Ketjap Manis

Ketjap manis is a staple in our house. I make it once every month or two and we store it in an old soy sauce bottle. Kept refrigerated, it keeps for up to three months. You can buy it at an Asian store or market but I think the homemade version has just a bit more kick and flavour to it. We use it in our saute and peanut sauce recipes and our girls love it over plain rice. (So do we.) Typically we use it several times a week, whether livening up rice or adding it to an Asian sauce we've made. (Try our Ginger-Cilantro Chicken.) The recipe I use for it remains true to Diane Beans' recipe from a TWR cookbook.

• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Combine sugar and water in sauce pan. Simmer over medium heat until sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Increase heat to high for about five minutes. Reduce to low and add remaining ingredients.

Ginger-Cilantro Chicken

Ginger-Cilantro Chicken, paired here with Astragalus-Mint tea

Two of our favourite spices to use are ginger and cilantro. They blend beautifully with each other and give us some of our favourite meals. We often use a dab of this and a bit of that as we cook, frequently incorporating Asian spices and blends into our cooking. I made this Ginger-Cilantro Chicken the other day and decided to write down the amounts as I went so I could replicate it more exactly later. This is the result:

• 1 TBsp lemongrass
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Sriracha to taste
• 1 cup ketjap manis
• 1 TBsp orange peel
• Approximately 1.5 inches of fresh ginger, peeled and diced
• 2.5 cups of water
• 2 TBsp cornstarch
• 1/3 cup freshly washed and cut up cilantro
• Snow peas
• Chicken 

I started by putting the lemongrass, salt, pepper, sriracha, ketjap manis, orange peel, and ginger all into a wok and simmered them together for a few minutes. Then I added the water, chicken, and snow peas. When those were just cooked, I mixed in the cornstarch, thickening the sauce just a bit, and tossed in the fresh cilantro. I don't remember if I used fresh garlic this time or not, but I have in the past and it's tasted good. I ate my chicken and sauce over white rice noodles and paired it with some soothing jasmine tea (my favourite), but my husband had his with some astragalus-mint tea for staying power and energy.

This really was one of my favourite meals of recent weeks and one I plan to make again in short order.

Ginger-Mint Marinade with a Twist of Apricot

Tonight I tried out a new recipe, tweaking it a bit as always. I've had it written out in my album recipe book for a long time and I'm not sure where I originally got it. A magazine, perhaps?

• Beef or chicken (I used steak tonight since we didn't have good beef to cube for kebabs)
• About a cup of fresh mint
• About a cup of apricot jam
• An inch and a half to two inches of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
• Two tablespoon of soy sauce
• 6-8 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled 
• 1/2 cup water
• Sriracha sauce to taste
• 1/2 cup brandy

I mixed everything together (except the meat) in my grinder, adding in a generous amount of sriracha. Then I popped the steaks in a Ziploc,  poured the marinade in, and left them for seven hours. (I meant to do 24 but didn't get around to it last night. The meat still turned out wonderfully flavourful.)

It was really simple to throw together and tasted wonderful at the end. Andrew grilled the steaks and I used the leftover marinade to make into a sauce for the steak itself by bringing it to a boil before serving it. We had it with fresh green beans and baked potatoes and the sauce went great over both the meat and the potatoes.

The original recipe used peach jam instead of apricot (I only had apricot on hand), no brandy, no sriracha, and called for 2lbs of lamb, serving it with grilled tomatoes, peppers, and onions. I modified the recipe for what I had on hand without a store run and doubled some of the ingredients (the mint, ginger, soy, and garlic). (Well, actually, I quadrupled the garlic.)

All in all, it was a fantastic meal and easy to put together.