Spicy Chicken Wings

The plan was to make a Homemade Buffalo Wings, but because I didn’t have the time to buy the Frank sauce and other things, I decided to make this Spicy Chicken Wings which is by far, better than Buffalo Wings. (in my opinion of course).

Actually, you can use a wide variety of sauces, herbs and spices to cook chicken wings. The best combination for me is this recipe that i will share to you. Again, this is my personal choice and I’m sure, some of you prefers something else.

So here’s what you need just in case you want to try it:

• 10-15 chicken wings; cut into 3 parts.

this is how your wings should look like. Honestly, i love the wing tip. It ‘s crunchy and you can actually eat the bones. But because I was thinking about blogging this recipe, I decided to cut it. Some cut the whole tip but I can’t. I still want to leave a tiny winy toot to eat. haha!

• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1 tsp. Tabasco sauce

1. Wash and cut and your wings and dry in a paper towel
2. Mix flour, garlic powder, paprika, salt, pepper and cayenne.
3. Mix chicken wings and spices in a plastic bag or zip lock. Refrigerate for about an hour.
4. Line baking pan with foil and smear with butter
5. Mix melted butter and tabasco sauce.
6. Dip chicken wings one by one and arrange in baking pan.
7. Bake in preheated 400F oven for about 40-45 minutes.
8. Serve hot and crispy.

I don’t know exactly where I found this recipe. Most probably in foodwishes.com since cayenne is one of Chef John’s fave ingredients. I was looking for this recipe in his blog but I didn’t find it. But all the credit goes to whoever the original recipe came from. Now, if you want your wings to be more spicy, then add more of the spicy ingredients. Enjoy!

Garlic Chicken (Chicken with 20 Cloves of Garlic)

This recipe is from Chef John (foodwishes.com) and this is the 3rd time I made this recipe. I want to share this to everyone especially to Garlic lovers out there. This has exactly 20 cloves of garlic. According to Chef John, the original recipe has 40 cloves of garlic but for us who just want to have some fair garlicky day, the 20 cloves will be enough. 

One thing I hate about dressed chicken here in Israel is it has a lot of unplucked feathers. Ugghhh! In the Philippines, we submerge the whole dead chicken into a pot of boiling water for about 30-40 seconds and clean it. Very easy and very clean. Here it’s not allowed since it will not be kosher if you’ll clean it that way. The chicken from the supermarket are machine-cleaned and there are still a lot of unplucked feathers especially at the tip of chicken legs and wings. 

look how disgusting to see these feathers. I spent about 20 minutes just to clean my 10 chicken legs

Ingredients:

• 10 pcs. Chicken Legs (or you can use 1 whole chicken cut into serving pieces)
• 1/4 cup Red Wine Vinegar
• 1/3 cup olive oil (Chef John use 2/3 cup with his whole chicken)
• 1 tsp. dried rosemary
• 1 tsp. dried thyme
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste

My 10 pieces chicken legs

• First up, you have to make a couple of deep slashes all the way to the bone in 2 sides of your chicken legs. (picture above)

• Then you have to puree your 20 cloves of garlic with a blender or food processor together with your olive oil, red wine vinegar, and dried herbs; blend it to make a smoothie puree.

• Pour the marinade into your chicken legs in a large bowl and soak well. Make sure the puree will get into the slashes; Cover it will plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight. Well i think 5-6 hours will be enough. Or you can prepare this in the morning and it will be good for dinner.

• Preheat your oven to 425F. Spread out your chicken in your baking pan which is covered with foil and smeared with a little olive oil. Generously salt and pepper your chicken and bake it for about 40-45 minutes.
• When it’s done, transfer it into a large serving plate and top it with Italian Parsley. It counteracts garlic breath. 

For a Filipino like me, nothing can beat a Garlic Chicken and Rice Combo! No, don’t make garlic rice. It will be an overkill. Instead, eat it with regular rice and some Pickles or Green Salad.

It’s a shame to throw away the garlic glaze from the chicken. I actually used some of it as my green salad dressing. It’s unbelievably and sinfully delicious that I can even eat rice with this and nothing else. 

Hope you’ll give it a try. Enjoy!

Pasta a la Julia

Nah! There’s no such thing as Pasta a la Julia. Unless of course, the famous Julia Child made something like that with considerable amount of humility and named it after her. I titled this post Pasta a la Julia because that’s the name I want to give to this “original recipe” I made today. Naks! Haha. Since my name is Julie, I somehow presumed that this title would be appropriate for this entry.

Im just kidding.

