If you were anywhere in Australia last week you’ll know that it was hot. Freakin hot! I’m talking country-wide extreme heat.
Heat = lazy. Cooking is an effort in this weather, so I’ve been sticking to the lazy and quick kind of cooking I mentioned here. Hey, at least I’m cooking at all!
Thursday night we picked up a BBQ chicken from the take-away store, but decided to forgo the chips for salad (I know. It nearly killed me). There’s a fruit shop next to the chicken shop so we had no excuse. We grabbed a couple of ingredients and I made a salad. Dinner, done.
No photo of that one. It was just a BBQ chicken and salad guys.
It’s the next two days that count.
Since I now had a few extra fresh ingredients on hand, I decided an easy way to use up the leftover chicken for dinner on Friday night was to make fried rice.
Let it be known that stripping a chicken is my absolute least favourite food/kitchen related job! Ever. Manny from the TV show Blackbooks seems to enjoy it though, watch this for a good laugh!
If you didn’t laugh, I don’t think we can be friends again. Anyway, when I was done stripping my chicken, I put my rice on to cook (in the microwave) and then chopped up some fresh chilli, garlic and ginger, a brown onion, 1/2 capsicum and julienned 1 carrot.
I have this nifty little tool that juliennes super fast! I bought it from a guy on the street for $5. True story.
Then I heated some oil in a wok, and stir fried everything adding things in this order chilli, garlic, ginger together; then onion, capsicum and chicken. (Note: although the chicken won’t take long to warm through, it needs to be heated to a minimum of 75 degrees c for at least 2 minutes to kill any baddies aka bacteria – I always err on the side of caution when re-heating chicken and leave it a little longer to be sure).
While this was heating away, I whisked two eggs with some milk, salt & pepper and made a quick omelette. I then rolled it up, sliced it and threw it into my wok with the rice and carrots (carrots last as they’re thin and barely need cooking).
A splash of soy sauce and a quick toss and it’s done. Quick, easy, yum. And there were leftovers!
Waste not, want not so Saturday’s dinner was to have friend rice as a base with some shallow fried chicken and lemon sauce. The chicken is easy and I’ve done similar things here and here. I just chopped it, and tossed it in some flour and fried gently until cooked and drained on paper towel. It’s the lemon sauce that’s the real winner here.
I’ve been making this lemon sauce since forever with my mum, and even she now refers to it as “your lemon sauce”. Thanks Mum, I’ll take it :)
It’s super easy – just put one finely sliced lemon, 1/4 cup castor sugar, 1 cup chicken stock, 1 tsp tomato sauce/ketchup and 1 tsp soy sauce in a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
Once the sugar has dissolved, remove the lemon slices and any pips and reduce the heat to medium. Then mix together 2 tsp corn flour and a little water to make a paste and while stirring the sauce pour it in slowly, stirring all the time. This will thicken the sauce and if you stop stirring too soon it will clump up and leave chunks. Ick. You’ll soon notice it thicken and then simmer it gently for a couple of minutes to cook out the flour taste and you’re done. Do remember to taste it though. You might like some more sugar, or lemon or even salt if the soy wasn’t enough.
Done. Such a yummy dinner considering it was the leftovers of leftovers!
How do you use up your leftover chicken? I’ll be honest, the whole stripping thing usually puts me off using leftover bbq chicken. It kills me when it gets under my nails! KILLS ME!
Eat, Drink and DIY 
Nice use of leftover left overs! Effing love black books. I think we can be friends fer sure. PS damn this heat. We’re just getting it up Byron way. I’m dying here.
Its a bit better down here now, but still humid. Good luck with it – All I can say is stock up on zooper doopers!
And a few super coopers (green that is)
That’s a given :)
Great post. You should try working in a restaurant kitchen in the heat we had last week. No aircon! I use up my left over chicken in risotto or pasta. Sometimes a soup if it is in winter. Haven’t done fried rice at home in ages, but then again I am working 5 nights a week so not home much to cook.
Oh gosh, I can imagine! I did some work experience in kitchens for a few weeks when I was younger and I remember hating the heat then. Last week was crazy!
Thanks for the stopping by :)
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