Dukan Orange Chicken

Orange Chicken

(NOTE: This is a scheduled post.)

We loved this recipe.

Today is Chinese New Year and decided to make one of our favorite Chinese recipes...Orange chicken.  We love orange chicken but gave it up when we started the Dukan Diet since most restaurants here and a lot of recipes batter and deep fry the chicken.  The other day Closet Cooking posted a sauteed orange chicken recipe, we knew we had to try it.

We didn't make many adjustments - cooked without oil, used Thai chilis instead of dried chilis since that's what we had on hand and we didn't have any fresh green onions, so we made this dish with only the green part of the green onions.

This is another easy dish.  We don't have a grater or zester at the male half of this couple's house, so the orange zest took us a while, but other than that, this was very easy to prepare.  You can probably make orange beef, chicken or pork with this sauce too.  If you don't want to use honey, use a natural sweetener. Start with 1/2 t. and add more natural sweetener if you prefer something sweeter.  We prefer ours less sweet.

Stir fries cook up quickly, so you'll want to have your ingredients prepped ahead of time.  When working with Thai chilis, you may want to wear gloves.

RECIPE:
Serves 1-2
Prep Time: 15 minutes or so
Cook Time: about 5 minutes

3/4 lb. chicken tenderloins, rinsed and sliced thin
2 Thai chilis, seeds removed and cut into thin slices or 5 dried red chilis soaked in water
2  cloves garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, minced (grated if you have a grater)
2 green onions, chopped, - white and green parts separated
1 T. orange zest

Orange sauce:
1/4 c. orange juice, freshly squeezed
1/4 c. chicken broth, low sodium
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
1 T. rice vinegar (or white if you don't have rice vinegar)
1 T. honey (or your choice natural sweetener - start with 1/4 or 1/2 t. and go by taste)
1/2 t. sesame oil
1/4 t. pepper (white if you have it)
2 t. cornstarch

Mix your sauce ingredients together and set aside.  Heat wok over high heat, spray with a little bit of nonstick spray and stir fry chicken until almost done, set aside.  Spray wok again (or use a little bit of olive oil) and stir fry chilis, garlic and ginger (if you're using the white parts of your green onions, add those in now).  Stir fry for a minute, until fragrant.  Add back chicken, orange sauce and orange zest and cook until sauce thickens, just a couple minutes or so.   Serve as is or over jasmine brown rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Egg Foo Young

Egg Foo Young - his portion with rice

We loved this recipe.

Egg Foo Young is another easy Chinese recipe.  We've made Egg Foo Young before, but the deep fried version.  If you don't deep fry your Egg Foo Young, it's actually a very healthy dish.  We posting two sauce recipes here, one more in line with Dukan and the one we treated ourselves to tonight with mirin or a Japanese sweet cooking sauce and sesame oil.  The sauce recipe came from Closet Cooking's blog and hindsight, we could have used a natural sweetener in place of the mirin.  

We didn't add meat to our Egg Foo Young this time, but have used ham in the past.  Veggies are really up to you.  Add in what you like....your egg mixture should be fairly thick with veggies.  We always use bean sprouts in our Egg Foo Young, the rest of the veggies usually differ.  Your "meats" can be ground meat, chopped meats or seafood.  The recipes we've used in the past didn't call for ginger, but the ginger was a nice and tasty touch.  This recipe yields 4 Egg Foo Young the size of a regular pancake.  Two of these without brown rice was not quite enough for one person.

We didn't have cilantro, but you can definitely add cilantro to your egg mixture.  We forgot to add chopped green onions before serving.

RECIPE:

Serves 1-2 (depends if you're serving rice with this or not)

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes (unless you have a really large frying pan and can cook 2 Egg Foo Young at a time)

One Egg Foo Young, no rice

3 eggs

3/4 c. bean sprouts, pick off the brownish parts

1/4 red onion, diced small

1 stalk celery, diced small

1/4 red bell pepper, diced small

1 clove garlic, minced

1" piece of ginger, minced

Regular Sauce:

1 c. chicken broth, low sodium

1 T. soy sauce

1 T. Chinese rice wine or dry sherry

1 T. mirin

1 T. cornstarch

1 T. water

1/2 t. sesame oil

Dukan Friendly Sauce:

1 c. chicken broth, low sodium

1 T. natural sweetener (best to go by taste, some people like their sauce sweeter than others)

1 T. soy sauce

1 T. Chinese Rice Wine or dry sherry

1 T. cornstarch

1 T. water

Mix your veggies together in a bowl with garlic, ginger and salt.  Set aside.  Bring chicken broth to a boil, reduce heat and simmer adding soy sauce, rice wine and mirin or natural sweetener.  Mix well.  Mix cornstarch and water, add it to the sauce and simmer until it thickens.  If your gravy is lumpy, use a whisk and your lumps should disappear.  Mix in sesame oil and reduce heat to low, cover and keep warm while you cook your egg mixture.

