The Cookbook Challenge - Week 17 - Vietnamese - Chicken with Vietnamese Caramel Sauce

Yes, I'm late. I'm sorry. Fitting blogging in around my life is harder than I anticipated. Uni's back, and I went away for the weekend - not making excuses... ok, maybe I'm making excuses. But, I'm blogging now!


This week's recipe came from delicious. Magazine, June 2007 edition - Chicken with Vietnamese Caramel Sauce. This is a great mid-week dinner recipe as it's nice and quick, cheap, and delicious. Although, and I'm not quite sure how, I did manage to create a lot of washing up with this recipe. I have a reputation for using the maximum number of dishes and utensils possible when cooking though, so don't let this put you off the recipe. I expect I'm the exception. And that's what dishwashers are for.

Chicken with Vietnamese Caramel Sauce - delicious. June 2007


1 tbs sunflower oil (or substitute peanut oil)
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1/3 cup soy sauce
125g brown sugar
1 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs tamarind concentrate
4 chicken breast fillets with skin on
steamed pak choy and white rice to serve


Heat half a tablespoon of oil in a pan over medium heat, add ginger and stir for one minute - watch it carefully as you don't want burnt ginger. The ginger flavour is really mild, so if you're looking for a ginger kick, double the amount. I will next time.

Add soy sauce and brown sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add fish sauce and tamarind concentrate, reduce heat to low and simmer for five minutes or until sauce thickens and is a dark caramel colour. I found it took no time at all to caramelise, but I think I had the stove up a little too high - it didn't seem to make a difference though. I still simmered it for the five minutes while I cooked the chicken.

Make three to four slashes in each chicken breast, about an inch apart so it depends on the size of your chicken breast, and season with salt and pepper.


Heat remaining oil in a frypan over medium-high heat. Add chicken, skin-side down, and cook for two to three minutes until golden brown. Turn and cook for two minutes on the other side, then turn skin-side down once more.

Reduce heat to medium-low, then add the sauce and cook chicken, basting, for a further five minutes or until cooked through. Serve with white rice and steamed pak choy, drizzled with the sauce.


Tip: Donna Hay (Modern Classics Book 1) taught me how to cook rice perfectly - To serve 4, put 1 1/2 cup long grain rice, 2 1/2 cups water in a pan with a tight fitting lid. Cook over a medium heat for 10-12 minutes, until funnels form in the rice and the liquid is absorbed. Set aside for 10 minutes, then fluff with a fork and serve. Ignore the instructions on the pack and follow these - you'll have perfect rice every time.


There you go, that's something by Kate.

Brownies by Request

Mmmmm brownies. My favourite recipe for brownies is from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2 (it's reproduced in her Simple Essentials Chocolate book with 1/4 of a cup less flour). I had a special request for brownies about a week ago and didn't quite make it happen, so with the rain pouring down outside today I thought it was a good day for their chocolatey rich goodness. Unfortunately, despite making these more than 10 times before, today they didn't turn out the best. I could have denied the disaster, but would that offend the blogging gods?

As you can see, I was unable to keep all the yolks together when I cracked the eggs - I think it looks like a smiley face sticking its tongue out.

The cocoa I use is Cote d'Ivoire Red African Cocoa from Coffee Snobs which is 100% cocoa, no sugar, no fillers, no dairy, no nuts,  gluten free and delicious. I usually use a 60-70% dark chocolate like Lindt when I make these, but this time I used Cadbury Old Gold mildly dark chocolate (45%) as there were 8 220g blocks sitting in the pantry from a special offer that involved the purchase of 12 blocks for $5.99 from 1-day!   Unfortunately I can't blame my failure on using a different chocolate than usual, as I have produced quality brownies using this chocolate before.

I thought I'd make brownie muffins, and just reduce the cooking time. Can you say burnt? How about stuck?

They were only a little crisp on top and I didn't need to actually present them to anyone except my boyfriend, who luckily understands that I can't always be perfect, and the deliciousness was still there - a little drier than normal, but still quite good.

What did I learn today?

1. Don't decide that your baking powder is probably a bit old and throw in a bit more to compensate, it's a brownie, not a volcano, it doesn't really need to rise that much.
   
2. Donna knows best. If she says use a slice tin, use a slice tin.
3. Give up on maintaining a constant temperature in my oven, or even achieving the temperature I want - today it was set at 220, preheated for 30 minutes, and fluctuated from 130 to 190, when I wanted 160.

Chocolate Brownies - Donna Hay Modern Classics Book 2

200g dark chocolate, chopped

250g butter, chopped

1 3/4 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

1/3 cup cocoa powder, sifted

1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Place the chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat and stir until smooth. Allow to cool slightly.

Place the sugar, eggs, cocoa, flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add the chocolate mixture and mix until combined. Pour the mixture into a 20cm square slice tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 50 minutes or until set. Cool slightly in the tin.