- 4 chicken thighs (deboned and skin removed)
- 1 broccoli
- 1 small carrot
- 1 clove of garlic
- 2 potatoes
- 1 tablespoon heap of unsalted butter
Marinate chicken with (I use the method of guess-timation when I cook so figures stated here are all estimates):
- 1-2 tablespoons Lee Kum Kee Chicken Marinade
- 2 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp cornflour
- 1/2 tablespoon oyster sauce
- a dash of sesame oil
- 1/2-3/4 tablespoon crushed black peppercorns
- a dash of ground black pepper
Method:
Preparation:
- Clean chicken thighs and remove tendons and fats.
- Marinate the chicken thighs with the above seasonings and let sit for at least 30minutes. The longer you marinate it, the nicer they are.
- Cut broccoli into bite-size pieces (I used only the florets) and slice the carrot. Rinse.
- Mince garlic.
- Scrub potatoes clean and put them to boil till they are soft (poke a chopstick through and if it goes through easily and comes out of the potato with ease, you can remove them from the water).
Cook:
Vegetables
- Steam the broccoli and carrot for 5 minutes. You may wish to parboil them but I prefer to steam them as steaming retains more nutrients.
- Fry the garlic till fragrant then add in the veggies and briefly saute them and add in your favourite sauce. This is optional – you may serve the steamed veggies as they are for a healthier version.
Chicken
- Preheat the oven to 200degC.
- Bake the chicken thighs at 200degC for 15min – they’d be cooked thoroughly but still nice and tender.
- Reserve any extra marinade for mashed potatoes (optional).
Mashed potato
- Peel off the skin of the cooked potatoes (it should come off very easily) and remove any blemishes/ eyes. I remove the skin only at this point as I feel that there is minimal wastage of the potato using this method.
- Push the potatoes through a sieve to get a super fine texture (like that of baby’s food) – do this if you love really smooth, melt-in-your-mouth type of mashed potato like I do! It’s really worth the effort. Alternatively, if you have a potato masher, that’d work too. A word of caution on the use of a mixer for this purpose: the potatoes may be ‘overworked’ by the mixer and may end up gluey.
- Set aside the finely mashed potatoes.
- Melt the butter (do not burn!) and pour the hot butter over the mashed potatoes.
- Using the same saucepan, put the leftover marinade from the chicken to boil then pour over the mashed potatoes.
- Mix the mashed potatoes evenly with the melted butter and sauce.
- If you like it even creamier, you can add cream – but I think the butter’s sinful enough and the mashed potato is already creamy enough with the amount of butter I mixed in!
- If you like, you may add herbs, black pepper or anything else you fancy to the mashed potato. We love it as it is though. ๐
Well, from the photo of the chicken chop, you probably noticed that there was chicken chop gravy but I didn’t mention how to make it. That’s because this time round, I used the leftover sauce meant for the roast beef from Christmas eve dinner. But trust me, the delectable food today didn’t hinge on the use of that sauce. When I do make a gravy that I really fancy (so far I’m still experimenting for my favourite), I’d definitely post it on my blog! Stay tuned! ๐
For toddler’s consumption:
- Cut chicken chop into small pieces for the tot. Serve with or without gravy – depending on how health-conscious you are.
- Cut the broccoli into small florets and carrot into small pieces.
- Cut down the use of butter in the mashed potato if your tot is ‘weighty’ ๐