Rice

Lamb forequarter chops and rice

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

It’s Sunday, and I’m doing two posts this weekend.

After last night’s pork belly and noodles, I thought I’d use the same template and replace the pork with lamb and the noodles with rice.

Today was pretty good. After sleeping in (about 5 am), I jumped out of bed and got dressed for a walk. Then I discovered it was raining steadily, so instead, I did some bible reading and praying.

Zoom church was pretty good. Because it’s the fifth Sunday of the month, we had a guest preacher. She’s a chaplain in the Australian Defence Force Academy. We are currently dissecting the Apostles Creed, and Merryn spoke about our belief in the Holy Spirit.

After a couple of work Webex meetings, I watched Battlebots on Netflix. A friend I used to work with knows my favourite animal is the Orca and hers is the Eagle. Via text messaging, we speculated on an Orca bot and an Eagle bot. Can you imagine mighty jaws to crush an opponent and a powerful tail to slap down opponent bots and to flip up on the upswing? A flying drone Eagle bot would be awesome with strong, sharp talons and a powerful beak to pierce armour.

I used a pressure cooker to cook the lamb. You could also use a slow cooker.

Sunday lockdown dinner. Pressure cooker lamb forequarter chops, potato, and mushrooms with fried rice and capsicum.

Ingredients

  • Lamb forequarter pieces (2)
  • Star anise (1 star)
  • Black whole peppercorns (1 tablespoon)
  • White Onion (1)
  • Vegetable stock (1 cup)
  • Sweet sherry (1 cup)
  • Barbecue sauce (1 vigorous squirt)
  • Chinese five-spice (1 tablespoon)
  • Bay leaves (2 or 3 leaves)
  • Potato (1 cut in half)
  • Capsicum (I used yellow, green, and red capsicum for colour)
  • 90-second microwave rice
  • Neutral oil (I used rice bran oil)
  • Flour

Instructions

  1. Flour the meat and brown it in a hot skillet.
  2. Place the meat into the pressure cooker vessel.
  3. Peel the onion, cut it along a sagittal plane, and cut each half again along a sagittal plane. Separate the layers and put them into the pressure cooker vessel.
  4. Add the star anise, peppercorns, sherry, stock, barbecue sauce, Chinese five-spice, bay leaves, and potato to the meat and onion.
  5. Inspect the lid of your pressure cooker to make sure the gasket is in place. If you don’t clean as you cook, look for foreign debris and remove it. The point of this step is to avoid a pressure leak. The other reason is to prevent a potentially fatal outcome if the escape valve is blocked and the pressure cooker becomes a bomb. Check out what happened at the Boston Marathon a few years ago when a pressure cooker bomb exploded. The carnage was extensive. Don’t be put off by this advice. Pressure cookers are safe if you maintain them correctly.
  6. Put the lid on and seal it closed.
  7. Turn on the heat, achieve cooking pressure, and cook for between 40 and 45 minutes.
  8. Allow the pressure to equilibrium to atmospheric pressure.
  9. Remove the lid.
  10. Pick out the lamb and potato with tongs. You could use your fingers, but I reckon you’ll burn the skin, and the pain will be most unpleasant.
  11. Strain the liquor to remove the solid material. Yes, liquor is the correct word. If you doubt me, look up a good English language dictionary.
  12. Pour the liquor into a small container and keep it in the refrigerator to reuse or grow fungus, whatever happens first.
  13. Cook the rice using microwave radiation according to the instructions for use on the packet.
  14. Heat a wok or a skillet and add some neutral oil. Heat the oil until it’s near its smoking point, and then add in the rice and the slices of capsicum.
  15. Stir fry the rice and capsicum until the rice starts to take on some colour.
  16. The rice should have changed from limp to firm, and the capsicum should have changed from firm to a little soft but not limp. You don’t want limp capsicum, and you certainly do not desire capsicum, which has lost its vibrancy.
  17. Move the fried rice and capsicum to a shallow bowl, and with cooking forceps (or fingers), take the capsicum and bring it to the top of the rice to show it off better.
  18. Add the lamb to finish the presentation.
  19. Thank God for wages to buy food, and thank Him for the skills to prepare and cook food.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like Battlebots?
  • What sort of Battlebot would you build and why?
  • Lamb forequarter chops, potato, white onion, star anise, and bay leaf.
  • Lamb forequarter chops
  • Sunday lockdown dinner. Pressure cooker lamb forequarter chops, potato, and mushrooms with fried rice and capsicum.
  • Sunday lockdown dinner. Pressure cooker lamb forequarter chops, potato, and mushrooms with fried rice and capsicum.
  • Sunday lockdown dinner. Pressure cooker lamb forequarter chops, potato, and mushrooms with fried rice and capsicum.

