Thai Basil Chicken

I found ground chicken in my freezer so I made "Thai Basil Chicken" with rice and fried egg.

Thai Basil Chicken
Ingredients (For 2)
Ground Chicken about  0.6 pound
Red Bell pepper              1
Yellow Onion                1
Garlic                             2 cloves
Basil                               1 cup
Egg                                 2
Fish Sauce                      1 Table spoon
Oyster Sauce                  1 Table spoon
Soy Sauce                      1 Tea spoon
Sugar                              1 Table spoon
Water                             1/4 cup
Vegetable Oil                 2 Table spoon

1, chop red bell pepper and garlic. Slice onion thinly.

2. In a frying pan, heat up vegetable oil and add chopped garlic and ground chicken.

3, When chicken is cooked, add chopped bell pepper and sliced onion and cook. Add water and cook until vegetables are soft.

4, When there is no water, add basil and sauté.

5. Meanwhile, make fried eggs in another frying pan.

6. Serve basil chicken with Jasmine rice and fried egg.

The key is using fish sauce. Fish sauce makes everything taste like Thai food (in my opinion). This is easy and colorful and tasty one dish meal! Enjoy.

A Week with my sister (Part 1)

I hadn't updated my blog for a while because my sister was visiting me from Japan. She spent one week with us here in NY. It felt like such a short time but we had a lot of fun and I was very happy to spend some time with my favorite sister in the whole world.

My sister and I always had a good relationship ever since we were little. I think we are getting closer and closer as we get older. I am always very thankful that I have my sister in my life. She is the best sister in the whole world.

She has been always very nice and kind to me even when we were little. Every time when she go somewhere with her friends, she took me with her. This hasn't changed even when she was a teenager. Now when I think back, I would assume that teenagers want to spend time just with their friends and don't want your little sister around but my sister never complained about it and happy to take me everywhere with her. This is something I really appreciate.

I think she had to be very patient just because she was older than me. She never acted big or never tried to control me even she is older than me. (Sometimes, I act as if I am her older sister :-) She is very nice and kind and respectful to me all the time. It is great to have a sister in my life. I have no doubt that we will continue to have a great relationship despite the physical distance we have in between.

Anyway, when my sister was here, we had restaurant week in NYC. We went to two of the restaurants which I wanted to try.

One of them was called "Kittichai"(There will be sound with their website) . This is a modern Thai restaurant in Soho.

My sister had some kind of noodle. This was OK. It is very light and has some distinct flavor.

I had shrimp fried rice. This was something different from what I had expected. It tasted good but I think there were too much shrimp roe in my opinion.

We had fish cake for appetizer and this was really good but we forgot to take photo....

The restaurant has very nice decor and I like the atmosphere. They also have outside seating which might be nice on a cool sunny day or night.

I will post the other restaurant we went during the restaurant week on next post.

There are other things we ate during her stay. One of them was a burger from "Shake Shack". (There will be sound when you open the site). I went to this famous burger place for the first time just about a month ago and really liked it so I decided to take my sister there. We were not too hungry so we shared one shack burger. My sister like it a lot!

Also, we went to Cheesecake Factory.

I recommended "Bang Bang Chicken & Shrimp" to my sister and that's what she had.

I had my favorite "Tostada Salad"

My husband had chicken salad sandwich and smoothie.

Of course we can not finish all these so we took them home and ate next day again!

On the next post, I will talk about the other restaurant which we went during the restaurant week.

Easy and Spicy! Thai Green Chicken Curry for a Hot Summer Day

When I don't feel like cooking too much, I make Thai curry using Thai curry paste. I always keep Thai curry paste and coconut milk at home for those kind of days so if I have chicken and some kind of vegetable, I can make this curry in a short time and effort.

Yesterday was green curry. I normally use the brand called "maesri" for curry paste. I love their curry paste.
                                  Here is the recipe.


Thai Chicken Green curry
Ingredinets

Maesri green curry paste      1 can (114g)
Chicken breast                      1lb
Coconut milk                       2 cans (400ml for 1 can)
Carrots                                 2
Green Bell Pepper               1/2
Red Bell Pepper                   1/2
Yellow Onion                     1/2
Bamboo Shoots                   1 can (227g)
Basil                                    about 20 leaves
Fish Sauce                           2 table spoons
Vegetable Oil                      2 table spoons

1. Heat a large frying pan with vegetable oil. Add curry paste and saute for a bit then add vegetables and saute.

2. Add chicken and saute until it turns color.

3. Add coconut milk and bring to boil then turn the heat down and let it simmer.

4. When the meat is cooked through and vegetables are soft, turn the heat off and serve with Jasmine rice.

My husband love Thai curry so he was happy to eat this last night. This is such an easy meal and I get lots of compliments and appreciation in return. Isn't it great?

It was really hot yesterday and this curry was really hot so we were sweating and our nose was running. It is OK while we are eating but once we stopped, we could feel all the spiciness in our mouth. But I always use one whole can of curry paste. It is spicy but it's so good!

