Chinese snow Peas and Chicken Minced Stir Fry

Stir fry is one of the best weeknight meals to make, you can cook everything from start to finish within 30 minutes. This is one of the recipes I head to if I am at lost with what to cook for the night, and it's so so good with rice.

Snow Peas and Chicken minced Stir fry

Serves: 3-4 people with rice

Cooking time: 20-30 minutes

What you would need 

200 grams of snow peas, trimmed and halved 

250 grams of chicken minced 

50 grams of dried shiitake mushrooms,rehydrated and sliced

3 cloves of garlic, minced 

1 bird eye chilli (optional), sliced

2 cm piece of ginger, finely sliced 

Splash of vegetable oil

salt and pepper 

Sauce 

1 tablespoon of soya sauce 

1 tablespoon of Chinese rice wine 

1 tablespoon oyster sauce 

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon sugar 

splash of fish sauce 

2 teaspoon of cornflour, mixed with cold water(to thicken sauce)

1. Premix the sauce in a bowl excludes the cornflour

2. Heat half the vegetable oil in the wok, stir fry the chicken minced season with salt and pepper till lightly golden brown. Remove from the wok and set aside.

3. Heat the remaining oil in the wok and toss in the ginger, garlic and chilli. Fry for 1 minutes or until garlic is lightly golden but not brown. 

4. Add the snow peas and fry for 2 minutes, return the chicken minced to the wok and add the rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, stir to combine. Add the sauce mixture and stir fry for another 2 minutes.

5. Add cornflour and stir till sauce thickens. Dish up and served with rice.

Chocolate Panna Cotta

Panna Cotta always scares me, simmering milk, over boiling it. Oh the horror, I am sad to say that actually happened to me. I left the milk simmering and turn my head to check on something else and BOOM! the milk frothed over! But I have learned that with second tries and lower heat that you just have to stand there and simmer the milk on medium low heat and you would be all good. 

Panna cotta (means cooked cream in Italian) is an Italian dessert made by simmering together cream, milk and sugar, mixing with gelatine and letting it cool until it sets. I was inspired when I when to GiGi's Pizzeria, their pizza is great, but what blew me away was the Panna Cotta, ooh it's creamy and melts in your mouth with the slighted touch of your tongue. I decided to add some chocolate into the mix and wow, it works so well with the fresh golden kiwis.

Chocolate Panna Cotta

Serves: 4 

Cooking time: 20 mins 

Setting time: 6 hours min - 1 day 

What you will need

600ml thicken cream 

3 tablespoons caster sugar 

1 1/4 teaspoons flavourless gelatin powder

120g good dark chocolate or semisweet chocolate

3 teaspoons vanilla extract 

Pinch of salt 

1. Grease 4 panna cotta moulds with flavourless oil.

2. Use 60ml of cream and warmed in microwave   sprinkle the gelatine over it and stir until the gelatine dissolved.

3. Meanwhile, in a deep saucepan over medium low heat, bring the remaining cream, sugar and salt just to a light simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes, adding the vanilla extract and stir to combine. 

4. Remove cream mixture from the heat, add the chocolate and whisk until smooth. Add the gelatine mixture to the chocolate mixture and stir until well combined. Pour through a fine strainer and into the 4 panna cotta moulds. Let it cool to room temperature.

5. Cover the Panna cotta loosely and refrigerate until set and throughly chilled, at least 6 hours or up to 1 day. 

To Served, dip the moulds one at a time into a bowl of hot water for about 5 seconds to loosen the mould and invert onto a serving plate. Served with fresh fruits or sauce.