Mix eggs in a bowl large enough to hold the eggs and veggies.  Add salt and pepper to taste, do not over mix or whisk.  Squeeze excess liquid from veggies and add veggies to eggs.  Mix together, if you are using cilantro, add cilantro.  Heat your pan over medium heat.  You can either use nonstick spray or a little bit of olive oil to cook each egg.  Pour 1/3 c. of the egg mixture into the pan and cook until golden brown, anywhere between 2-4 minutes per side, depending on your stove.  If the egg starts to spread out, push it back in with your spatula to make your egg mixture nice and round.  Serve with sauce/gravy with or without rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Mahimahi Stir Fry

Mahimahi Stir Fry

We loved this recipe.

Monday is Chinese New Year and we decided we would make a few Chinese dishes this weekend.  We've saved several recipes from Rasa Malaysia's beautiful recipe blog but hadn't had a chance to try any of her recipes until today.   Some of her recipes are complex and some are very easy.  For our Mahimahi Stir Fry we decided to use Rasa Malaysia's Cashew Chicken recipe as a base.  We would have added some cashews but we haven't had any in the house since we started Dukan and we really don't miss it that much.

The stir fry sauce can be used with fish, chicken, pork, beef or just veggies.  We made Rasa Malaysia's recipe without the salt since we're watching our sodium intake, but it could have used 1/2 t. of salt or so.  We'll definitely make this again.

If you're in Cruise and are not bending the Dukan Rules, you may want to leave out the oyster sauce and sesame oil but your sauce will taste very different.  We added oyster sauce to our diet in Consolidation.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: less than 5 minutes

1 lb. mahimahi filet, cut into small cubes
1 t. baking soda
1/4 c. unsalted cashew nuts (optional)
1 small red bell pepper, cut into small square or triangular pieces
5 thin slices ginger
1/4 red onion, cut into small square or triangular pieces

Marinade:
1 t. corn starch
1/2 t. rice wine

Sauce:
1/2 T. oyster sauce
3/4 t. soy sauce
3 T. water
3 dashes pepper (white if you have it)
1/2 t. natural sweetener
1/2 t. rice wine
1/8 t. sesame oil
salt to taste

Place fish cubes in a bowl, sprinkle baking soda over the fish and rub in.  Let fish marinate for 15-20 minutes and then rinse the chicken thoroughly.  Be sure to rinse all the baking soda off.  Pat dry your fish.  Mix your marinade ingredients together and pour over fish.  Mix and let marinate for 15 minutes.

Mix sauce ingredients and set aside.  Have your veggies prepared, this dish cooks up really fast.  Heat wok over high heat, spray with a little bit of non-stick spray and stir fry fish gently until fish is half way cooked.  Remove from wok and set aside.  Spray wok again or use about 1 t. olive oil and stir fry ginger, peppers and onions until aromatic.  Add fish back to wok, then add sauce and gently stir fry until fish is cooked.  Add salt to taste.  If you're using cashew nuts, add those in, gently stir a few more times and serve.  If you're in Consolidation, this goes great with jasmine brown rice or you can eat it by itself like we did.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Chinese Steamed Fish

Chinese Steamed Fish

Kung Hee Fat Choy or Happy New Year!  January 23, 2012 is the Chinese New Year Day, the Year of the Dragon.  We don't live our lives by what fortune tellers say will happen each year, but it's always fun to read some of it, especially when you're with a bunch of girlfriends in a Feng Shui shop.  The female half of this couple is a Chinese American and her ancestors, like many other people's Chinese ancestors strongly believed in at least the characteristics of the Chinese Zodiac.

