The Chicken Escapades.

The thing about having a budding lawyer-chef in the house is that there's constant experimenting going on in the kitchen, and of course by extension, constant food tasting sessions for the rest of the house. Our cooking enthusiast, Jason, has been going through a bit of (what I'd like to call) a chicken wing phase of late, filling the house with the delicious aromas of his experiments.


Chicken in Hot Sauce. This was a particular favourite of mine, a wonderful mix of spices and flavours, every Malaysian's dream. Dipping the chicken wings into hot sauce shaken into flour before popping them into the oven gives them a deep-fried quality that could fool even the most frequent customers of Kentucky Fried Chicken. The real secret, however, is in the sauce that the chicken is tossed in after. A rather eclectic mix of Indonesian sweet sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic ginger and hot sauce, the sauce makes the dish.

The One Where Everything Goes Into The Oven. This is Jason's version of the dish that every student has come to learn and love.

The vegetables provide the base for the dish. One could use any sort of vegetables but the types that readily soak up gravy or require longer cooking time are ideal. Some oil is rubbed onto the chicken and the seasoning ensues. The usual culprits, salt and pepper, are used along with Western herbs. Like the vegetables, the herbs are a matter of personal choice but it's best to limit the number of types of herbs to two or three. Like with most of his experiments, this one has a trick to it as well. Filling the pan with some chicken stock or chicken stock cubes dissolved in hot water will help infuse the vegetables with those fantastic chicken flavours. 30 minutes in the oven, and its good to go.

That's really what I love about experimenting - adapting old recipes, adding Asian twists to Western favourites and cooking with a lot of heart.