Tuesday 19 May 2015

The best Tumeric and Cumin Chicken - ever



What with all my special dietary requirements and the endless advice from multiple specialists: less meat, more spices, fruit and nut, ostrich, vitamins, detox.., I am easily the most healthy person, food-wise, whom I know - apart from my dad at least, but that (or he) is just crazy with a capital C and is a full feature movie for another day.

OK, I do admit that occasionally I may have crisp-eating fests where entire packets of "SHARE" sized bags are scoffed, but I deserve it for being a saint 90 percent of the time. And sharing is over rated anyway no matter how good it makes you look. And my crisps are grilled, not fried. So there.

Back to the point - and I do have one - a specialist of mine had specifically recommended that I have more tumeric. Tumeric is a fragrant, yellow spice from the ginger family and used liberally in Indian cuisine. It is warm and peppery and gives you a nice little hug from the inside. Most importantly, it is really good for health as it has loads of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents which suits someone who does not have a body which detoxes itself quite efficiently enough - me.

More by accident and pure laziness as I was too tired to cook, I threw some tumeric, cumin powder (another super power spice) and salt on some chicken thighs, stuck it in the oven at 180 degrees for 25 minutes and raised the temperature to 220 degrees with the grill on for another 10 minutes, and 10 minutes of resting later, we literally had chicken heaven on a plate. Nothing could be easier and simpler and yet produce such heart warming, rustic, gusty food. It is so good and simple you must try it.

To be healthy, one would discard the skin, but by then the skin would be thin and crispy as all that unhealthy fat would have been rendered onto the cooking tray, that eating the crispy skin would do you less harm than the unhappiness that would follow from denying yourself it. But do avoid dipping any breads into the rendered fat collected in the cooking tray - that WOULD be full of unsaturated fat. Unless you are like my other half who does not care. If so, then dip away.


Note to self - I must take better pictures next time...

Yuzu cake - results revealed



As we never know when and where the fatigue-wind blows, a short period later, we return with full zest and heartiness. It is time to reveal the results of the yuzu cake and it was an unprecedented success! It is meant to be a "heavy" (think afternoon tea type cake) cake as it is intended for a wedding, and yet delightfully fluffy and fresh in the mouth. It was not wide off the mark, with just enough yuzu to make the cake sing...!

It was devoured in less than 24 hours, and I will have to make it again in case it was first-time-lucky and learn how to stack them things. Stack or no, it will all be eaten I bet (hope).