Cooking Club; Class 2: Japanese: TERIYAKI CHICKEN
Our lovely teacher Tomoko
Last year one of my gals, Mo came up with an idea of starting a club in Kakuma. Her brilliant idea was that we start a book club which we all refused because, well it was too…………. (Insert whatever politically correct term you want to put there).
After a lot of thinking and with me starting the blog Liz said we should do a cooking club. It took us forever to have our first meeting and even to coordinate what we wanted to learn. We had the first club meeting at my house and I think we made roast chicken with veggies, it wasn’t too bad but we did not take photos (maybe purposely). After our first meet up I started having an urge to take advantage of the multi-cultural nature of our office. We have international staff from quite a number of countries and I felt that I should at least learn a few of the dishes before I leave Kakuma (God knows when that will be)
Since I have taken a liking to Japanese food I decided to approach Tomoko to teach me how to make Chicken Teriyaki and Karage Chicken (which Liz kept calling Karanga chicken LOL) it was a great night, we learned a lot, ate good food and had lots of laughs. Hope you will enjoy the meal. HAPPY COOKING!!
OOOH Forgot to mention I first heard about Teriyaki chicken from my pal Ngome back in 2006 I had no idea what that was and he thought I was such a shade (ignorant person from the village) well Ngome at least now, 6 years later, I can make it 🙂 .
NB: the photos did not turn out soo great but the food was really tasty, trust me!
*After a lot of public out cry from the brains behind the book club and her cronies I hereby apologize for forgetting whose BRILLIANT idea it was to start the cooking club, the idea was Liz Chege. I am sorry that forgot 🙂
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons of soy sauce ( Tomoko swears by Kikkoman brand)
- 1 tablespoon Mirin ( get from Nakumatt)
- 1 tablespoon Sake (get from Healthy U stores, there is one at Westgate and Yaya Malls)
- 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
- Freshly ground black pepper
- A little all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Instructions
Place the fillets in between two sheets of cling film and bang them with a meat mallet or rolling pin till thin.
Generously pepper the fillets with the black pepper.Place the peppered fillets in the flour and cover completely with a thin layer.
Mix the mirin, sake and brown sugar in a bowl.
Put about a tablespoon of oil in the pan.
Place the fillets in the pan, pour in the sauce and cook for about 5 mins on each side.
Cut up the cooked fillets and serve. HAPPY EATING!
https://www.themothershipvillage.com/cooking-club-class-2-japanese-teriyaki-chicken/
My Kitchen Garden
For the longest time I have wanted to start a kitchen garden in Kakuma. You see going to the market here is like going to City Park Market or Ngara Market late on a Sunday evening!!! The produce is rarely FRESH. The greens are not a deep green, the carrots are never ORANGE, the apples are soft, and the Dhania (corriander) ooh the dhanias are like a browning green herb that go bad in 3 days tops and the spring onions look like grass that was slashed off two days ago…dead. With all these we are still forced to buy the produce at ridiculously high prices due to the fact that they are transported from Kitale. Due to all these I kept dreaming of how I will start my small garden and plant mainly dhanias. So last time I was home for R&R I decided to go the supermarket and get myself some seeds. So I bought baby spinach, carrots, spring onions, chillies and of course dhanias. I got someone to dig up the space at the end of my house for me
and got some manure from the local community and I planted my seeds. Over the next 3 or so month I expect a lot of challenges, the weather here gets extremely harsh, so that will be my biggest issue, secondly there also a lot of insects that might decide that I am planting for us all and lastly pesky neighbours who think that they can come and harvest on my behalf 🙂 . As you can see from the above photos when its rainy the grass grows really fast, I wish I had taken a pic before the rains so that you see how dry it usually is, but I guess the two before pics are evidence enough of how fast the grass can grow. All in all I am up for the challenge and I am quite frankly looking forward to it all. As my plants grow I will be updating all of you on the progress and the challenges and joys that come with the new “farming” experience. WISH ME LUCK
MY KITCHEN
Foodie has a new cooker :-). Are you like me who loves loves new stuff, I get excited like a little child when new stuff comes in so I just had to share, maybe my pal Mona would relate. She is one of those people who will come “help” you unpack your stuff when you come from Nairobi, when I had just met her I used to think “wow what a helpful friend” only to later realise its her fetish for new stuff that actually made her help one unpack.
Anyway, I digress.
One of the things I really hated about my Kakuma kitchen at first was cooking with a Meko ( this is a 6kg gas cylinder with a burner) It would take me hours to make a complete meal as I could only make one dish at a time, then I Upgraded to a two burner stove
I was pretty happy but I always wished I could get the four burner but at that time the only available ones were the ones that came with a grill and oven and it was not practical to carry one to Kakuma( although I am still debating on this). So in April when I walked into a Nakumatt Supermarket wanting to buy a “prettier” two burner and saw a four burner table top stove, I was over the moon ( the things that excite you when your from the desert!!!) but unfortunately I did not have the baggage allowance to buy it so I left it and sent my gal Liz for it. The day she arrived I COULD NOT WAIT. I literally run out of my office into her house to get it so that I could go set it up and just look at it 🙂 heheheh . So now I am almost where I want to be all that’s missing is a cooker with an oven but my microwave plays that role for now. For now I will enjoy the four burner and for all of you with two burners its time for an upgrade!
