Cooking's day!

So, me and Niven had some kind of deal about our cooking skill, and we decided to do more exercise to banged-up our poor-cooking-ability..every two weeks, we're gonna make a Cooking's Day, either in saturday or sunday, since Niven got a job, it's the only day he had left to do some casual time..this week, we choose to make some chicken steak, onion ring and some carbonara pasta..

Here's the review..

1. Chicken Steak

p.s pardon the blurry image =p

Ingredients:

Chicken breast, we used "dada brosot" you can actually buy one, and cut it into two..

1 tbs water

1 egg

1 cup saltines, its a crackers, we used Monde..

1/4 tsp pepper/black pepper, depends, i combine both..

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 veggie oil

milk gravy:

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups milk

Directions:

1. Beat water and egg. Mix cracker crumbs, garlic powder and pepper. Dip chicken into egg mix, then coat liberally with cracker crumbs. (you can wash the chicken with salt water, depending on your choice)

2. Heat oil over med-high heat till hot. Cook chicken in oil, turn once until brown. Probably about 6-7 minutes. Just make sure you don't crowd the pan, better to make it "batches".

3. To make the gravy, reserves the drippings in the pan, add more veggie oil if necessary to make 1/4 cup. I added a few butter.

4. Stir in flour and salt. Cook over low heat stirring to loosen any brown particles or yumminess from the pan until it smooth and bubbly.

5. Remove from heat and slowly pour milk into skillet, stirring constantly.

6. Bring to boil and stir one minute.

2. Onion Ring

Ingredients:

1 large onion, cut into 1/4 inch slices

11/4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 egg

1 cup milk, or as needed

3/4 cup dry bread crumbs

seasoned salt to taste

1 quart oil for frying, or as needed

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a deep-fryer to 185˚ C

2. Separate the onion slices into rings, and set aside. In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt.

3. Dip the onion slices into the flour mixture until they are coated, set aside. Whisk the egg and milk into the flour mixture using fork. Dip the floured rings into the batter to coat, then set aside until the batter stops dripping. Spread the bread crumbs out on a plate or shallow dish. Place rings one at a time into the crumbs and scoop the crumbs up over the ring to coat. Give it a hard tap as you remove it from the crumbs. The coating should cling very well. Repeat with remaining rings.

4. Deep fry the rings a few at a time for 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove the paper towel to drain, season with seasoning salt and serve.

Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 tsp ketchup, or as needed

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp lemon juice, or as needed

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, but i cant find it any, so i use black pepper instead.

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl.

2. Cover and chill.

3. Farfalle Carbonara

Ingredients:

200 gr Farfalle

35 g butter

2 shallots, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

180 ml single cream

60 gr parmesan cheese

salt, pepper and oregano

ham and mushroom, chopped

3 tbs canola oil or olive oil

Directions:

1. Bring a pan, three quarters full of water to the boil and add some salt. Next, add the pasta into the bowling water and cook it for the recommended time on the package until "al dente" or means cooked but still a little stiff to the bite. Do not let it overcook.

2. While the pasta cooking, you can make the sauce. Place a saucepan onto a medium high heat and warm through. Add the butter and allow it to melt. Once melted, add the garlic, cook it until a little brown, then add mushroom and ham, cook it until its well done, then add shallots. Cook a while then add the cream. Season well with salt, pepper, and oregano. Stir the mixture together for the duration of the cooking time. Make sure the cream does not burn. Then remove it from the heat.

3. Take the pasta to the sink and drain in into the colander, put it into a bowl, and pour a canola oil or olive oil, mixed well.

4. Put the pasta into a plate, and pour the cooked cream over the cooked pasta, add a parmesan, season with salt and pepper. Mixed well.

We cooked for about 2 hours..LOL..its supposed to be our lunch but turns out become our "afternoon snacks" LOL...so, here's our hard work..

A little bit review about our meal, the steak was nicely done, except for the gravy, its a little bit watery than what im expected, but still nice..and i thinks it would be even more better, if i wash the chicken with salt water first, to give it a little bit more taste..

But! the onion ring was a total disaster..!!we missed some part on the recipe, so the crumbs wont stick on the rings, so we basically fried an onion instead of making an onion ring..LOL..somehow, the crumbs were come off the rings when we put it into a frying pan..but we'll keep trying..

And the farfalle carbonara, tasty, but we put too much shallots, the whole recipe above was actually for a full meal, not an additional, so we some sort of changed the recipe as we like, we kind of miscalculation it..so far its still tasty, but a little less cheese, for sure, we agreed to not use the cheese, turns out it would be more tasty if we used it though..

however, it didnt stop us..hehehhe..we still ate it passionately..

about next week menu "cakwe mini"..!!yaayyy...!!inspired from abang2 at my church, we definitely into this cakwe mini like badly..!!so we decided to cook it next week..!!!

wait my story for another cooking experience..!!

C.