Easy No Fuss Chicken Stew
If there dishes I RARELY cook it must be straight forward stews. You know like the ones you eat at every Kenyan wedding and find in most homes. I don’t know why, I like to add excitement to my dishes, I love to try something new every other time, add a new spice, try some new cuisine just anything away from the ordinary, But once in a while I feel like eating something simple and different and more Kenyan. That’s when I make this dish.
It very simple and you can use this as a base recipe and add anything you like. You can add curry powder, garam masala, chicken masala, peas, potatoes, ANYTHING you like. HAPPY COOKING!!!
Ingredients
- 1 broiler chicken
- 2 onions, sliced
- 2 tablespoons crushed garlic
- 1 teaspoon crushed ginger
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 chillies diced, optional
- A large bunch of Dhania( coriander), chopped ( I love Dhania so I tend to use a lot you can use less)
- 1-2 teaspoons of Royco dissolved in water (Royco is a beef seasoning powder)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Instructions
Put the onions and oil in a pan and cook over medium to high heat till the onions are soft. Add ginger and garlic and cook till fragrant, add the chicken and mix well. Reduce the heat and cover.
Cook for 5-7 minutes, add salt and chillies if using. Cook till the chicken starts to brown. Add water if needed. This should be around 10 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and cover. Let this steam through for 4-6 minutes then peel off the tomato peel. Stir the tomato into the chicken. Add Dhania and cover till chicken is cooked through.
Finally add the royco and bring the stew to a boil. Serve hot.
HAPPY COOKING!!
https://www.themothershipvillage.com/easy-no-fuss-chicken-stew/Herbs and Spices You Should Have in your Pantry
Photo from Alarabiya.net
This post is many many months overdue. I had promised to do one for my novice cooks friends and bachelors who wanted to know what they should stock their pantries with. My gal Mo actually came to my house about 2 months ago and said she was tired of waiting and she made me write the list down for her. I have gotten a couple of queries for this post as well so when I got another request last week from Bree, one of my readers, I knew it was time to get in it.
Now, sometimes I hear people talk about spices as if they are a bad thing, as though using spices in your food is a mistake. IT IS NOT. Herbs and spices are your friends; they complement your cooking and baking. They make food taste better and enhance the flavour of the dish you’re making. I hope you will all experiment with more herbs and spices and not just Royco. HAPPY COOKING!!
Basic Cook
- Royco
- Black pepper: Add to your food for a peppery taste, it’s great with pasta or potatoes. I also use it so as to use less salt in my food.
- Ground garlic: it’s a decent substitute for fresh garlic, also use it when boiling your potatoes to add flavour,
- Ground ginger: This is also a decent substitute for fresh ginger, makes great tea and when added to food it gives a great flavour
- Tea masala
- Fish masala: add to your fresh or canned fish when making a stew or when frying them.
- Chicken Masala (Make sure its Nature’s own brand): add to your normal chicken stew, the flavour is amazing, you can also add a little bit of coconut milk. YUM!
- Cinnamon: for your tea, milk, cakes, pancakes, some meat dishes
- Turmeric: to add color to any curry you’d like to make
- Rosemary : for tea and it’ s also great for marinades.
- Knorr spicy beef and chicken cubes. And knorr sukuma wiki beef cubes
- Curry Powder
For the experimental cook
- Garam Masala: great for stews and curries
- Cumin Seeds: Great for curries and rice
- Cayenne pepper: I prefer this to normal chilies as its quite hot
- Coriander Powder : good for curries and stews
- Jeera Powder: this is ground cumin seeds, also good for curries and marinades
- Mixed Spice: Used in baking, you might see it in some recipes as pumpkin pie spice
- Cardamon seeds and powder: for tea and baking
- All Spice: I’m still learning how to use this. Its flavour is very strong. Use it for baking, stews, curries and marinades
- Bay leaves: good for stews and curries
- Tandoori Masala: this is ooh so delicious. Mix it with natural yogurt, some chilli and maybe cumin and use it as a marinade for your roast chicken.
