Tender boiled chicken breast, perfect for shredding, for making salads or sandwiches. Learn how to boil fresh or frozen chicken breast. Boiling chicken breast is fast, easy, and healthy. And there are so many things you can do with it. Rotisserie chicken is great when you want to make enchiladas, a salad, or a sandwich, but you will have to go out and buy it and there will be many more calories involved. But boil or poach some breast that you probably have in your freezer and you will have a much healthier yet just as delicious alternative. By the way, boiling or poaching are pretty much the same thing, the terms can be used interchangeably. What do you need? Chicken breast: Fresh: boneless skinless or with bones and skin. The cooking time will differ.An average boneless skinless piece weighs between 170 g – 220 g/ 6 oz -7.7 oz. You will have to slightly adjust the cooking accordingly.Frozen: you can cook it directly from the freezer if you forget to take it out on time. In this case, prolong the cooking time.When cooking from frozen, I always choose boneless parts. Poaching liquid: You can use just water, salt, and...
How to make mint syrup with fresh mint and lemon. An easy recipe for mint syrup, a delicious way of using some of the mint growing in my garden. Use the same recipe for making lemon balm syrup as well. I do like making syrup from time to time and not only mint syrup. Proof are these wonderful Homemade Elderflower Syrup or this Rhubarb Peel Syrup. We use it not only for drinking it plain with water and ice cubes, but also for moistening and flavoring cake bases, for adding to cake fillings or for making cocktails or long drinks. And OK, I had to google to find out the difference between a cocktail and a long drink and in case you are interested a cocktail is a mix made out of at least two alcoholic drinks + something else, while a long drink is an alcoholic drink (can be a large cocktail too), which has to contain at least 140 ml and up to 250 ml liquid. Very important to know!!! :) :) So back to our mint syrup. I love making it! It is so easy and the result is soooo good and it is somehow so satisfying...
Apricot jam or preserves – a simple recipe for a flavorful and delicious jam that makes the most of one of the best summer fruit. Apricot Jam without Pectin A simple recipe for apricot jam using only three ingredients: apricots, sugar, and lemon. The result: a simple, fruity, and delicious spread. I find apricot preserves to be the best choice for filling crepes. No strawberry preserves, not even some as good as this Rhubarb Strawberry Jam is better for crepes. You could make these French Crepes for example and fill them with apricots instead of rhubarb compote. I love fresh apricots and I take advantage of this time of the year to make not only jam but also apricot compote. And I can quite a few jars every year, I love preserved apricots that need less sugar than the bought cans. Tips What to use instead of pectin? Pectin is what makes preserves set.Some fruits and berries (like apples, currants, or plums) have lots of pectin, while others (apricots included) have less.You could either add some pectin to help them set or use some lemon juice or rind to help with the setting process. Adding some apple peel or a...
A basic recipe for making baked chicken drumsticks, marinated with paprika or curry powder. From all the chicken recipes I make on a regular basis, see the Baked Chicken Thighs, or the Turmeric Chicken Legs, this baked chicken drumsticks recipe must be the easiest. They are not only easy and very quick to make but also versatile. You can change the flavors according to your mood or to whatever you happen to have in your spice cabinet. I've been making them for years now and the recipe (if you can call this a recipe) really never disappoints. When it comes to baked chicken it hardly gets any easier. How to season the chicken drumsticks or chicken legs? As mentioned above there are lots of possibilities when it comes to seasoning the poultry. For these baked chicken drumsticks, I chose my two most common ways of seasoning: one version with paprika and one with curry powder. Most of the time I simply use a mixture of salt, pepper, and paprika stirred with a little oil. I grew up eating chicken flavored this way, my grandmother never used any other spices. I prefer to use sunflower oil (like my grandma used to...
Easy salmon stock made with the head, bones, and any other leftover parts of fish. Better tasting and cheaper than any bought fish stock! Salmon stock is the best thing you could possibly make with leftover salmon head and bones! Really! This salmon bone stock is just amazing! I have been cooking the fish stock for years now, with every salmon head I've ever had and I even buy frozen packages full of salmon heads and bones just to make this fish stock. They are super cheap and the resulting broth is better than any ready-made stock I could possibly buy. Not to mention that buying one packet of frozen heads and bones and some veggies costs less than buying one single jar of fish broth. And it definitely makes more than 2 cups stock! Ingredients Salmon heads and bones. And any other leftover pieces, like tail, skin scraps, or bony bits of flesh.You will need about 1 ½ kg/ 3.3 lbs, a little more or less is not important.If you happen to have leftovers from other fish sorts, just throw them in the pot as well.Whenever I have some heads, tails, or bones I freeze them until I have...