Chilli garlic prawns and rice

Posted by Gary

Chilli garlic prawns and rice

I did a linguine and garlic prawns a few weeks ago. Tonight, I thought I’d do something with an Asian bent.

Stir-fried Garlic, Ginger, Chilli, and Prawns with white rice.

Ingredients

  • Raw prawns (large banana prawns)
  • Tomato sauce
  • Soy sauce
  • Sweet chilli sauce
  • Garlic (sliced with a mandolin)
  • Ginger (grated)
  • Chilli flakes
  • Chilli (cut in strips)
  • Spring onion
  • White onion
  • Whole black peppercorns (freshly ground)
  • Rice
  • Broccoli florets

Instructions

  1. Marinate the raw prawns (with the shell on) in a bowl of tomato sauce, sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and chilli flakes.
  2. Leave the prawns in the marinade in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.
  3. Cook the rice however you please.
  4. Heat a wok until it’s smoking hot.
  5. Add in some high vapour point oil, e.g., Queensland nut oil.
  6. Fry off some garlic, ginger, spring onions and white onions and then add in the prawns and marinade.
  7. Cook the prawns by stir-frying them until they turn red. 
  8. Add in the broccoli florets and mix everything until the broccoli florets soften a little.
  9. Serve in a bowl and eat with the rice using chopsticks.
  10. Some people will want to eat the prawns by sucking them off and then breaking the head off and sucking its head. The next step is peeling the prawns and eating the chilli-flavoured hot flesh. 
  11. I do it differently; I hold the prawn with my chopsticks and suck the juice off it and then eat the whole prawn, including the shell, head, and legs.
  12. If I was cooking this for someone else, I would peel the prawns and remove the alimentary canal first because I know most people would prefer it that way.

Final thoughts

How do you eat prawns?

  • Fresh ginger and garlic
  • Chilli Ginger Garlic Marinade
  • Raw Large Tiger Prawns
  • Raw Large Tiger Prawns in Chilli Ginger Garlic Marinade
  • Raw Large Tiger Prawns in Chilli Ginger Garlic Marinade
  • Spring onions White onion Chilli
  • Stir-frying Garlic, Ginger, Chilli, and Prawns in a wok.
  • Stir-fried Garlic, Ginger, Chilli, and Prawns with white rice.
  • Stir-fried Garlic, Ginger, Chilli, and Prawns with white rice.
  • Stir-fried Garlic, Ginger, Chilli, and Prawns with white rice.

Hot days! Roast chicken drumsticks and cheesy rice

Posted by Gary

Hot days in Canberra.

We’ve had daily maximum temperatures exceeding 35 °C for the last few days. It’s also been very dry with humidity mostly under 20%. Hot and dry is awful. I much prefer warm and moist. I’ve been running a humidifier in my living room to try to keep my skin from cracking. I really don’t like hot days. 

Keeping hot

So what do you do on a hot night? Turn on the often and roast some chicken drumsticks!

I didn’t have much choice. I’d bought three chicken drumsticks on Saturday morning and I didn’t like keeping them too long in the refrigerator.

I thought I would cook them on a bed of quinoa rice and use some asparagus and broccoli I had. For a little colour, I used up some cherry tomatoes and red chillies. I stuck it all together with some grated Coon cheese.

