Ironically the genesis for this homemade grilled chicken lies in leftover restaurant bacon and egg fried rice.
We had driven down to Ling’s for dinner a few nights back and had the ginger garlic pomfret there for the first time. A beautifully balanced dish, full of flavours and yet so light. The dish was pretty expensive (Rs 1100) with pomfret prices being quite high in Mumbai right now. The pomfret was very fresh though and made up for the price. Mr Nini Ling told me that these pomfrets were caught by folks going out in small fishing boats as the big trawlers are not going out now.
With the fish I chose an egg fried rice and head steward Sujoy, who suggested the fish, said ‘let’s keep the fried rice simple and make it and egg and bacon one’. The rest of our order were a couple of other of our favourites, pork soup dumplings and salt and pepper prawns.
The bacon in the rice was quite exquisite so I decided to pack the rest of the rice since I could finish only half. I had a plan.
Pomfret in ginger and garlic at Ling’s with the egg & bacon rice
Made a Chinese themed roast chicken the next day to go with the rice. It turned out pretty well so here’s the recipe.
Soy honey ginger roast chicken with carrots & spinach recipe:
Ingredients:
-
4 chicken drumsticks chopped into pieces
-
3,4 star anise
Marinade
-
Sauces: 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon honey
-
Salt: 1 teaspoon. You could add 1 teaspoon white or black pepper powder
-
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger paste, 1 lime
Put everything under ‘marinade’ with the chicken in a baking dish. Marinate for at least 2 hours
Veggies:
-
2 carrots, peeled and cubed into small pieces, 4 tablespoons of finely chopped spinach
Cook:
-
Preheat the oven for 10 min at 200 C
-
Cover the marinated chicken with an aluminium foil and put the dish into the pre-heated oven
-
Let it cook in its steam for 20 at 200 C so that the juices are sealed in
-
Take the dish out wile wearing oven mitts.
-
Remove the foil. Turn the chicken pieces around. Add in the spinach and carrots and mix through the dish. Add in the star anise
-
Put the dish back in, without the cover this time. Let it cook for 15 min at 200 C
That’s it. The sauce forms a bit of a flavourful stew and you can even have it with steamed rice.
I was quite encouraged to see Ghosh Kaku’s (Blogger Ushnish Ghosh) comment when I put an iPhone pic of the dish on facebook.
He wrote:
Ushnish Ghosh wao ..very nice ..reminds me of the algerian dys with the Chinese , chicken in soya , fresh ginger garlic, star anise, cinnamon aand chinese vinegar ..
And:
Ushnish Ghosh I forgot , honey was there …in many Chinese dishes star anise and cinnamon is used I did not know before meeting the great Chinese chefs in Algeria ..
Maybe I had hit upon something original after all and perhaps Baba Ling’s would approve of
Talking of Ling’s, there’s some good news. Mr Nini Ling said that they are now taking the last order at 11.00 pm and not 10.45 pm and that he mans the restaurant late after Baba Ling leaves