Basic recipe for juicy and tender oven-roasted whole chicken with crispy skin and lemon flavor. Learn about the right temperatures and cooking times. Roast chicken: one of the most beloved dishes in the world, probably. Definitely one of my favorite meals. And I can hardly find another dish that makes my kids happier, either a whole roasted one or just some thighs or drumsticks. We eat chicken every week in one form or another. A quick meal like these Basic Skillet Chicken Breast or something like these Baked Legs in Honey Mustard Sauce. Or cooked in some kind of sauce like the Paprikash with Dumplings or the in Garlic and Roast Pepper Sauce. Do you wash chicken before cooking? The answer is a clear NO! Do not wash it before you cook it, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever as only cooking the bird until it reaches an internal temperature of at least 73 degrees Celsius/165 degrees Fahrenheit will guarantee that all the bacteria will be killed. Washing it in your sink will only cause this bacteria to contaminate your sink and other surfaces. There has been a long debate on this issue for many years now. Many well-known chefs,...
How to make dashi broth for ramen soup with soy sauce eggs, noodles and vegetables. How to make dashi broth for ramen soup with soy sauce eggs is the last post from the Stocks and Broths series. I wanted to end with something that was completely new for me, something that I have never cooked or eaten before. I've heard of dashi many times before but never got the chance to eat it anywhere or cook it myself. Japanese restaurants are not something you would find in rural Germany, the only good sushi I get to eat is when traveling to a larger city, like Munich or Cologne. And to be able to buy Japanese ingredients to make the dashi myself, well, for that I would have to drive about 60 km to Kassel or order the stuff online. How to make? Dashi is the Japanese stock resulting when cooking kombu, which is edible kelp or seaweeds and katsuobushi or bonito flakes, which are preserved, fermented tuna flakes. Dashi is the basic stock used in Japanese cooking, the base for a large variety of Japanese soups, including miso soup or udon noodle soup. I used the first batch I've made...
Yogurt dressing for salad: the best, easiest, and healthiest dressing there is! It only takes 5 minutes. Yogurt Salad Dressing Forget all the bottled salad dressings, full of weird things that you don't actually want to eat. To make this Greek yogurt dressing takes about 5 minutes, it tastes better than any dressing you could possibly buy, it is healthy and clean, low-fat, low-sugar, and versatile. All the good "healthy words" used to describe a recipe. But don't let those healthy words worry you, this yogurt dressing for salad is so delicious, you won't even think you are being so healthy with it... You can use this basic dressing recipe for just about any kind of salad: leafy salad, cucumbers, broccoli or other veggie salad. You can even eat this as a dip, on top of hot cooked potatoes or in a chicken/vegetable wrap for instance. How to make? This is a basic recipe for a yogurt salad dressing, I start here every time I make it, but sometimes I change it slightly depending on the kind of salad I have, on my mood or whatever.You can enhance it by adding one grated garlic clove or one teaspoon horseradish, you...
Cream of asparagus soup with milk - the best asparagus soup you could make this spring. And how to make asparagus stock with the woody ends. Asparagus Soup with Milk This cream of asparagus soup with milk is THE asparagus soup this spring! Quite different from my beloved Asparagus Chicken Soup but equally delicious. And even more suitable for the asparagus season, because the asparagus really plays the main role in this recipe. We love soups! With a passion. All of us, kids included. I make different kinds of soups all the time, like I've said, at least twice a week. From our beloved Romanian Chicken Soup with Semolina Dumplings to creamy soups like this cream of asparagus soup with milk or the Creamy Mushroom Soup with Cream Cheese to loaded soups like my favorite Turkey Meatball and Vegetable Soup or the Spicy Yellow Split Lentils and Beef Soup with Vegetables. Or try the Creamy Carrot Soup with Milk. Oh, I have so many soup recipes on my blog, you should not have any difficulty at all in finding one you like! How to make? Asparagus stock: This step is optional, but really worth it, I never leave it out.It...
Homemade elderflower syrup or catching the summer flavors in a bottle: this cordial is sweet, lemony, and more aromatic than any other syrup I know. You will not believe how easy it is to make elderflower syrup yourself. All you need are a bunch of elderflowers, lemons, citric acid, sugar, and water. And if you would like something stronger, you could try making elderflower gin. I wasn’t sure about the right way of spelling sirup. Either sirup or syrup. So I googled it and found this: Syrup is an alternative form of sirup. I chose syrup now, because after looking here and there, I feel that most people use the form “syrup”. What are elderflowers? Elderflowers are the blossoms of the elder tree, also known as Sambucus nigra, Black Elder, Ellhorn, Pipe tree, Bore tree, Eller and Holler. The elder trees are small hedgerow trees and their blossoms – the elderflowers – are creamy colored, have a heavenly scent, and can be picked in June. I love the smell of the hedges every early summer and the look of these beautiful flowers. What to do with elderflowers? My great-grandmother used to make elderflower juice when I was little, a fizzy...
