Chicken chop & Rosti

Being a SAHM for couple of months, it can be quite bored at times. I didn't fill my day with activities other than preparing lunch, the occasional baking, fetching my boy from school and coaching on his school work. When I was working, I'd imagined that it would be super shiok to stay at home. Not that I'm complaining, it's indeed relaxing and definitely feel good to be away from the work and office stress.

The best part of course is the precious time I'm spending with my boy who is growing up by the day. I'm happy that I've made up for the lost time. I've also made some efforts to catch up with my friends and colleagues whom we had little time to chit chat in the past. The downside of not working is a super relaxed mind (almost inactive), and I do miss the times where the mind is constantly being challenged. Oh ya, on this note, I had a nightmare the other day where I suffered from dementia, imagine how scary it is!!

Anyway, here's another lunch - Chicken chop and Rosti - we had this week.

Rosti 
(serves 4-5 persons as sides)

Ingredients/ Method: 
4 potatoes, peeled
1/ 4 yellow onion, diced (optional)
1 tsp salt
2tbsp corn starch

1. Grate the potatoes coarsely into a big bowl. 
2. Squeeze out as much juice as possible from the potatoes. As an additional step, I use kitchen towels to squeeze out the juice the 2nd time. 
3. Season the grated potatoes with salt. 
4. Add corn starch and coat evenly. 
5. Heat up pan with about 2 - 3 tbsp oil. Using hand to compact the grated potatoes into ball and flatten it. (There's still quite a lot of juice and I squeeze them out again before forming ball.)
6. Place the flatten potatoes on the pan gently. Using spatula, lightly press down the potatoes rosti and pan fried until golden brown on both sides. 
7. Serve immediately. 

Chicken chop 
(serves 3)

Ingredients/ Method: 
500g chicken thighs
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed with skin on
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp white pepper

1. Mix all seasonings and marinate the chicken thighs overnight. 
2. In a pan with about 1 tbsp oil on medium-high, slightly shake off the marinate from the chicken and pan fried on skin side first for about 1 min. Turn to the other side for another minute to lock the juices. (*Keep the marinate and garlic to prepare simple mushroom sauce.) 
3. Continue cooking on medium-low heat until fully cooked.  

Mushroom sauce 
(serves 3)

Ingredients/ Method: 
3 tbsp minced shiitake mushroom stems
100g cooking cream

1. Using 1 tbsp of the remaining oil from cooking the chicken and the marinate*, saute the garlic (also from the marinate) until fragrant. Remove the garlic. 
2. Next, saute the mushroom till fragrant. Add cooking cream (add some water if dry up too fast) until mixture boils. 
3. To serve, drizzle over the chicken chop. 

Note: The mushroom stems were left-over from my earlier cooking. You can use whole mushroom as well.