenge. Geeta’s is a well known brand that produce Indian food and their first ever product was Geeta’s Premium Mango Chutney. I was sent a jar of their chutney and challenge to produce a recipe using it.

I thought hard about the challenge and decided I would try a version of sticky chicken using the chutney as part of the sticky coating on the chicken. This could then be grilled or fried quite easily and hopefully would taste lovely. I was very pleased with the result, it worked very well and was quite tasty. The mango chutney gave it a little bit of Indian flavour that worked really well with the other ingredients.

Here is the recipe if you want to try it

Sticky Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts
Juice from 2 limes, zest from 1 lime
1 crushed garlic clove
2 tsp olive oil
2 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp tomato ketcup
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp mango chutney

Method

Mix the ingredients together and make into a marinade.
Marinate the chicken and leave for around 20 minutes
Cook the chicken either under a grill or in a frying pan, turning frequently until it is cooked though.

I cooked the chicken in a griddle pan which actually worked very well. I served it with rice and salad. This would also be a nice dish to cook on the barbecue in the summer.

You can find more information about Geeta’s Indian Products here: http://www.geetasfoods.com/

Disclosure: This is my entry into the Geeta blogger Chutney Challenge.

Tropical Sun Jerk Seasoning Review

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

I am a great lover of Jamaican Jerk Chicken and it is one of my husband’s favourite dishes. Recently our usual jerk spice has become impossible to find so I have been on the search for substitutes. I came across this Tropical Sun Jerk Seasoning and decided to give it a try.

Apparently jerk seasoning was created by the Arawak Indians who were the original natives in Jamaica. The Jamaica Sun jerk seasoning is closely based on the original recipe and I was interested to see how much it would differ from the normal seasoning I use. The instructions advise that 1 tbsp is used per 500g meat. It is just meant to be rubbed onto the skin and then the chicken can be barbecued or grilled.

For the best flavour the chicken should be left to marinate overnight. I put the jerk seasoning on both sides of the chicken and grilled it. When it was cooked I served it with rice.

The seasoning looked pretty much the same as my normal seasoning but when I bit into the chicken I was in for a surprise. This jerk seasoning packs a very fiery punch, it has a really hot taste and it really made my eyes water. Having said that it was nice but next time I use it I will use a lot less. If you are a fan of really spicy food this one is for you, otherwise use it sparingly.

Disclosure: I found this in the supermarket and decided to review it because I felt like it.

Capricorn Goats Cheese Recipe – Ethel’s Farmhouse Chicken

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

I often talk to a goat on twitter, Ethel the Goat who is one of the goats who make Capricorn Goats Cheese. I was quite excited when she invited me to take part in the #CapricornChallenge. The rules were simple, Ethel sent me a gorgeous hamper filled with goodies including Capricorn Somerset Goats Cheese and I had to take up the challenge to create some recipes and blog about them. I thought this was baa-rilliant and couldn’t wait to take up the challenge.

As you can see from the hamper there were more than enough ingredients to provide inspiration and I came up with a number of different recipes that I will be sharing with you. I have to say that Capricorn Goats Cheese is delicious and it is very tempting to eat it as it is, but I resisted.

The first recipe that I came up with was a chicken with tomato, orange pepper tomato and goats cheese sauce which I have called Ethel’s Farmhouse Chicken for lack of a better name.

Ingredients

3 chicken breasts
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
¼ cup of cider
½ cup chicken stock
½ yellow pepper, chopped
2 tomatoes chopped
2 oz goats cheese

Method

Cook the chicken breasts slowly in a griddle pan, making sure they are cooked though. This should take at least 20 minutes.
In a frying pan add the olive oil and sauté the garlic. Add the yellow pepper and tomatoes and warm though.
Add the cider and the chicken stock to the pan and cook until it reduces by half.
Stir in the goats cheese gently until it melts.

Serve the chicken on a plate with the sauce poured on the top. You can add a sprinkle of black pepper if you like that. The chicken dish would be nice served with rice and a salad or new potatoes.

I was very pleased with this recipe, the cider merged well with the tomatoes and yellow pepper and the goats cheese added a mellow creamy flavour to the whole dish. The whole family enjoyed the meal, even my husband who can be a bit suspicious of new recipes.

To find out more about Capricorn Goats Cheese and Ethel and her goat friends visit http://www.capricorngoatscheese.co.uk

Disclosure: I was sent a hamper of ingredients in order to create recipes

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Dragons and Fairy Dust

I recently discovered Jerk seasoning and in particular Jamaican Jerk Chicken. This is a recipe my husband loves, and in fact he would eat it every day if he got the chance. Jerk is a method of cooking native to Jamaica where the meat is rubbed with a spice as either a dry or wet marinade and then cooked, traditionally over a fire pit. This is the recipe I use, I am not sure where it came from originally but I adapted it a bit and it makes a nice spicy chicken. I usually serve it with savoury rice, but I am sure other things will work just as well.

The marinade

2 tablespoons jerk seasoning
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Mix it all together and pour it over the chickenbreasts, making sure all the sides are covered well. If you need more marinade just mix up a tablespoon of each of the ingredients until you get the proportions you need. Leave the chicken to marinade for a couple of hours. I usually make it up in the morning, go to work, come home and then cook. It will look something like this:

Cooking

All I do is to place the chicken under a grill and grill it until it is cooked though. You need to keep turning the chicken and you can top the marinade up as you go so that it is all covered. You will know it is cooked as the juices run clear and there should be no pink bits left in the chicken. All you need to do then is to serve it up and enjoy.