- Chillie
- Thyme
- Oregano
- Garlic salt: if you love garlic this is great for flavouring your food
- Aromat: I especially like the spicy beef flavour
- Meat tenderiser: pour some on your tough cuts of meat leave for at least 30 minutes and it makes your meat softer.
- Cream of tartar
- Baking Soda
- Baking Powder
Sauces
- Soy sauce: get low sodium if your watching your salt.
- Fish sauce: I love this sauce, it’s great for Asian dishes, the flavour it adds to food is out of this world. Take care of the salt you add to food though as this sauce is very salty.
- Teriyaki Sauce: add this to your chicken with some brown sugar and you have a meal
- Sweet Chilli sauce: good for stir fries or use it as a dipping sauce
- Worcestershire Sauce: great for meats and also a good substitute for tamarind (ukwaju)
Paste
Here you can be as experimental as you like. One paste I never miss is for red thai curry (ill post a recipe soon) pastes are great for when you want to impress but realy can not to bothered to cook from scratch. Most times you just need to add the meat to the paste, in some you may also need coconut milk. I honestly think they are lifesavers. Go to Nakumatt and look at their selection they have a very wide range.
NB:
- I tend to buy nature’s own masalas. I know there is a difference with the chicken Masalas, so I just tend to buy all my masalas from nature’s own the rest I do Tropical heat or either of the 2 any brands. BUT other than the chicken masala I can not say that the other masalas are not good or better. I do sometimes use Robertsons for “special spices”
- For spices that you do not use often buy the smaller tins as ground spices loose their flavour after about 6 months.
- Store away from direct sunlight or heat
- Spices are better when bought whole. If you can buy whole spices eg cumin seeds, cinnamon, cardamom, coriander etc and grind them yourself. The flavour will be stronger. Apart from flavour whole spices also keep their flavour for up to a year as compared to the ready ground that last just 6 months.
- There so many spices at the supermarkets to choose from you can start with the above then brunch out from there. The possibilities for your food is virtually endless
What spices do you love to use?
HAPPY COOKING!!
Spaghetti with Shredded Chicken, Garlic, mushrooms and Olive oil
I tend to be a bit lazy of late. Like, I feel as though I really can not be bothered to cook a fancy meal. Especially on weekdays at lunch, I feel as though it’s too much of a hassle to make anything that will take more than 10 minutes and so for the last month I really haven’t made anything extraordinary at lunch time.
However, we all know that food doesn’t need to be fancy, have a complicated name or an unending ingredients to be tasty. Like this meal took me all of 10 minutes, and it had 2 main ingredients and the rest was spice, herb and oil easy ingredients, how cool is that??? And it tasted GREAT. It’s a very efficient way to use up left over roast chicken, I had quite a bit of kuku porno (rotisserie chicken) in my fridge so I used that, I reckon you can use any left over chicken you have. HAPPY COOKING!!
Ingredients
- 400 gms Spaghetti
- 90ml extra virgin olive oil
- 2 breasts of roasted chicken, shredded (you can use any kind of pre cooked chicken)
- 4 cloves of garlic crushed (use more or less depending on your taste)
- 2 chillies (preferably dried red)
- A small handful of dhania (coriander) roughly chopped.
Instructions
Cook pasta in a large pan of salted boiling water (this should take about 10-12 minutes).
Meanwhile, heat the oil very gently in a frying pan, add the garlic and chilli, stir till its fragrant then add in the chicken. Cook till the chicken begins to brown. Add dhania and mix through.
Once you have drained the spaghetti, mix it into the chicken mixture, once mixed through serve immediately
HAPPY EATING!!
When cooking your pasta make sure you use a large sufuria (pot). If the sufuria is too small the pasta will cook un evenly and clump together. Let the water boil first before you add the salt so as to ensure all the crystals dissolve well Once pasta is cooked and drained shake the colander so as to remove excess water Use pasta immediately it is ready DO NOT rinse the pasta unless the recipe says to do so. The starch that makes the pasta stick to itself also helps the sauce stick to the pasta. If you run the pasta under cold water, you wash off that absorbent outer surface, and the sauce doesn’t have anything to grab on to