Enjoy your weekend and enjoy watching World Cup if you are into it :-) I am sure I will :-)

Easy Thai Yellow Curry using Thai Curry Paste

Did you know that you can make delicious Thai curry at home easily? I do it all the time with a help of store bought Thai curry paste. If you have these curry paste, making Thai curry is a piece of cake!

Recently, I see many Thai food product at my local supermarket. You can also purchase them on-line. I like making Thai curry with Chicken but you can use beef, Shrimp or Tofu and many different kind of vegetables.

There are many brands but my favorite brand of curry paste is "maesri". Hands down. This is how it looks. They also have many different kind of products. Unfortunately, my local super market does not carry this brand so whenever I find this brand of curry paste, I buy them a few and stack them in my pantry.

My favorite coconut milk brand is "Chaokor". I tried other brands of coconut milk also but this one is the best one in my opinion. I also stack this coconut milk in my pantry. It is very useful to have it stocked.

This time, I made Yellow curry so I used Chicken and Potato.  I also added some onion to give it a bit of sweetness to it.

Here is how I made my yellow Thai curry using yellow thai curry paste.

Ingredients
Maesri brand yellow curry paste    1 can(114g)
Chicken                                          1 lb
Potato                                              3 medium
Onion                                              1 large
Coconut Milk                                  2 cans
Milk                                                2 cups
Fish Sauce                                       1 table spoon
Vegetable oil                                   1 table spoon

1. Cut onion into slices, cut chicken into bite size pieces, cut a potato into 6 pieces vertically. (same for 2 other potatoes)

2. In a deep pot, add vegetable oil and add curry paste. Saute little bit.

3. Add sliced onion into the pan and saute with the paste until the onion is soft.

4. Add 1 can of coconut milk and heat till it boils.

5. Add Chicken, potato, another can of coconut milk and 2 cups of milk into the pan.

6. Let it simmer for about 30mins until everything is cooked.

7. Add fish sauce.

8. Serve with Jasmine rice.

Depends on your spice tolerance level, you can adjust your curry paste amount or coconut milk (milk) amount. For me, these amount above was perfect spiciness. It is not too spicy but have some kick to it.

So, how about Thai curry for tonight's dinner? If you can find a good curry paste, you will be able to make good Thai curry easily at home!

If you are interested in buying some of my favorite products on-line, here is the link to Amazon.







Hope you enjoy Thai dinner! I also would like to make Thai cucumber salad next time when I make Thai curry. If anyone has a good recipe for Thai cucumber salad, please let me know!

Thai Red Curry & Angel food cake failure

Welcome to 7th Kitchen!

I have realized that I have not made Thai curry for a while so I decided to make Thai Red Chicken curry last night. As I have mentioned before, I use Thai curry paste so making Thai curry at home is really easy this way. I used whatever vegetable I had in my fridge and pantry.

This time, I used onion, carrots, celery, red bell pepper, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, basil and zucchini. Normally, I tend to make it super spicy and we had to cry and blow our nose while we are eating so this time I tried to make it mild. Since it is mild, the color is not really red. It looks like white curry instead of red curry.

Anyway, it tasted really good. I think it was little too mild. My husband told me that it could be a bit spicier. The fine line between too spicy and perfect spicy is very difficult, I think. But I will keep trying to come up with the perfect spiciness.

Well, I also have to talk about my failure "Angel Food Cake"... It looks OK in the picture, right? But it was really chewy and the texture was like a had marshmallow. My husband even joked that we can put this on our chest and use it as a bullet proof vest :-) It was that chewy and funny texture.

The worst part is that I used the boxed cake mix. I thought these things are "fool proof". Oh wait, then that makes me a "fool"....

Anyway, I know exactly what I did wrong. It was just a careless mistake. This cake mix comes with two packages. One with egg white mixture and the other is flour mixture. You are suppose to add 1 1/3 cup of water and whip egg white first. I read 1/3 cup instead of 1 1/3 cup. That was a big mistake. When it was whipped, it looked really chewy like marshmallow but I didn't think too much because this was my first time making this cake using this cake mix.

I added flour mixture and tried to mix them together but it was not working too well. Only then, I realized that something is wrong. I read the box again and realized that I am missing a while cup of water. I added the 1 cup water immediately and hoped that everything goes well somehow when I bake it.

So that is how this cake came out as hard and chewy. It tasted good but the texture is so weired. I have to come up with an idea to use it for something else or make it into something different. If you have any good idea for making chewy angel food cake into something wonderful, please let me know.

Thai Lunch

Welcome to 7th Kitchen!

I had lunch with my friend today and we went to Thai restaurant. We have been to this restaurant before and it is our favorite restaurant. I have not eaten Thai food for a while so I was really excited. Normally, I don't order Thai curry in Thai restaurant because it is something I can make at home. But yesterday I was craving for something spicy so I ordered red chicken curry. This was quite spicy. My body was getting really warm after eating this.