Anyways, I really want to consider this meal as “my” own recipe because I didn’t follow anything from internet or cookbook. For the first time, I cooked with my instinct. I just want to make something like Pollo al Gorgonzola, the pasta i ate in Spaghettim last week. It was with seared chicken breasts, onion, cream and mushrooms. I found half a cup of cream leftover inside the fridge, a can of champignon inside my cupboard and 2 chicken breasts inside the freezer. I was thinking, I could make “something” like Pollo al Gorgonzola today! Yehey!

Without so much ado, I made my own version without so much expectation, I must say, that I can really make a good pasta out of these things. But a little disclaimer: Any of you who will try this recipe at home and will not like it, I will not be the one to blame. OK? Though I can honestly say it was delicious, I cannot assure anyone that it’s very good. Again, this is a test recipe, do it at your own risk. Haha!

Ingredients:

350g Penne Pasta or any pasta you like
50 g. butter
1/2 cup all purpose cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 large chicken breasts; cubed
1 can champignon or about 1/2 cup button mushrooms; sliced
1 large onion; finely chopped
1/2 tsp. dried tarragon
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
100 ml. white wine
Grated Parmesan

Ok, honestly I forgot to put wine. But I wan’t to include that in this recipe. If you don’t like alcohol then you can exclude it.

• Boil your pasta
• In a sauce pan, melt butter; fry onion until transparent
• dump in chicken breasts and fry for about 2 minutes
• dump in mushrooms and fry for another 2 minutes
• pour the wine (again, you can omit this if you want); let it boil until almost all the wine evaporated
• pour in chicken broth and let it simmer for a while
• add cream and all the dried herbs; lower your fire this time.
• salt and pepper to taste.
• Now by this time your pasta should be cooked (not overcooked); drain it and put it back to the pan
• Pour your chicken sauce over your pasta; dump in some parmesan cheese; mix well and cover for about 3 minutes. The pasta will actually absorb some of the sauce.
• After 3 minutes; mix it again and it’s ready to serve.
• Sprinkle some grated parmesan on top and you have Pasta a la Julia.

I am very much sure that there are thousands of recipes out there that are pretty much the same as this. But with all honesty, I didn’t make this based on any recipe. I know that once, I made chicken breast with tarragon and it’s almost the same as what I did today except of course this is pasta. 

DISCLAIMER: What I wrote here was from the core of my head and the tip of my tongue. Any recipe which is in any way completely the same with what I did is purely coincidental. Thank you.

So, I hope one of you will try this recipe and I really really love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a message. Enjoy!

Baked Rice Pilaf

First of all, I miss the Ilonggo Style Arroz a la Valenciana. It’s been my family’s favorite eversince I could remember and never in our entire history of family get together that the Valenciana was absent. There are hundreds of ways to make Valenciana or Paella but there’s something distinct about the way we cook it from scratch. We use fancy rice or “pilit (malagkit)” as we call it and it’s always with a lot of toppings. From pork to liver to seafood to everything. We don’t even use Safran like how they make authentic Spanish Paella. We just use “kawalag” or yellow ginger. I think it’s something like Curcum or Turmeric in a way. I’m not really sure. What I can tell you is, if there are thousands of reasons why I always look back to where I came from, one of those is the Arroz a la Valanciana.

Today, as I dream about going home, I found 3 large chicken legs inside the freezer. Me and my capricious self made sure that I have all the ingredients I need to make Baked Rice Pilaf. Since I cannot have my Arroz a la Valenciana today, I found a way to cure the craving again. I wanna share this very very simple but delicious recipe that you can actually make for lunch or dinner. There are other ways to make Rice Pilaf but I prefer to make it this way because I love the rice crusts on top after baking it. 

Ingredients:

5 large chicken legs (or you can make this with chicken/turkey wings)

3 stems green onions; chopped

1 large red bell pepper; chopped in small cubes

1 large carrot; grated

1 tbsp. mushroom powder in 600 ml. of hot water (or you can use cream of mushroom soup diluted in water)

1 can sliced champignon or sliced fresh button mushrooms

1 cup rice

dill and parsley

*you can put any vegetables you like. Eg. broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, english peas and others. 

• Fry the green onions with 2 tbsp of olive oil; carrot and bell pepper; rice.
• Dump in your chicken legs and fry for about 3 minutes
• Dump in your champignon together with your mushroom soup or broth
• Simmer for 5 minutes; salt and pepper to taste.
• Put dill and parsley
• Transfer to a baking dish and bake for 40-45 minutes in 180C oven until the liquid’s gone and the rice is done. If you want it to have some rice crusts on top (yes, i love it), then you have to leave it for like 10 minutes more.
• Let it cool a little before serving. It can burn your tastebuds.

There you go, hope you’ll try this and don’t forget to hit me back and tell me about it. Enjoy! =)

Break a Leg! (or should I say Eat a Leg?)

