STEAMED CHICKEN WITH CELERIES

My mum hates deep-frying. It is one and the only ways of cooking that she banned in her kitchen. To her its a nonsense to deep-fried any of her ingredient and served it on the dining table. Why? because according to her as far as I remember, its such a waste to deep-fried those fresh ingredient and consume it in a heaty and unhealthy manner. Which she believed that was the reason why we were alway sick when we were young (because we used to buy deep-fried food from hawker's stall when she was not watching). We were not even allow to have KFC or French fries at all back then.

Up until now, having deep-fried food always remind me of my mum, nagging and nagging bout the disadvantage of it. I use the method of steaming, stir-frying or shallow fried as much as possible when cooking nowadays. Deep-fried at home is really a waste of oil. Its OK to use recycling oil sometimes but it always give me this phobia about how dirty it gets as I worked in the kitchen as a Chef de Partie before and now my job deals with lots of both inside and out of a restaurant. Believe me, you wont want to know about how the kitchen deals with the deep-fried oil. 

Some people said that handling chicken is very complicate, where it is hard to determine whether it is cook or when it is ready. Well, cooking chicken is very easy and anyone can easily handle it. Chicken is one of the safest white meat available and is the most widely consumed meat on the planet. Besides deep-fried, although its the way best way to seal the food quickly and produces tasty and interesting texture. Well, there is a even more best way to handle it -- Steaming. It is more healthy, lock the taste and produce the original texture of a chicken should be.  

It is completely as easy as ABC. Get some chicken, I prefer drumstick or thighs. They are more economical and least expensive then chicken breast since nearly 25 % of a whole thigh is bone. 

• Completely remove the chicken skin before preparing. Chicken meat without skin is low in calories plus, it is much healthier without the fat which contains on the inner side of it. 

• Clean thoroughly, and then started to marinate it.

5 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

1 tablespoon of white vinegar

2 teaspoon of sugar

dash of white pepper

6 pieces of red dates, slice up

small handful of goji berries

6 pieces of slice gingers

chopped garlics

(Don't be scare of the exceed of salt as the red dates and goji berries will break out their sweetness during the process).

• Rub the seasoning over the chicken. Leave it to marinate for about an hour or 2. 

• Steamed the chicken for 20 minutes, throw in slice of celeries. Continued to steamed it for another 10 minutes. 

Finish it with some cut spring onions on top and there we have, nice healthy steamed Chicken with celeries, red dates and goji berries. It is quite similar to the Salted Chicken we have back in Malaysia except I modified a bit with adding in some healthy vegetable.