Last weekend our Chinese community held its annual Chinese New Year celebrations - a parade, numerous lion dances, two days of festivities, burning of firecrackers to chase away the bad spirits, etc.  The female half wanted to eat Chinese food to get into the spirit of things, but it seemed like 3/4s of the islands population wanted to do the same thing.  So, we decided to make our own Chinese Steamed Fish.

This recipe calls for more oil than is allowed on the Dukan Diet and if you're in Attack, it's definitely not allowed.   As long as you don't have this dish all the time or just as a celebration dish, you should be fine. We tried to find a recipe calling for the least amount of oil (some recipes called for 1/4-1/2 c. of oil).

This is an 'easy to make' and tasty dish.  We decided to poach our fish.  We should have cut our mahimahi filet thinner.  We really weren't planning on making this dish, so we didn't have whole green onions (only chopped ones) nor did we have fresh ginger.

RECIPE:
Serves 1-2 (if you're serving rice, this will feed two light eaters)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes or less

3/4 lb. mahimahi filet (you can use salmon, opah, etc.)

For poaching:
1/4 c. green onions, chopped (if you have whole green onions, you may want to cut them into 3" pieces)
1/4 t. ground ginger (if you have fresh, use a 3" piece sliced into "coins")
small bunch cilantro, rinsed
1 1/2 T. Shaoxing rice wine (Chinese rice wine) or dry sherry
salt and pepper

Cilantro topping:
2 T. cilantro, rough chop
1 t. sesame oil
2 T. soy sauce
1/2 t. natural sweetener
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper

Oil topping:
2 T. olive oil
2 green onions, chopped (or sliced into 3" slices)
1/4 t. ground ginger (if you have fresh, 2" piece sliced into very thin slices)

We poached our fish in our stir fry pan.  Place the "for poaching" ingredients in your pan with enough water to poach your fish.  Do not hard boil the fish or your fish may flake apart.  We poached ours for about 11 minutes and it was still very moist.  Just before your fish is done poaching, put the cilantro topping ingredients in a small microwavable bowl and microwave for approximately 30 seconds.  When your fish is done, place the fish only on a serving platter and pour the cilantro topping mixture evenly on your fish.  Dry your pan and add the 2 T. olive oil to pan, heat until you see smoke.  Add the green onions and ginger, fry for approximately 10 seconds.  Pour your oil topping over your fish evenly.  Serve immediately with or without brown rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Crock Pot Bolognese

Crock Pot Bolognese

(NOTE: This is a scheduled post)

We loved this recipe.

The male half of this couple loves pasta, especially tomato (not chunky though) sauces and we haven't had a whole lot of pasta (not even whole wheat pasta) since we started the Dukan Diet.  After finding this recipe on one of our favorite low fat recipe blogs, decided we should pull our crock pot and try it out.

It is relatively more work in the kitchen, especially since we've been making easy stir fry dishes and this is not a "throw everything in the pot and press start" recipe, but it was worth the labor.  It made enough for 5 servings.  We served this with a small Caesar salad.

We made a couple changes to the recipe - used whole wheat thin spaghetti, fat free half and half and turkey bacon.  We are posting the recipe without the carrots.  Oh and we only made half the recipe which was a tight fit in our 2 quart crock pot, but too little for our 4 quart crock pot.  A 3 quart would have been just right!  If you're in Cruise, you may want to omit the oil and have the sauce over Shirataki Tofu noodles.

FYI - Bolognese is traditionally served over tagliatelle, but we already had the whole wheat thin spaghetti.  Leftovers can be frozen.

For Skinnytaste's stove top version, click here.

RECIPE:
Serves 5
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 15-20 minutes on stove, then 4 hours in the crock pot

1 1/4 lb. ground turkey, lean (or 1 lb. lean ground beef - the local market here sells 1 1/4 lb. prepackaged)
2 oz. turkey bacon, chopped
1/2 T. olive oil (use cooking spray if you're in Cruise)
1/2 red onion, minced
1 celery stalk, minced
1/8 c. dry white wine
1 - 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1-2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
1 T. dried parsley (if you have fresh, 1/8 c. chopped)
1/4 c. fat free half and half
whole wheat pasta (your choice, but if you're in Cruise, use Shirataki Tofu Noodles)

In a large pan, saute bacon over low heat about 4-5 minutes.  Add olive oil, onions and celery and saute for about 5 minutes over medium heat.  Increase heat to medium high, add turkey, season with salt and pepper and saute until browned.  Drain the fat, add the wine and cook until it reduces down, about 4 minutes.

