Tag: kaffir leaves
Coconut Rice
The rice dish goes really well with the kumquat chicken I posted yesterday. Since it had so much flavor, I wasn’t looking for a starch that would compete with the protein. I knew I wanted to serve the chicken dish with rice and coconut kept coming to mind- especially because Spice Market in NYC serves Thai inspired food.. and when I think of Thai, coconut comes to mind.
I saved all the lemongrass stalks and kaffir lime mixture from the dressing for the chicken and added it to the coconut milk. I let the milk simmer with the aromatic herbs till it reduced down to two cups. This ensured tons of flavor… yum!! I added jasmine rice to the delicious broth and cooked the rice.
It is amazing how delicious the rice was- I could make a meal out of it- just the rice. I obviously tasted amazing with the chicken dish. Try this rice dish with any Asian inspired dish- you will never make plain rice again…
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Chicken Breast with Kumquats
This was a great dish to make. Someone mentioned kumquats a while ago and how the didn’t know what to do with them. Kumquats look like tiny little oranges. They are quite tart if eaten raw but provide a great tangy citrus flavor if cooked correctly. It reminded me of a chicken and kumquat dish I had at Spice Market in NYC. It was a very memorable and delicious meal- I am sure the yummy cocktails helped a lot.
I started thinking of that dish and decided to look it up online. After a lot of visualizing, I came up with this recipe. I first put the dressing together. I was able to get fresh lemongrass at whole foods. The kaffir lime leaves are available at the Asian stores. I bought a big pack and have them stored in the freezer. These two flavors are quite important to this dish.
I coated the chicken with a spice mix and marinated it for a few hours. All together, this dish has a few steps but it is very worth it.
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Jungle Shrimp- A Malaysian/Thai Style Shrimp
I have recently started writing for the Patch– which is a online blog owned by AOL. Most towns around Maplewood have their own local patch.
I recently did a restaurant review for the Chatham patch and talked about a restaurant called Taste of Asia. We had a really nice meal and I decided to replicate a dish called jungle shrimp. It was delicious at the restaurant and I came home and did a lot of research to figure out the ingredients. It turned out it had a lot of Thai flavors. I went shopping to Whole Foods and bought some kaffir leaves, lemongrass and palm sugar. I made a sauce out of orange juice, tamarind and fish sauce etc.
I sauteed the shrimp with some sweet peppers and onions and added the sauce. The dish was delicious- not the same as what we had at the restaurant but very enjoyable.
I loved the complex flavors of the sauce with the tamarind and the palm sugar. I served the dish with some fried rice to make it a complete meal.
If you are able to get all the exotic ingredients- no problem. You can substitute the palm sugar with honey, tamarind with lime juice, kaffir limes with lime zest, etc. The idea is to get a similar flavor- it doesn’t have to be exact. I would highly recommend it!
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