Recipe of the Week: As brought to you by Cooking Travians

[Drache]

*rolls up her sleeves, puts down the rolling pin, starts typing* - can't cook with Sass staring at me She's beginning to look cross-eyed...

ORANGE AND SOY GLAZED CHICKEN THIGHS

I serve this with simple, fresh cooked white rice And the leftover sauce will keep in the fridge for up to 3 weeks and also tastes great on salmon

8 bone-in skin-on (YES, skin on) chicken thighs
10 small or medium shitake mushrooms, stemmed
3 medium scallions (green part only) cut into 3" lenghts
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbs mirin (japanese rice vinegar)
1/2 tsp finely grated orange zest
2 Tbs fresh orange juice
1 1/4 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Get your broiler going at 450F and put the rack about 7' away from it.
Line a broiler pan with foil and lightly grease the foil.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
Arrange the shitake 8 groups, gill sides up, on the broil pan. The shitakes will be a "bed" for each piece of chicken.
Arrange the scalions on top of the mushrooms and then put the chicken, skin side up, on top of each "bed", pressing down with your hand to flatten.

Roast until chicken begins to brown, about 20 minutes.
Turn the broil to high and crisp the skin til deeply browned, 5 to 6 minutes, rotating the pan if needed.

WHILE the chicken is cooking, combine the soy sauce, sugar, mirin,and orange zest in a sauce pan and bring to simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
In a small bowl, mix the orange juice and cornstarch. Add mixture to sauce pan, return to simmer and cook til thickened and glossy.

TO SERVE, transfer the little bundles to a dinner plate and drizzle with sauce, sprinkle with sesame seeds

[Sassryn]

mmm sounds tasty.... all of it but the fungus part

[Drache]

Trade the fungus for leek
i forgot to post the pic:

[Sassryn]

*cough* new recipe???

[Drache]

*drags feet and goes get the cooking book* brb

[Akasha]

chocolate something recipe please

[Penguin Martha]

*Has kidnapped Drache to be my own personal cook*
MUahahahahaha!!!

[Sassryn]

Baklava ala ~ine~

2 packs of fillo pastry (or 1 pack of puff pastry)
500 grams of chopped walnuts
200 grams of caster or icing sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cardamom pods
250 grams of butter or shortening, melted

Syrup:

2 cups of sugar
1 cup of water
1 dinner spoon of mazhar (orange blossom water) or honey
2 dinner spoons of lemon juice

I used puff pastry for this recipe, it's easier to make that way but the end result won't be as deliciously flakey. :P

Mix the finely chopped walnuts with the cardamon and caster sugar. If the walnuts are still fairly chunky, put them in a food processor first (or put in a plastic bag and hit with a hammer! worked for me). Set aside.

Take a square oven dish, preferably glass, wide enough to fit an entire sheet of fillo pastry (about 20" by 10" should do). Coat the bottom with melted butter.

Put in one layer of fillo pastry, coat it with butter. Repeat until you have four sheets on top of each other. If you're using puff pastry, one layer is enough.

Coat top layer with the walnut/sugar mizture. Make sure it's evenly divided, otherwise the corners are going to sag when you get to the third layer or so. :P

Cover the walnut mix with another four sheets of fillo pastry (or one sheet of puff pastry), coat with butter again between each sheet.

Repeat this procedure about five times or until you run out of pastry. Finish with a layer of pastry.

Take a sharp knife and make square slices in the top layers (until about two thirds down). Coat with the remaining butter. Place in the middle of a preheated oven, at about 175 C.

Bake until golden brown. In the meantime, make the syrup by adding all the ingredients and cooking over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Let cook for another 5-10 minutes. It doesn't have to be very thick.

When the baklava is done, take it out of the oven and pour the syrup on top. Make sure enough of the syrup gets in the slices you've made, if necessary cut again. The longer you let it sit, the more the flavours will blend.

Serve lukewarm or at room temperature. Great with vanilla icecream.

[Sassryn]

This weeks Recipe is the winner of the Cooking Travians Summer Recipe Contest!!! Congrats Po_Ta_To!!!



you need :

- eggplant (sure :P)
- sugar
- vinegar
- soy sauce
- black and white sesame

1. you diced that poor eggplant into not too big chunk, add a bit of oil in the pan and fried it. rest....
2. add sugar in the pot, i think we use around 2 tablespoons with 1 eggplant or if u like it sweeter , 1 tablespoon of water. 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar,and 1 teaspoon of soy sauce.
3. Pour the mixing on yr eggplant and sprinkles the sesame over the dish...
4. and DONE!! you can eat it now

Notes!! you can also do this with sweet potato too! it's yummy!

[Bloodwind]

I can make toasts.
Anyone wants a recipe? :P
hugs,
Bloodwind

PS: sometimes I burn them (but not on purpose...).