This is one of our favourite winter dishes, creole′ just like many other stew dishes is delicious and simple to make. What’s great about making stew during the colder months of the year is that it’s very heart warming. The hard work is only needed at the very beginning and the rest of the work you can leave to the pan/pot and our best friend in the kitchen, the stove. I love making stew because it doesn’t just taste great on the day you make it, but even better the day after. I love making it in summer as well, however the only problem I have in summer is that it often heats the whole house up so if you feeling hot at home already I don’t recommend cooking it on that summer day.
Where I live currently the meat the market/butcher is already tender enough so the cooking won’t take very long. In Cambodia though, the meat isn’t as tender as it is over here (unless you know how to choose tender pieces) and also good meat is more expensive everywhere so the meat used for a stew is often the chewier cuts with bones and also with some fat. The reason they choose lower quality meat for stews because they are only chewy if they are just cooked, but when they are stewed for long enough they taste better than good meat so using good quality meat in stew is quite a waste. This also apply to poultry, it’s not that they are bad quality poultry it’s just that the chicken isn’t as tender as they are in western countries and the reason is because they are running chickens (farm raised) they are skinnier and chewier. Even if they are cut into small pieces they still need to be cooked for sometimes to tenderize.
This dish has a very unique flavour because of the combination of dried thyme with lemon and hot chili sauce. By the sound of the ingredients it can be a bit scary, but like they say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. If you have a tooth for spicy food this dish is definitely for you, but if you can’t handle spice you can always adjust the amount of chilies to your liking. This dish can be cooked the night before and is great for cooking in large quantities. The recipe cooks for 4-5 servings as it stands.
Note: just like I mentioned earlier this dish is a spicy dish. I used about 4 tablespoons of hot chili sauce and ½ tablespoon of cayenne pepper so if you don’t like spicy food at all then I recommend using only a small amount of the spices or none at all. My partner just started to be able to handle hot dishes, but he still has hiccups therefore don’t risk it. I use the hot chilli sauce I bought from an Asian market, the HUY FONG FOOD, INC. brand, you can find it in almost every Chinese/ Asian grocery store.
It would be great to cook this dish in a Dutch oven or a crock pot, but if you haven’t got one like I don’t it’s alright to use a deep large wok or a pot. I personally like to cook this in my large stainless steel wok rather than in a pot because the wok is big enough for me to spread out the chicken and brown them in one go. However if you don’t have a big enough woke brown all of the chicken at once I recommend drowning them in batches instead.
The snow peas are added at the very end of the dish to keep them crunchy when served, but if you like well cooked vegetables feel free to add them a bit earlier or simply cook them a bit longer. Besides snow peas you can also add broccoli into this dish which tastes great. If you don’t plan to eat the whole amount of the cooked dish on the day you cook it, it is best to only cook the amount of vegetables that you think you will eat and then add in the rest of vegetables in the next day when you plan to cook what is left. This approach enables you to have crunchy vegetables each time and it won’t make it feel like it is left overs. I heat the dish in a pot the next day and I like to add a small amount of water into it to prevent the sauce from burning and provide me enough sauce for this meal as well. When heating it the next day I recommend heating it on medium low to medium heat, this will help to tenderize the chicken even more and the sauce will remain basically the same and not simmer down too much.
CHICKEN CREOLE’
Prep-Time: 15 mins Serve: 4
Cooking Time: 1 hr
Ingredients
4 drumsticks
5 joint wings, separated
250g snow peas, top and tail
2 tbsp dried thyme
1 tsp cumin
1 ½ tbsp curry powder
3 cloves garlic, minced
Salt and pepper to taste
oil
2 cups water/2 cups chicken stocks
4 tomatoes, diced small/1 can diced tomato
½ tbsp cayenne pepper (use less if you can’t handle the spice)
4 tbsp hot chili sauce (1-2 tbsp if you want it mild)
½ large lemon, juice
3 bay leaves
Method
Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper.
Heat the oil in a wok/crock pot over medium heat, brown the chicken on both sides (in batches if you don’t have enough room to brown all of the pieces at ones).
Sprinkle the thyme, curry powder, cayenne pepper and cumin on the browned chicken in the same wok/pot and then stir for 2 minutes to coat the chicken with the spices and allow the curry powder to roast in the oil.
Add in the tomato, garlic and water and then stir to mix and bring to boil on high heat. Add in the chili sauce, lime juice, bay leaves, 1 tbsp rock salt and 1 tsp grounded pepper and then stir to combine and leave to boil for 25 minutes.
Return heat to medium high and allow the dish to continue to simmer for another 15 minutes or until the sauce thickens to your preferred thickness. Add in the snow peas and then stir to allow them to soften for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and serve with steamed rice.
