Thursday, June 23, 2011

Ina's Indonesian Ginger Chicken and Jamie's Broccoli Salad

Ina's Garden's June 16th Linky is featuring any chicken recipe of Ina's and I Heart Cooking Club, currently trending Jamie Oliver where the theme is Get Fresh With Jamie, Celebrating The Best of Early Summer Produce. Put these two themes together and I have a perfect dinner, or so I thought! I'm killing two birds with one stone! :)



For dinner a few nights ago, I made Ina's Indonesian Ginger Chicken and Jamie's Broccoli With Asian Dressing, to go with plain white rice.



Ina's Indonesian Ginger Chicken is really easy and simple to put together. This recipe requires an overnight marination, but I just marinated the chicken about 8  hours or so. There are only four ingredients for the marinade and I only made half the recipe. Baked it for about an hour and the chicken turns out moist and tender. My kids love it, they love anything with honey! But this is not for me. Even my hubby says it is OK but not that great either. I find that somehow it lacks, a certain ingredient, as all I can taste is just the sweetness of the honey. I did add on the ginger and soy sauce as I feel that the flavours does not come  through. I thought that by baking with the chicken, it would be tastier with the taste from the chicken, but even though the chicken itself is moist and tender, the marinade is just lacking of something. Sorry, Ina, this is just not for me! I did thought of adding in some Worstershire sauce and a dash of hot sauce, when I tasted the marinade, before I pour it over the chicken, but decided against it and go for the original instead.



Anyway, for those who would like to give this a try, here's the recipe which can also be found at Food Network's website. The reviews at Food Network are outstanding, and that is one reason enough for me to try this out. Maybe I did not do it right, but I don't think that I'll be making this again, even if I do, I'll go easy on the honey and add on another ingredient or two. 



I'm sharing this with 

Indonesian Ginger Chicken
(source from : Food Network, recipe courtesy from Ina Garten)
1 cup honey
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup minced garlic (8 to 12 cloves)
1/2 cup peeled and grated fresh ginger root
2 (3-1/2 pound) chickens, quartered, with backs removed


Cook the honey, soy sauce, garlic and ginger root in a small saucepan over low heat until the honey is melted. Arrange the chicken in 1 layer in a shallow baking pan, skin side down, and pour on the sauce. Cover the pan tightly with aluminium foil. Marinate overnight in the refrigerator.
Preheat the oven to 350 degree F.
Place the baking pan in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover the pan, turn the chicken skin side up, and raise the temperature to 375 degrees F. Continue baking for 30 minutes or until the juice run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh and sauce is a rich, dark brown.
(Halfway during marination, I turned chicken halfway, skin side up, and before baking, turn it back again, skin side down).

*************************************************

Broccoli with Asian Dressing



Jamie uses broccoli and I add on the carrots as I only have a small head of broccoli. The Asian dressing is really nice, I did not add any sliced fresh onions, but I think that it would be really good and would be a lovely Asian touch!


Broccoli with Asian Dressing
(adapted from "Jamie's Food Revolution" by Jamie Oliver)
Ingredients and instructions :
Serves 4-6
Get yourself around 1-1/4 pounds of broccoli or broccolini or broccoli rabe.
Heat your steamer pan or put a large pan of water on to boil.
Break the broccoli up into little pieces and slice up the stalks.
Place the broccoli in your steamer or in a colander placed over the pan of boiling water and cover with a tight-fitting lid or some aluminium foil. Steam for around 6 minutes, until the stalks are tender.
Meanwhile, make your dressing. Peel a thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger and a clove of garlic and grate into a bowl.
Halve, seed, and finely chop a fresh red or green chili and add to the bowl.
Stir in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, and the juice from 1 lime. Drizzle in a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.
Whisk the dressing together and have a taste. What you're looking for is a flavour balance between saltiness from the soy sauce, sweetness from the balsamic vinegar, acid from the lime, and heat from the chili.
When the broccoli is cooked, place it on a big serving platter. Mix up the dressing one last time before pouring it over. Absolute heaven!


**

23 comments:

  1. What a feast!!! Am drooling over your beautiful preparation!!! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The whole meal looks delicious and that dressing sounds wonderful on the broccoli. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Am just drooling over that wonderful platter, really very tempting..

    ReplyDelete
  4. fantastic combo..looks really inviting..awesome clicks..:P
    Tasty Appetite

    ReplyDelete
  5. You make me so hungry and I only had breakfast today.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Joy, your chicken certainly looks delicious! You can tell how moist and tender it is. At least your kids enjoyed it. :o)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Im more interested in the broccoli salad, just the right dressing to my liking. I can eat just that morning, noon and night!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Twofer! I love dinners that knock out multiple lovely recipes :) That chicken looks so goooood!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you for sharing your experience with these recipes with Ina's Garden! I haven't tried Ina's Indonesian Ginger Chicken yet. I'm sorry you were not fond of it, but your version does look lovely from your photographs! And your broccoli salad looks beautiful too.

    ReplyDelete
  10. A clearly outstanding dish dear. I too agree with you . Indonesian Chicken dish looks heavenly.

    Deepa
    Hamaree Rasoi

    ReplyDelete
  11. but it looks delicious and the recipe seems okay, too much honey?? or add in some chinese wine and oyster sauce..that wont be called indonesian ginger chicken anymore ..lol!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Love love the salad! I am sure gonna try this for dinner as a side!

    ReplyDelete
  13. lovely Indonesian ginger chicken..am drooling here..salad looks yum too..

    ReplyDelete
  14. Your Ina chicken looks fantastic! I haven't eaten lunch yet, so I could grab yours right through the screen. Thanks for linking up!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Visiting your blog again, I love vegetables, broccoli much this is a recipe combining buenisima flavors are fantastic photos ... hugs Marimi

    ReplyDelete
  16. I think the honey is too much, I too dislike sweet dish when I have it with rice. But the broccoli sound so good.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I love sweet sticky chicken! In fact, I think I'd love this whole meal- everything looks fabulous! :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. That dressing does sound good.

    ReplyDelete
  19. It all looks delicious! I'd definitely add some hot pepper oil or something to go with the honey, give it a little heat. The broccoli looks so good.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I am definitely wanting to try this chicken. It sounds so flavorful.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Great idea for a meal pairing, sorry Ina's chicken ended up too sweet - I agree, that is an awful lot of honey.
    Broccoli looks good!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Sorry the chicken did not turn out well for you but I think it's the recipe, not you. After all it's mainly honey and soy sauce. We are used to more savoury food, food that uses more seasoning and sauces. And she did not 'pau heong' the ginger and garlic. ;-)

    ReplyDelete