Pan- Fried Chicken Breast Fillet with Mango Salsa

This week has got me wondering into Mexicanville. The love affair first started with a simple meal, quesadilla then it kinda cooled down for a while and the heat came back with me craving for guacamole and now salsa! At first it was just salsa and i thought i should make it into a meal instead of a side dish therefore i came up with this meal for dinner.

Ingredients

Mango Salsa

* 1 mango

* 4 medium tomatoes

* 1 medium yellow onion

* 3 cloves garlic

* 3 small jalapeno pepper

* 3 tbsp chopped cilantro

* 1/4 tsp salt or to taste

* Juice of one lemon

Method:

1) Dice the mango and tomatoes and chopped the onion and fresh cilantro. Then mince the garlic and jalapeno, set aside.

2) In a large bowl, mix everything together and stir until its thoroughly combined. Refrigerate it while you prepare the chicken.

Note:

For those that don't fancy a sour salsa, pick a sweet mango and add the lemon juice to taste.

Some even added olive oil to this salsa but i chose to omit it since i like it to be light and tangy. Those that love the heat of jalapeno , feel free to add one or two more, make sure you minced it real good so that it will blend together nicely with the rest of the ingredients.

This bowl of salsa can served up to 5-7 people depending on how much they love salsa.

Pan-Fried Chicken Breast Fillet

* 1/2 of whole chicken breast meat

* 1/8 tsp salt or to taste

* Coarse black pepper to taste

* 1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

1) Lightly salt the breast meat on both sides and season with coarse black pepper after that.

2) Heat a non-stick with the olive oil and pan fry the fillet.

3) Remove and set it on a kitchen towel before serving it together with the salsa.

Note:

For those that love more flavour on their meat, feel free to season with paprika or even cayenne pepper.

Serve this with the mango salsa on top and some chopped romaine lettuce on the side, if you like you can also add mashed potatoes.

Tangy Mango Slaw

Like i mentioned yesterday, i'll get my hands on the pie tee mold and make some decent looking shells but i wasnt in the mood to test out my patience , so i embarked in this new recipe. 

This is actually the recipe meant to be my new filling (the modern vegetarian filling i mentioned) for the pie tee. 

Instead of eatin it together with the pie tee shells, i decided i should jst eat it like a salad. Besides havin it as a salad, u can use it for a side dish to a pasta, chicken or even seafood dish.

Mango slaw is one really easy recipe. All you need is one shredded  firm ripe mango, shredded cucumber, shredded carrot, slices of red onions, shredded or thinly sliced red bell pepper (capsicum) and some chopped coriander leaves.

For the dressing, its a simple vinaigrette. Usually vinaigrette's a mixture of vinegar and oil with some flavoured herbs, spices and other ingredients.

Instead of vinegar, i used lemon juice with some honey, a dash or two of black pepper and a pinch of salt.

For those who loves honey, you can put more of it to tone down the tartness of lemon juice.

To get a more flavourful salad, leave it a lil longer after mixing it in the salad bowl. The shredded vegies will absorb all the tangy-ness and you'll have a less raw taste to the green vegie. This is most suitable for those who do not fancy capsicum or fresh onions.

For those who wants more stuff in it , you can put it some shredded cabbage/purple cabbage, pineapples, mandarin oranges, you name it. 

The more colourful ur platter is the better!

 

Thai Affair

I personally love thai food but the person who sparked my interest to try my hands on thai cuisine is my dad. He's a big fan of thai cuisine so i learnt up a few dishes but now im gonna blog bout a whole different range of what i used to prepare for my dad.

The 3-flavoured seabass was inspired by my bestie's mom. In general i love this as well! i've tasted the authentic thai version as well as the Malay version of this dish but i never got around tryin it out at home until my bestie's mom asked if i know how to prepare this dish. If i've the recipe to it, it'll definitely gimme a better idea on the combination of ingredients but what surprised me was my bestie's mom  actually kept a newpaper cutting with this particular recipe on! which is so cool cuz not only can i learn but also fine tune a lil on the taste as well. I actually tried it out at home before preparing it for my bestie's family and the outcome i got made my day. From then on, i just love preparin this dish. Its so easy and so yummy at the same time. Of course for those who love a more spicy note to this dish , cili padi's ( bird's eye chili pepper) the answer to it.

Mango kerabu is also another of my favourite thai dish. This one is solely on experimental basis. I've no idea on what they (thai restaurants) use as their dressing. So i did some readin and research on thai cuisine and majority of the dishes have nampla (fish sauce) as one of the ingredients in the list besides lime, cilantro and bird's eye chili. That gave me an idea on how i should do my dressing. For the dressing, i used nampla, brown sugar and lime juice. The amount of both the nampla and lime juice are the key to fine tune the taste of the dressing. Sugar would act like a neutraliser when the taste gets too overwhelming. For this dish, i stir-fried (on the non-stick pan) the pounded dried shrimps and a lil shredded cuttle-fish to be sprinkled on the dish when its done  together with some bird's eye chili pepper and sliced fresh shallots.

The dish would be superb if the mango its on the sour note and do avoid from gettin the powderish texture of mangoes, that will so destroy the whole combination. And when u're done arranging the shredded mangoes on the plate and sprinkled it wth the stir-fried pounded dried shrimps & cuttle fish, bird's eye chili and fresh shallots then you can pour the dressing over it n voila! Of course its good to mix it up before u actually eat it to get a more balanced combination of all the ingredients.

I call this dish the Thai Spicy Minced Pork. For those who ran outta ideas on what else they can do with minced pork, they can try this out. This dish isnt as spicy as the others. It might be on a mild note for those who are not a big fan of spicy food. I myself, at times i wonder if my taste buds are all dead! Sometimes my taste buds get too extreme with me. The ingredients you need for this dish are  :-

1) onion, garlic, red fresh chillies, tomato, shrimp paste (place it in the food processor & process until roughly chopped.

2) sesame oil to stir-fry the blended ingredients

3) minced lean pork and seasoning [fish sauce, lime juice & sugar ( i used brown sugar)]

4) add coriander and fresh shallots before serving