Smoked Salted Black Tea Chicken

Typical menu for whole chicken will be either to do the Western style roast or Hainanese Chicken rice and I'm sort of bored with that. So when I open up the kitchen cabinet and saw the big basket of black tea there... well.. ok, I'm gonna try smoking the chicken.

Tools Required:

• Oven
• grill tray with the rack
• aluminium foil

Ingredients:

• whole free range chicken (mine 1.2kg)
• 1cup black tea
• 1/4 water
• 2tbsp coarse salt
• 2tsp himalayan salt
• 1/2tsp pepper

Steps:

1. Pat dry the chicken, rub it all over with the himalayan salt and pepper.
2. Mix the black tea with water and salt.
3. Place the tea mixture on the tray before placing the rack over it.
4. Place the chicken on top of the rack. Cover loosely with the aluminium foil to create smoke effect in inside the tray, allowing some smoke to escape.
5. Preheat oven at 100c for 10mins, then place the tray in. Reduce temp to 70c. Use the bottom heat function only
6. Smoke the chicken for roughly an hour to 1.5hrs.
7. Remove the aluminium foil and change to fan forced at 180c. Roast the chicken for another 25mins.
8. Once done, remove to cool for bout 10-15mins before cutting it up.

Salad Craze

Recently, I'm on a little salad craze after watching too much MKR. So decided to do some. Here there is two different salads, roast chicken with roast sweet potatoes salad and rump steak with roast pumpkin salad.

For the roast chicken salad:

Ingredients:

• 5 pieces of chicken drumstick, minus the bottom part (that's how it was sold)
• 1 piece of medium size sweet potato, skinned and cut to cubed of roughly 2x2cm
• 2 pieces of medium size red onion, wedged to roughly 2cm size
• 1 medium size potato, cut to cubed of roughly 2x2cm
• olive oil, salt (use less coz the olives are rather salty), pepper and curry powder
• a handful of sweet peas, removed the sides and cut diagonally across
• 5 pieces of mini radishes with the leaves (washed and sliced thinly)
• half a avocado, sliced to wedges
• spinach
• a handful of crumbled feta cheese
• a handful of black olives
• half a lime juice (for the dressing)
• 1 tablespoon of honey (for the dressing)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (for the dressing)
• juices from the roast chicken (for the dressing)

Methods:

1. Arranged the first four items in the baking tray, lined with baking paper.
2. Drizzled with olive oil and sprinkle with freshly grounded black pepper and salt.
3. Sprinkle the curry powder on the chicken only.
4. Roast in the oven at 200C for about 20mins.
5. Add in the sweat peas at the last 5mins.
6. Let it rest in the oven for about another 5mins after turning off the power/fire.
7. Mixed all the ingredients for the dressing together till the honey is dissolved.
8. Mix all ingredients together in the mixing bowl along with the dressing and served.. yum

For the pumpkin salad:

Ingredients:

• Roughly 300g pumpkin, skinned and cut to cube, approximately 2x2cm
• 2 pieces of medium size red onion, wedged to roughly 2cm size
• olive oil, salt, pepper
• a handful of crumbled feta cheese
• a handful of spinach
• quarter a lime juice (for the dressing)
• 1/2 tablespoon of honey (for the dressing)
• 1/4 tablespoon olive oil (for the dressing)

Methods:

1. Similar to the above, lined the baking tray with paper and arrange the pumpkin and onions in it. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
2. Roast in the oven, 200C for about 20mins.
3. Mixed all the ingredients for the dressing together till the honey is dissolved.
4. Mix all ingredients together in the mixing bowl along with the dressing and served.. yum

Roast Chicken with Potato

No recipe, just some salt, pepper and sweet soy sauce for the chicken.... drizzle with olive oil.. that is all.
Sophie loves the potato and chicken...

Roast Chicken with Turnip