Stinky Garlic Bread

As much as I hate garlic for giving me bad breath and leaving behind offensive odour on my fingers for days, I don’t think I can live without it either.

Cooking without garlic is a disaster. It’s distinctive flavour enhances pretty much most dishes, be it French, Italian, Chinese, Indian….every cook must have garlic. Though always a flavour enhancer and often used as only a sidekick in dishes, the garlic bread is one that makes it the hero instead.

I love mine loaded with lots of garlic-buttery goodness. Hence the stinky garlic bread. Make sure you have good supply of mints. Plus, this is certainly not a smooch-friendly recipe

The ingredients – a few slices of regular sandwich bread, butter (softened), salt and of course garlic! You will need some aluminium foil too. I used 2 whole garlic and it yielded about 10 slices of garlic bread. Half each slice and you get 20. Awesome for parties

First roast the garlic whole. Cut off the top to expose the bulbs, place a dollop of butter on top and wrap individually with aluminium foil into mini parcels. Chuck into preheated oven (middle rack) and let it bake at 160 degrees Celcius for an hour or until soft and caramelised.

Once done, open the parcels and let it cool until you can handle with your hands. You will see that it’s all soft and juicy and buttery and yum! Squeeze the bulbs out of the cloves, they should be pretty much falling off and slide out easily. Season with some salt. Mash, mash, mash until you get a consistent garlicky paste.

Spread butter generously on slices of bread. I halved all slices beforehand. Spread garlic paste thinly on each slice. Be careful not to spread too much on one slice, it will end up too strong and a little bitter. I say about half a teaspoon of paste or less on each full slice of sandwich bread.

Grill in the oven on the topmost rack at 200 degrees Celcius until slightly browned and crisp. About 5-10 minutes or so. And there you have it – stinky, buttery and crispy garlic bread!

If you like, sprinkle some Italian herbs and mix into the roasted garlic paste and you will have garlic-herb stinky bread. Or sprinkle some cheese right before grilling then you have cheesy, stinky garlic bread. Either way, its stinky-ly good! Happy trying

Simple Chicken Roast With Gravy

I love baking, grilling and roasting using the oven. Its simple, easy and you actually use one big roasting pan for everything you’re cooking. Or two at the most. Minimum washing, love it! This is a very basic chicken roast recipe with gravy that I make whenever I don’t feel like smelling like my food after cooking. Or when I am too lazy to spend my time cutting and preparing for a few dishes to eat with rice.

This recipe doesn’t call for fancy spices and no marinating is required. Just salt and pepper and well, the chicken. It works for one whole chicken of chicken portions. Since I am only cooking for two, I rubbed five chicken drumsticks thoroughly with salt and lay them on a roasting pan side by side. Then I ground lots and lots of fresh black pepper all over the chicken, making sure it’s coated all over. Pop it into the oven pre-heated to 200 degrees Celcius to roast for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown, then turn once and roast until the other side is browned (about 15-20 minutes).

Once done, set the chicken aside but don’t discard the drippings. Heat a pan on medium heat with 1-2 tablespoons of cooking oil. When hot, sprinkle two tablespoons plain flour or cornflour stirring to make a paste. Pour in the chicken drippings and 2-3 tablespoons of oyster sauce, stirring non-stop. Add in about a cup of water and let boil until thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Now you have the gravy ready!

Serve roast chicken hot with mashed potatoes, steamed peas,corn and carrots with gravy. Or, in my case, I served chicken with Hainanese chicken rice. If you intend to roast a whole chicken, follow the same method but roast it for at least an hour uncovered. If you like, you may roast it covered in aluminium foil for an hour and grill it uncovered until browned after. Throw some onions, kumara and potatoes to roast with the chicken too. Happy trying!