Chicken dinners are a favourite in this household, and a good dinner that takes me little time and prep is sticky chicken. I use Maryland cuts for this recipe (chicken drumstick and thigh attached), but you could cut up a whole chicken or just use drumsticks, whatever you have in the fridge, freezer or have found at the shops. These are mainly Asian flavours that can be made spicier with chilli powder or sweeter with the use of more honey, the choice is yours and will depend on what you feel like and who will be eating the meal. This is a meal that just needs preparation with the marinade. You can marinade the night before or the hour before, or anywhere in between, it depends how much time you have. If you like to use your freezer you can even marinade the chicken and freeze it for another day, just defrost the chicken and cook as you would normally. 

The greens on the side are up to you, I’ve used sugar snap peas as that were readily available and looked fresh at the market that day. Broccoli is also a favourite, but in Bahrain you could go a week or so without seeing any in the supermarket or markets. You could have sliced zucchini, green beans, peas, broccolini- whatever greens look good and you feel like eating. I am quite lucky with my children as they eat most of what I give them (with the expection of eggplant for Miss B and zucchini for Miss L) and if they don’t like it they still have to eat a few mouthfuls so vegetables are never a dinner time problem. I served this with rice, but you could have an Asian coleslaw or salad with it. It’s all up to you, what you find easiest and what you love to prepare and eat. That is how our day to day food should be. Easy. Loving.

I hope you are loving easy food

STICKY CHICKEN

4 cloves garlic

5 Tbsp soy sauce

3 tsp sesame oil

2 Tbsp oyster sauce

2 Tbsp ginger power

2 Tbsp honey

2 kg chicken (I used maryland cuts)

Greens of you choice steamed

Cooked rice to serve

In your thermomix/food processor/spice blender place the garlic, soysauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, ginger powder and honey. Process until you can a marinade. You can add some water if you feel. At this point you can decide if you want to add chilli powder for heat or more honey for sweetness or more soy sauce for saltiness. As there is soy sauce, I don’t use salt

Pour your marinade over the chicken and leave in the fridge until you are ready to cook

When ready to cook turn the oven on to 180 degrees celcius. In a roasting dish lay grease paper. Arrange your chicken on top of the grease paper in the roasting dish

Place in oven and cook for 1 hour. Make sure your chicken is cooked

While the chicken is cooking prepare your rice 

Once the chicken is cooked steam your vegetables. Once steamed I drizzle some oyster sauce over them for a little flavour

Serve the chicken with rice and vegetables

Back to the fish markets I went, ready for the assault of scales and water and smells. My friend Carmela had said she bought some beautiful clams from the market and made a pasta with them. Once my Dear Husband got wind of this it was what he wanted for dinner. I had never bought clams, let alone cooked them, so thank you to Carmela who talked me through the steps. The clams in Bahrain cost less per kilo than pasta, so this may not be a recipe easy for my friends back home to make but maybe change the clams for mussels which are more readily available and cheaper in Perth.

This dish has very few steps and is made with very simple ingredients. It is easy to put together and everyone at dinner loved it. Thank you Carmela for sharing this recipe from your home. You can follow her recipes on http://www.memoriediunacuocaperbene.com

I hope you loving easy food

CARMELA’S CLAMS

2kg clams

450gr pasta, normally I suggest you use whatever you have but for this I do think spaghetti or long pasta is the way to go, not too thick though

2 cloves garlic, bruised with the back of a knife

Good quality extra virgin olive oil

1 cup white wine 

Handful chopped parsley
Get a pot of boiling water to a rapid boil and cook your pasta. You can begin the next step once the pasta is cooked or do the next step and monitor your pasta

Get a saucepan large enough to fit all you clams. Place enough olive oil in the saucepan to cover the base of it, then add the garlic cloves. Heat the oil until the garlic cloves sizzle. Make sure not to burn the garlic

Once the garlic cloves are sizzling add you cup of white wine

Once the wine is simmering put all your clams in the saucepan and put a lid on top. Like mussels the clams are ready when they have opened

Toss the cooked pasta through with the clams and then sprinkle with the fresh chopped parsley. You may notice that I haven’t added salt. The clams when they open will released juices that are quite salty. Have salt at the ready but we didn’t feel the need to add any

Serve immediately