conartist At Work: Grilled Chicken with Broccoli

Grilled Chicken and Broccoli with Rice and Soup

Apologies for the long delay in delivering this post. Have been a little distracted of late.

Nonetheless, let's see if we can cook tonight's dinner in under an hour! For tonight, I've decided to cook a simple chicken meal and soup. As always, our start time -

Start Time: 6.47pm

Since I'm out of rice supply, I'll be cooking rice tonight. I usually cook enough for three meals - one for tonight, two for use on another day. Wash the rice as usual, and cook using your usual rice cooker.

Prepare the Ingredients

While we wait for rice to cook, prepare the ingredients for our dishes.

Tonight we will be preparing Grilled Chicken with Broccoli to go along with the rice. I've also decided to throw in a serving of soup since I've got all these extra ingredients in the fridge.

For tonight's meal, you will need:

A. Grilled Chicken

chicken meat
herbs and spices for marinate
garlic (optional)

B. Soup

chicken meat (bones would be fine as well)
carrots
potatoes
onion (optional)

C. Broccoli

broccoli

Let's not waste anymore time... Get cooking!

Slice the chicken to strips and marinate. Remember to set aside some of the chicken slices to boil with the soup. For my marinate, I used some mixed herbs, salt, soy sauce, black paper and a pinch of chili flakes for that little bit of spicy end. Set it aside, in the fridge if you think you might take a while longer to prepare the other ingredients.

TIPS: A cool temperature helps meat to absorb the flavour of the marinate better, thus making your meat tastier.

Now, cut the broccoli, carrot and potatoes. If you are using onions for the soup, cut them as well.

Boiling the Soup...

Fill the pot with water and boil the chicken meat you've prepared for the soup.

In a separate pan, fill with water and heat until you see bubbles forming on the base and sides of the pan. Cover the pot and pan to speed up the heating process.

While waiting for the pan to heat and the pot to boil, don't waste time by standing over the stove idle. Instead, prepare the rice containers and do some washing. You should have at least 2 minutes until the water in the pan is ready.

Make sure that the containers you use for the rice are freezer and microwave safe, you do not want the containers to crack under the cold temperature and melt when microwaving. You can easily get these containers from your local supermarket. I bought mine from Daiso at RM5.00 each. They are approximately 400ml and is sufficient to hold two person servings of rice.

Oops, the rice cooker just popped! Our rice is cooked. If your water is not yet ready, fill your rice containers (pic below). And leave the remaining rice for tonight's dinner in the pot to dry. You will want to freeze the rice while they are still moist, therefore, it is best to always fill your rice containers the moment the rice cooker pops and immediately put those filled containers in the freezer.

Leave the rice for tonight's meal in the pot.

If your water has come to a boil, lower the heat and bring the water down to a simmer. Put the broccoli in and return to filling your rice containers (if you haven't already done so).

Don't over blanch your broccoli. You can either put the stems, or thicker pieces, in first or remove them a little later than the flower pieces.

You can also add in the carrots and potatoes into the pot to boil.

Take broccoli out when done. If you prefer having some flavour to your broccoli, sprinkle some salt into it and mix. Lightly Rinse the pan and heat it to dry. Add some oil in the pan. Once the oil is heated, take the earlier marinated chicken out from the fridge and place them in the pan to grill. I mostly use olive oil when I grill chicken, but any other oil works as well. Lower the flame/heat so that you do not burn those chicken! You do not want them burnt on the outside but raw in the middle.

Feel free to sprinkle some herbs onto the chicken slices as you marinate. The heat from the pan will help lock in the flavour to the meat. Plus, they make your chicken slices look a lot prettier.

Turn the pieces over to cook.

Occasionally check on the soup to make sure the carrots and potatoes aren't over cooked. Else they become mushy. If you are using onions, throw the onions in and boil for a little while more. Remove from heat once if your potatoes and carrots are soft. You can do a taste test to see if the soup has any flavour. If there isn't, boil it for a while longer. Add in a pinch of salt and some soy sauce to taste. I sometimes throw in a few basil leaves to kick it up a notch. Stir and leave the cover on until you are ready for dinner. This helps keep the soup warm and the carrots and potatoes continue to slow cook.

Once the chicken is done, remove them and add some water into the pan and bring to boil. Stir it. This will help you to clean the pot and the water can be used as the gravy for the chicken.

Optionally, if you prefer a thick gravy, mix some corn flour with water and it into the pan.

TIPS : If you fine your gravy too thick after adding the corn flour, just add more water to dilute the gravy. Once the water has come to a boil, remove from heat.

And that's it folks! Dinner is ready, we are done cooking. Wash the pan, scoop the rice and pour out the soup. Wash the soup pot but leave the rice pot to soak.

End time: 7.41pm