I love Thai food. This made me want to make Thai food at home. Maybe I will make Thai curry this weekend. It is quite easy and always good. (I use Thai curry paste)

Anyway, the weather was horrible yesterday (and also today) but I had a great time with my friend catching up. She has two kids so she is pretty busy. It was interesting to learn how busy the parents can be when your kids are into some kind of sports or something like that. It is great that your kids have something that they are passionate about and something they enjoy but the parents also has to commit to that since they have to take their kids to practice all the time and they also have to take the kids to the games on the weekends.

I remember my boss used to tell me that he need to drive their kids and other member of the team to the games on the weekends and around the fall it was almost every weekend. He had no time to rest and relax. Sometimes he even had to drive to a different state. It is a lot of work but the parents always want the best for their kids so they do whatever to support their kids for what their kids want. It is not a easy job to be a parent but I think it is a very rewarding and satisfying job.

Anyhow, it is cold and windy and rainy again in NY. Maybe I will make something warm and comforting tonight. Such as Macaroni and cheese??? Yummy!

A Day at beach

Yesterday, my friend came to visit me so we went to beach and spend a beautiful day at beach. 

Before we go to the beach, we decided to have lunch at Thai restaurant. I ordered "Shrimp in garlic sauce". It was very simple. Just with Shrimp and mushroom but it tasted so good with garlic sauce. I am not exactly sure what is in this garlic sauce but I will definitely try this at home. Even though, my husband might not be happy about the mushroom.....

So off we go to the beach. When we were walking, we saw someone who really looked like Ann Burrell from Food Network. She passed by us and my friend and I looked at each other. We were not sure if that was her since she was wearing sunglasses but if it were her, I really wanted to talk to her. But we were too shy. We couldn't talk to her. I really love her show. I can feel that she is very passionate about food and really enjoy food. 

Anyhow, we had a great time at beach. My friend told me that she feels lighter after spending a day at beach. We inhaled lots of fresh oxygen. The breeze from the ocean really makes your body and soul refreshed. I am sometimes amazed about nature. Just looking at the waves comes and go calms me down. Nature has a healing power. 

Since I played all day today, dinner was really simple and easy one. I just cooked some pasta and put it together with tomato sauce. Normally, I like adding some vegetables or meat in tomato sauce but I did not have anything at home today so I just added garlic. Simple but yummy. 

Thankfully, my husband loves pasta. So whenever I don't have time or I don't have energy to cook, I make pasta. And he is always happy. Well, he is always happy no matter what. And that is one of the things I admire about him. 

Thank you for visiting 7th kitchen!

Thai Lunch

Welcome to 7th Kitchen!

I had Thai lunch yesterday with my friend. I make Thai curry at home so I have not been to Thai restaurant for a while. This restaurant is close to where I live but I had never tried so I was really excited to try them for the first time. 

The place is really small but very nice and clean. The service was good and the food was awesome. 

First, I had a soup which came with the lunch special. I believe this soup was Tom Yum Kung. It was tangy and little bit spicy and delicious! I love Thai soup. I normally take tangy coconut soup but Tom Yum Kung was also really good. I never even tried to make these soups at home but I would love to try it sometimes if I can get ingredients for it. 

Then, we shared "Egg Plant Salad". This was something which reminded me of Japanese dish called "Yakinasu". "Yakinasu" is not salad and it is just baked eggplants without the skin. This salad we had had baked skinless eggplants, ground pork, mint leaves, lettuce, carrots, etc. We loved it! I love eggplant. I never had ground pork in my salad but it was really good conbination with eggplant. 

I chose "Ginger Shrimp" for my main course. The vegetable were perfectly cooked and very crisp and fresh. Only thing I should have asked was to make it a little bit spicy. 

Overall, I really liked this restaurant and defenitely would like to come back sometime for other dishes. I love Thai food. 

Thai Chicken Curry

Last night dinner was "Thai Red Chicken Curry" with "Pasta Salad". I love Thai curry and used to go to Thai restaurant often. But I found out how easy it is to make Thai curry at home if you have Thai curry paste. So now, I cook Thai curry at home all the time. 

It is so easy and quick to make. There are different kind of curry paste such as red, green, yellow etc. And you can add chicken, beef or any kind of meat/seafood and vegetables depends on your mood and what you have time the fridge. 

Normally, I use chicken, onion, bamboo shoots and basil. I saute curry paste in a pan for a bit and add all the meat and vegetables and coconut milk. Then, cook it for a bit and it is ready! 

I needed some crunch and refresher with my curry so I had salad with it. This is just simple curly pasta with some vegetables. I mixed them with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. 

Often times, I make my Thai curry too spicy. But this time, I made it right. 

When you make your curry too spicy, you can adjust with coconut milk. (I did this quite often) 

Pad Thai is also one of my favorite Thai food but I have never tried to make it at home. It seems complicated. Where can you buy that kind of noodles anyway? Well, I know there is this one small Thai restaurant which is in Chelsea Market in NY and they sell some Thai products so maybe they will have those noodles there. I should purchase it next time when I am there and try making Pad Thai on my own.