Chicken Patis

That's right, chicken Patis, not chicken pate.

I got this method of cooking chicken the simplest way from my mom. Her version was to boil choice cuts of chicken in small amount of water and fish sauce (patis) plus some slices of garlic and ground pepper. It's her way of flavoring the chicken in preparation for frying. It's the tastiest fried chicken version we cook at home!

But frying scares me because of the high possibility of oil splatters. So, one day, I discovered that if I boil the chicken through it's already a good dish as it is. Served with some steamed leafy vegetables on the side and my version of chicken patis comes close to the flavor of Singapore's famous Hainanese chicken, only saltier. The broth also turns into a gel when it cools down which can be used to sauce the hot rice. It can still be fried, but I now prefer to stop the cooking at this stage and just enjoy it right away.

To make chicken patis for two, you'll need:
* At least 6 to 8 pieces of chicken thighs or legs.* A teaspoon of sliced garlic
* Water to half cover the pieces of chicken in a pot
* About 6 to 8 tbsps of patis
* A dash or two of ground pepper
* One bay leaf


To cook:
* Put all the chicken pieces in one pot and half cover them in water.
* When it's boiling, scoop out the murkish film on the water surface. I think it's blood from the chicken.
* Add patis, garlic, ground pepper and bay leaf. Turn the stove to medium.
* Boil until chicken is tender. Check also that the broth is a little salty than what you usually take. Allowing the chicken to boil slowly on patis allows the meat to absorb the patis flavor. Do not let the broth to completely dry out.
* Steam some pechay or cut some cucumber and tomato as sidings.
* Best eaten with a hot plate of rice.

I can cook

Necessity is the mother of inventions. Living on my own made me discover that I can cook delicious dishes from scratch using my imagination and recollection of how good dishes tasted or should taste. Armed with one pot, my repertoire of dishes that I've mastered to date happen to be unaided by cookbooks, rigid step-by-step recipes, and exact measurements of ingredients.

Excuse the seemingly self-promotion -- that is not what I want to impart. I created this blog to document my culinary journey that started from the cramped kitchen of my condo unit. I won't even go as far as suggesting to anyone to cook what I've cooked, but it would surely be the highest form of flattery if my dishes are replicated and liked by others. Having said that, not everything I've cooked are my own original creations. When you're a beginner cook with scarce kitchen implements and poor access to many ingredients, then cooking naturally becomes a game of adaptation hopefully resulting in good reinventions.

I consider myself an intrepid cook mainly because I'm too stubborn to follow recipes and cooking instructions to a tee. I know what I want to eat and I do understand flavor profiles somehow so I run with those two stimuli to cook and hope for the best. After all, a lot of dishes would be a step up from the sunny side-up egg which was like the only thing I used to cook.