Ingredients

Three (3) Chicken drumsticks

Red quinoa and brown rice—1 packet

Gorgonzola cheese—2 tablespoons crumbled

Feta cheese—2 tablespoons crumbled

Coon cheese—1 small handful grated

Asparagus spears—small bundle cut coarsely

Broccolini—small bundle cut coarsely

Two (2) red chillies—sliced

Chilli flakes—1 teaspoon

How did I make this magnificent creation?

Cook the microwave red quinoa and brown rice according to the packet instructions.

In a large mixing bowl add the quinoa rice, three raw chicken drumsticks, a good slosh of olive oil, the Coon cheese, asparagus spears, broccoli, chilli flakes and curry powder.

Mix with oiled hands, separate out the chicken drumsticks and then form a mound in an oven-proof frying pan

Place the chicken drumsticks on top of the mound

Place the frying pan into an oven at 150 °C (300 °F) for 45 minutes

At 45 minutes remove the frying pan and crumble over the top the Gorgonzola and feta cheese

Put back into the oven for 5 minutes

Remove from the oven and plate up

Picture perfect!

Well, not quite. I should have done something to avoid the shadow in the top left of the bowl. Click here for a larger version to see the detail.

Hot days. Hot hot hump day dinner. Roasted chicken drumsticks on spicy crispy cheesy quinoa rice. Gary Lum
Hot hot hump day dinner. Roasted chicken drumsticks on spicy crispy cheesy quinoa rice.

How did it taste?

The rice was crunchy and cheesy. The chicken was nicely cooked. It was pretty filling. The Gorgonzola cheese really added a distinctive flavour too. 👍👍

Delicious Chicken Maryland with crispy rice recipe

Posted by Gary

Here we go again with another delicious Chicken Maryland with crispy rice recipe. Apart from salmon, Chicken Maryland is a favourite here on Yummy Lummy.

Thanks for visiting. Please check out the rest of Yummy Lummy. I’d love it if you shared this site with your friends.

So what is in tonight’s dinner?

  • one piece of chicken Maryland
  • one packet of quinoa rice cooked in the microwave oven according to the manufacturer’s instructions
  • a handful of grated cheese, I prefer Coon cheese but tonight I went with some generic tasty cheese
  • some sliced capsicum pieces
  • sliced jalapeño peppers
  • sliced red chillies and spring onions
  • freshly cracked black pepper

How did I put it all together?

  1. I cooked the quinoa rice in the microwave oven for 90 seconds and put it into the bottom of a nonstick frying pan
  2. I laid over some capsicum pieces and then some grated cheese
  3. The piece of Chicken Maryland went on next followed by some cracked pepper and then a little more cheese
  4. That went into an oven which had been heated to 200 °C for 20 minutes and then the oven was turned down to 150 °C for 40 minutes
  5. After an hour I removed the frying pan being careful to use an oven mitt
  6. I let everything rest for 10 minutes
  7. I prepared a plate and garnished with some spring onions, jalapeño peppers and red chillies

Preparing for the photograph

  1. I shot a photograph
  2. Ate the meal
  3. Washed the dishes
  4. Wrote the recipe
  5. Made a nice picture in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop
  6. Blogged and vlogged (verbs)

Baked cheesy Chicken Maryland with crispy quinoa rice, capsicum, jalapeños, chillis and spring onions
Baked cheesy Chicken Maryland with crispy quinoa rice, capsicum, jalapeños, chillis and spring onions

How did it taste?

It was pretty good. The cheesy chicken skin was crisp, the muscle bundles were tender and moist. The quinoa rice was crispy and the cheese added a nice taste and texture to the dish. The jalapeño peppers and chillies also helped me just how deadened my sense of taste and smell is while I am unwell.

Final words

If you do this please let me know how it turns out. Send me a photograph and a comment.