Add turkey mixture to crock pot.  Add crushed tomatoes, bay leaves and a little more salt and pepper.  Cover and cook on low for about 4 hours.  Before serving, mix in the parsley and fat free half and half. Serve over hot pasta.

We like to cook our pasta about 10 minutes prior to plating our dinner.  We usually add a splash of olive oil, salt and garlic powder to the water and cook al dente. Do not rinse your pasta after cooking.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Vietnamese Noodles and Turkey Patties

Vietnamese Noodles and Turkey Patties

We loved this recipe.

It really was a simple dish and very light tasting.  We really think the carrots could be optional, we kept them in the recipe because the male half of this couple loves carrots.  We subscribe to email notifications from Katerina's blog, Daily Unadventures in Cooking and recently received her recipe for Bun Cha, a Vietnamese Grilled Pork Meatball dish.

We made a few changes and had it as a Dukan dish this past weekend.  We love the fish sauce broth served in Vietnamese restaurants, but always had it as a dipping sauce, never as a broth.  We weren't sure we would like THAT much fish sauce with our noodles but it was actually very tasty.

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
Cook Time: 15-20 minutes, depending on how many patties you can grill at a time

Patties:
1 lb. ground turkey, lean
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
3 T. fish sauce
2 t. natural sweetener
2 finely sliced scallion, white part only

Dipping Broth/Sauce:
1 c. water
4 T. natural sweetener
4 T. fish sauce
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 birds eye chili or something similar, seeds removed, sliced in half (suggest you use gloves)
2 T. fresh lemon juice
1 carrot

fresh mint and thai basil

2-3 pkgs, Shirataki Tofu noodles (we used spaghetti shaped because we had it, but next time we'll use angel hair shaped)

Boil noodles for 5 minutes in salted water.  Drain noodles.  Prepare the broth.  Add water, garlic and sweetener, chili and fish sauce to small saucepan.  Bring to a simmer, stirring until sweetener dissolves. Remove broth from heat.  Stir in lemon juice.  If you want to add carrots, peel thin strips of the carrot and add to the broth.  You'll heat the broth up again once you're ready to plate your dish.

Mix patty ingredients and form 12 small patties.  Because we used lean turkey, we flattened our patties to cook faster (less drying out).  We only have a Foreman's Grill which seems to dry out our turkey patties, so we pan fried them with some olive oil spray.  While your patties are cooking, rinse and pat dry your herbs.

We served ours like this - place warmed up noodles in a bowl, add patties on top of the noodles.  Pour in desired amount of broth, you don't need to have it drowning in broth.  Break apart herbs and sprinkle on your noodles/broth.  As we eat, we add more mint and basil.  Very refreshing.

Enjoy...we sure did!  This really is an easy dish to prepare!

Testing Out a New Template and Dessert

UPDATE: After checking out the advantages and disadvantages of  the 'Dynamic Views' template, we've decided to use a simple blogger template.  Main reason, gadgets like "Follow By Email" and "Favorite Blogs" lists cannot be added to the 'Dynamic Views' template...yet.  Will keep checking for updates to the templates!

We're somewhat caught up with our recipe blogging (meaning we have some scheduled posts in the queue) and decided to spend some time playing around with our blogger settings.  We'll probably try out  the 'Dynamic Views' template Blogger offers which means our blog could have a new look some time between today and this weekend.  In a nutshell, you'll get to scroll through our entire blog (no more 'Older posts' links' and you'll have seven choices on how to view our blog.  Sounds pretty neat.  If this template is too cumbersome for readers, please let us know!

Yesterday we posted that we've been trying to avoid desserts...then last night our visitors from the mainland invited us out for drinks at their hotel in Waikiki.  We hardly go to Waikiki (expensive parking, lots of traffic, tourist prices - same as most tourist areas in the world), but when we do, the drink the female half of this couple always got before Dukan was a virgin lava flow.  For those of you who have never had a lava flow, it's basically a glass drizzled with strawberry glaze and filled with pina colada.  Yikes...sugar and coconut.  We just had to have one last night!  It's been over a year since we've had a lava flow and although it was good, it was a bit too sweet.  It was a nice treat though!  Luckily we had a no carb lunch and a Dukan meal for dinner, so it wasn't too bad of a celebration :-)