I woke up depressed because I miss Bacolod Chicken Inasal. Yes, Bacolod City from Negros Occidental in the Visayas is known for its chicken barbecue which you cannot find any comparison all over the Philippines. My cousin Vhon ( click to view her blog ) made a review of this in her blog and I cant help but read over and over again and it’s torture. Though I wanted to have something like chicken barbecue where I could eat with chili-spicy soy sauce, onion, lemon and RICE, I decided to make this simple oven-baked chicken legs, a regular favorite and baked some sliced potatoes to go with it. They say, when you crave, you have to find something taste-like. But this recipe is no way near Bacolod Chicken Barbecue. First of all, this is baked and not grilled or barbecued. But anyway, this can cure the craving and definitely tasty. A home-made baked chicken legs for a gloomy Thursday evening.

So here’s the recipe:

6-8 pieces large Chicken Legs

2 tsp. paprika

1/2 tsp. hot paprika

1 spn. granulated garlic

1/2 tsp. ground pepper

1 tsp. salt

olive oil

rosemary

thyme

• mix all the spices (paprika, hot paprika, salt, garlic, pepper)
• coat the chicken legs with the mixture.
• preheat oven at 375F
• heat oil in medium heat, fry the chicken legs until brown or half-cooked.
• grease baking pan with olive oil or butter, place the half-cooked chicken legs.
• pour some of the oil you use for frying into the pan.
• pour about 50 ml. of hot water.
• sprinkle with dry thyme and put some fresh rosemary. You can use dry herbs if you can’t find fresh ones.
• put into the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes. 
• turn occasionally until golden brown and crispy.
• serve with baked potatoes or rice. 

For baked potatoes, there are a lot of ways to make it. Usually, it takes a lot of time to bake raw potatoes. What I normally do is cut the potatoes in cubes and put it in microwave oven for about 10 minutes just to soften it a little. Then I wash it in cold water, strain and put spices on it. Same spices I use for the chicken legs. I also put dry herbs and oil on it then bake it together with my chicken. I love it deep brown and crispy so i let it cook about 40-50 minutes too.

And oh, I watermarked my pics too.. Yey! 🙂

Enjoy!

Breaded Chicken Breast (The Israeli Way)

When I came to Israel to work as a caregiver, my first employer asked me what kind of food I can cook (yes, we’re the one cooking for our patients). I didn’t know what to answer because if I’ll say adobo, pinirito, sinigang, lechon paksiw and sinangag na left over rice, she will probably go berserk and throw me out before I could lay my hands on her.

I said “Anything. Just give me the recipe.” Fair ’nuff. Then she said, “First of all, you have to learn how to make Schnitzel“. And I was like, What the hell is that?? 


Schnitzel can be anything breaded and fried. It’s an Austrian dish but Israel is somehow trademarked with its own version typically made of chicken or turkey breast since pork is not allowed to be used. I think every restaurant here in Israel offers varieties of Schnitzel and you can really find it anywhere. It’s usually served with mashed potatoes, french fries or rice with hummus or ketchup dips and green salad.

For almost 5 years of living here in Tel-Aviv and for 5 long years of making Schnitzel once or twice every week, I found lots of ways to make it. Then I came up with my own version of the dish which my employer will never get tired of eating. I’m sharing it with you today. It’s so easy to make and very delicious.

With these things, you can make the best schnitzel ever

you also need this MALLET to pound the meat to make it as thin as possible

1. 4 medium-sized boneless chicken or turkey breasts.
2. 2 eggs
3. 2 tbsp. all purpose flour
4. 3 tbsp. milk
5. 1-2 cups of Panko bread crumbs (usually they use crumbs from Matzot but I prefer Panko. You can find it in any local supermarket or japanese/chinese stores).
6. salt and pepper.

• Pound the meat using the mallet to make it thinner. Season with generous amount of salt and pepper.
• Beat eggs together with flour and milk.
• Soak your meat into the egg mixture, cover it and let it sit for 2-3 hours inside the fridge. (Some let it sit overnight but for me 2 hours is enough).
• Prepare your Panko bread crumbs. Put a bit of salt and pepper in it and mix. (you can put sesame seeds if you want).
• Heat your oil in medium heat.
• Coat your soaked chicken breast with panko bread crumbs. Make sure it’s coated well and every part is covered with crumbs.
• Now the trick here is not to let your oil boil or too hot. It will burn your crumbs in no time and you will end up with burned schnitzel on the outside but raw inside. Heat the oil to be just enough to simmer. 
• Fry your coated meat at least 2 minutes on both sides and let it dry on a paper towel before serving.

I normally like my crumbs to be a bit brown and burned. I love it a bit more crispy so I let it cook a little more than usual. Serve it with buttered mashed potato and you will never go wrong with it.

Enjoy!