Chicken pepper soup

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog once again, Ramadan Mubarak to my muslim brothers and sisters. I am here again with another simple and easy recipe, especially if you are lazy to cook sometimes just like me😁. This dish is a common dish eaten in most Nigerian homes and almost every family has their own unique recipe, I am here to share my own take on Chicken pepper soup.

Let’s start with the ingredients that will be needed:

• 700g of any cut of chicken (depending on the amount you want)
• One medium size onion, two scotch bonnets and three cloves of garlic (blended together)
• One big carrot cut into chunks
• Three big potatoes cut into chunks
• Chopped scallions 
• One teaspoon of chilli flakes (optional)
• One teaspoon of black pepper powder
• One teaspoon of dry ginger/fresh ginger
• One teaspoon of smoked paprika
• One teaspoon of cloves
• One bay leaf 
• One teaspoon of dry coriander
• One teaspoon of salt
• Three chicken bouillons
• A dash of curry powder
• A dash of dry thyme
• 700ml -1l of water (according to how soupy you want it)

STEPS

Now this is the easy part, get your pot ready and add in everything all together apart from the veggies, let it cook for about 30 minutes and then add in your remaining veggies apart from the scallions. I added the veggies later so as to not over cook it ( I still over cooked mine😄) . Now the potatoes kind of thicken the soup due to the starch they have, if you don’t like your soup a bit thickened totally omit them and if you like your soup a lot more thickened, you can mix a little bit of cornstarch with water and stir it in when the soup is almost done. I cooked mine for a total of about one hour just because I like the meat to be really soft and the bones to be almost chewable, you can totally reduce the cooking time if that is not your cup of tea, chicken doesn’t take time to cook, anywhere between 30-45 minutes should be fine. Make sure to taste and adjust any seasoning, I also like to drizzle a little bit of soy sauce in mine some minutes before I take it off the fire. Once its off the fire, add in the scallions to give it a nice fresh aroma!

You can serve this as a side dish or just have it as it is! I served mine with some garlic buns from the 

grocery store. You can also be versatile and add in any vegetable of your choice and make the soup your own😉 I really hope you give this recipe a try and enjoy☺️.

Spicy chinese chicken stir fry with tagliatelle .

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog! I know I have not been blogging as much as I used to, with school and everything else going on, lets just say life has taken over😄. This blog is a special one though because it’s going to be my blog anniversary on tuesday, it has been two years already! I know I still have a very long way to go but I am glad and proud of how far I have come. I also want to say a very big thank you to anyone that has supported me by sharing my links, retweeting, commenting and offering words of support, I really really appreciate and God bless 🙏🏾. So, let’s get into the main thing for today, spicy chinese chicken stir fry with tagliatelle!

You will need the following ingredients:

• 500g of boneless chicken thighs or breasts (should be enough for about three servings)
• One medium size onion (chopped)
• Two red chilli peppers (sliced)
• Two green chilli peppers (sliced)
• Three cloves of garlic (minced)
• One tablespoon of minced fresh ginger
• One tablespoon of dried chilli flakes
• Two egg whites
• One cup of corn flour and half a cup of regular flour
• One chicken bouillon (optional)
• Three tablespoons of soy sauce
• Two tablespoons of oyster sauce
• One tablespoon of honey
• One tablespoon of rice vinegar 
• Half a cup of water
• one teaspoon of corn flour

STEPS

First of all, wash you chicken and slice them into bits. You can also marinate your chicken with a little bit of lemon juice for 10-15 minutes and rinse it afterwards to avoid that chicken smell . Once that is done, drizzle in about a tablespoon of soy sauce, oyster sauce and add in half of the minced ginger to the chicken and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes. Once the chicken is done marinating, add in the egg whites, corn flour and regular flour, mix everything together till you have something like this,

Once that is done, in a separate bowl, add in the three tablespoons of soy sauce, two tablespoons of oyster sauce, one tablespoon of rice vinegar, one tablespoon of honey, half a cup of water, one teaspoon of cornstarch and mix all together, like so,

Now set that aside and let’s get back to the chicken again!

Heat up your pan with about a cup of vegetable oil, once it’s hot, start adding your chicken bit by bit, they might stick together so use your spatula to separate them and fry until golden brown. So we are going to double fry this chicken, after frying them the first time around, you will fry them again a second time just to make them extra crispy, like so,

Once this is done also set it aside and let’s proceed to making the spicy sauce it will go into!

Heat up your pan or wok with about three tablespoons of vegetable oil, add in the dry chilli flakes to infuse the oil first and give it that Smokey chilli flavor and then add in the rest of the chopped veggies and stir fry. After this you can add in the chicken bouillon if you wish and then finally add in your soy sauce mixture! Let the sauce thicken up a bit before adding in your chicken and then stir fry till everything is well coated and voila! You are done!

You can serve this with some delicious pasta, rice or noodles! I served mine with some lovely tagliatelle and it was absolutely delicious!

I really do hope you give this recipe a try and enjoy!☺️

Crispy chicken meatballs on skewers.

Hello everyone! It has really been a while, school and life in general just took over but hope we are all doing great! I am here again to share another simple and yet delicious recipe, crispy chicken meatballs on skewers! You can have this recipe as an appetizer, a side dish or you can even chop it up and add it in a salad, depending on what you want😉.

So let’s get to it and start with the ingredients needed:

• 500g of minced chicken (depending on the amount and size you want to make)
• Two eggs
• One small onion (finely chopped)
• Two cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
• One red chilli or scotch bonnet (finely chopped)
• One smoked chicken sausage (optional)
• A spoonful of diced fresh parsley    
• One chicken bouillon 
• Half a teaspoon of salt
• A spoonful of mixed spice (curry, thyme, powdered coriander, chilli flakes, turmeric, black pepper and paprika )
• Corn flour or regular flour 
• Bread crumbs 

STEPS

So in your bowl with the minced chicken, add in your spices, seasonings, chopped veggies, chopped smoked chicken sausage, one egg yolk ( I discovered that adding a full egg made the mixture more loose and just the egg yolk did a better job), one tablespoon of bread crumbs (just to firm it up more) and mix everything together! You will have something like this;

Now you can use an ice cream scoop or a spoon to scoop up the desired amount and mold it into a ball. I also noticed that wetting your fingers with a little bit of water helped the molding  process and reduced sticking. Make sure all the balls are similar in size so they cook at the same time.

 

Now that you are done molding, in separate little plates, pour some corn flour or regular flour in one plate, in another pour some bread crumbs and then beat an egg in a little bowl. You can add some spices to your bread crumbs just to give it some extra kick. Next up, heat up your oil! For this recipe I preferred a deep fry to a shallow fry so I used a small deep pot instead of a pan, or you can use a deep fryer if you have one. 

Now roll your ball in the corn flour, then roll it in the egg, then roll it in the bread crumbs and then drop it in the oil on low heat. Fry till it’s golden brown, but just before you take it out, increase the heat just to make the coating more crispy, be careful not to burn it though!😄. It should take about two minutes on each side ( four to five minutes total). The cooking time also depends on the size of the meatballs, smaller meatballs take less time while bigger ones take more time.

And that’s it for this recipe! I garnished mine with some pickles and carrot roses/rolls. Don’t t forget you can be versatile with it and make it your own! I hope you give this recipe a try and enjoy!