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Bacon wrapped Chicken Maryland

Posted by Gary

Bacon wrapped Chicken Maryland

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The Pialligo Estate Bacon’s Smokehouse burns down

It was a tragedy of epic proportions for residents of Canberra who love bacon. While it was not the complete loss of bacon altogether, it was the loss of some of the nicest bacon available locally in Canberra. Just in case you’re interested, the butcher at the Spence shops also makes lovely thick cut rashers of bacon. I’ve also enjoyed some home cured bacon from a former boss’s husband. Then of course you can always buy bacon from a supermarket where water is injected so that when you cook it, it turns into a soggy mess.

Back to the story, the Pialligo Estate’s Hume smokehouse was gutted by fire in Canberra’s south on the evening of Wednesday 20 July 2016. The good news is that no one was hurt and full production is expected to resume in the first week of August.

I normally buy my Pialligo Estate streaky bacon from “More than Meats” at Westfield Belconnen so when I was grocery shopping last week I snapped up the last two packets just in case there was a run on them and I may be caught short. I also snapped them in the Snapchat sense too (see what I did there).

Pialigo Estate streaky bacon
Pialligo Estate streaky bacon

After yesterday’s (Thursday 2016-07-28) day of eating out I thought I needed some home cooking tonight. I’d already done chicken protection of beef so it’s the chook’s turn to be protected tonight and there is no better way to protect meat than with streaky bacon.

What you need to make Chicken Maryland even more awesome

  • Chicken Maryland—1 piece (as big as you like it)
  • Cheese—1 or 2 slices of Coon cheese
  • Streaky bacon—as many rashers as you like
  • Red quinoa and brown rice—1 packet of Coles microwave red quinoa and brown rice
  • Frozen vegetables—whatever and as much as you like

How you cook this

  1. Cook the red quinoa and brown rice in the microwave oven according the instructions on the packaging (90 seconds).
  2. Put the rice in the bottom of a Pyrex container or onto a baking tray it’s really up to you and how crunchy you want your rice.
  3. Lay a couple of slices of Coon cheese on the top of the Chicken Maryland.
  4. Wrap the cheese to the chicken with rashers of streaky Pialligo Estate bacon.
  5. Use your hands to massage the bacon onto the cheese and chicken so it sticks firmly.
  6. Be loving and gentle as you massage the smoky fragrant bacon knowing your attention to detail will pay off as it cooks.
  7. Lay this masterpiece over the rice so that the hot tasty juices of the chicken, cheese and bacon drip into the red quinoa and brown rice and add flavour to the lovely textures of the grains.
  8. Place into an oven which has been preheated to 200 °C (400 °F) and cook for 20 minutes. At 20 minutes turn the heat down to 150 °C (300 °F) and cook for a further 40 minutes.
  9. It’s important to thoroughly cook the chicken. Wrapping it and putting it over a layer of quinoa rice protects the underside from the oven heat so you risk under cooking it. As much as I love a good infection with Salmonella and Campylobacter I don’t want to get enteritis (diarrhoea) myself.
  10. Once cooked, remove the meat and rice from the oven and allow it to rest.
  11. Prepare your vegetables by steaming them or cooking them in the microwave.
  12. Plate up the meal.

After you’ve plated up!

  1. The arty farty photographers say you make a picture, the more basic will say shoot a photograph. Basically I shoot a photograph at this stage and then after I’ve eaten I make a picture in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop. So that must mean I’m basically arty farty!
  2. Eat the meal while standing up at the kitchen counter because my dinner/work table is covered in computer stuff and I can’t use my couch because the so called leather is falling apart.
  3. Wash the dishes
  4. Write the recipe
  5. Blog (verb)
  6. Vlog (verb) because now this is fun and I’m enjoying the learning curve of video editing software. I’m using Final Cut Pro X.

How did it taste?

Bacon wrapped chicken Maryland
Bacon wrapped chicken Maryland

Bloody superb! How could it not with Australia’s best artisan bacon plus Australia’s best cheese all around Coles hormone-free and antibiotic-free chicken.

Feedback

Let me know what you think.

If you cook it please send me photographs and comments.

Thanks for visiting. Please check out the rest of Yummy Lummy. I’d love it if you shared this site with your friends.

If you’d like to see more please follow me on Twitter here and here, on Instagram here and here and on Facebook here and here.