CRIZ BON APPETITE

Chocolate has been the favorite of most ladies and thus it’s a great way to celebrate this Valentine’s Day with a dish not of sweetness but with a twist of savory and spicy delight. Let me share with you this simple concocted savory chocolate sauce that would go with just any meat dish, whether it’s grilled, baked or even batter fried to your preference. As for Valentine’s Day, I would couple the sauce with my baked chicken dish which I would call it as BAKED CHICKEN WITH SAVORY CHOCOLATE SAUCE.

Here are the recipes:

INGREDIENTS:

SAVORY CHOCOLATE SAUCE:
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic (chop & blend)
1 large onion (chop & blend)
1/2 tsp cumin (blend)
1/2 tsp grounded nutmeg (blend)
1/4 tsp grounded cloves (blend)
1 tsp paprika or 1/2 tsp chili powder (blend)
1 can (220g) tomato puree
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tbsp chopped coriander
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Some sprinkles of grounded black pepper
Water

MEAT:
2 large size chicken drumsticks (about 450g each – remove bones)
1 stalk rosemary
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Dash of Worchester sauce
Pinch of salt & black pepper

SIDE DISHES 1:
1 large potatoes (300g – slice thinly)
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp parsley (chop finely)
Some sprinkles of grounded black pepper

SIDE DISHES 2:
1/2 mango (dice)
4 cherry tomatoes (dice)
1 tbsp parsley (chop finely)
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon parsley oil (or a light squeeze of lemon juice and olive oil)
Some sprinkles of grounded black pepper

GARNISHES:
Coriander leaves (whole)
Some cherry tomatoes

PREPARATIONS:
• Marinade the chicken pieces in a sealable plastic bag with all the ingredients above for 2-3 hours in the chiller. Use a fork to poke through the meat evenly for better flavor.
• Remove the chicken from the chiller and let it sit at room temperature for about 20 minutes. Heat the oven at 200°C for 5 minutes and arrange the rack in the middle. Bake the chicken for 40-45 minutes or until the skin has turned golden brown.
• While waiting for the baked chicken, blend the chopped big onion, garlic, cumin, grounded nutmeg and grounded cloves until fine.
• Heat up 2 tablespoon of extra virgin oil and sauté the blended ingredients until fragrant. Pour in the tomato puree and the rest of ingredients and stir thoroughly. Add in some hot water to get your required thickness.
• For Side Dish #1, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a pan and sauté the sliced potatoes until cook. Add in the chopped parsley and some sprinkles grounded black pepper to taste.
• For Side Dish #2, just toss everything in a bowl and keep in the chiller until needed.

(Serve: 2)

YOU CAN CHECK HERE FOR MORE RECIPES.

More than two years of food blogging was nothing to brag about. In fact, it’s not the experience that I had acquired through time that pushed me to withstand the pressure and pleasure to get the best detail on the greatest places for dining. It’s the support and encouragement from you, my fellow floggers and readers. The friendship, the communication, the interpersonal skills and most of all the mini gatherings and reviews we had together indeed fostered our relationships even closer. We are like a big family now and hope to remain so for years to come. Even the responses and comments from readers (although I saw quite a large number of silent stalkers :P) surely kept Criz Bon Appetite moving even more diligently to bring the best place to eat to you. One thing I have noticed, Penangites are always in search of great food. It’s even obvious when it’s free as I had posted up in my anniversary giveaway. Within a mere two weeks, almost RM3,000 of free food vouchers had been sent out through snail mails from Northern up to Central Malaysia.

Well, don’t thank me for that. I’m only the postman. If not for the wonderful sponsors who wished to share out the best there are in Penang/Butterworth, you won’t have the privilege to try out their wonderful culinary skills. Let’s officially thank them for promoting Penang’s best to the dining community. They are Fun Tea Garden Dim Sum, Ki Xiang Klang Bak Kut Teh, Village Café Tom Yam Fish Head Noodles, I Mum Mum Pan Mee, Ivy’s Kitchen Nyonya Cuisine, Kowloon Hainan Chicken Rice and Magazine Road Tang Yuan. Let’s hope there would be more sponsors around next year since there were some late requests during the end of the project. I sincerely hope that those who had received their free vouchers had a great dining experience. 🙂

Last Friday night was the ending of the giveaways and saw a memorable anniversary celebration for close friends and floggers at Fun Tea Garden for the “eat-until-you-drop” dim sum and noodles party. Everyone was indeed stuffed until the brim by trying out almost everything from the restaurant. Well, that’s another few inches to the waistline. LOL! In fact, the whole atmosphere was filled with the laughs of the wackiest floggers and shutterbugs around town. Jokes can be heard at every table while ghost stories at another. I hope Steven Goh did not have bad dreams that night for the story telling. Haha! It was indeed a fun filling event for many including our new flogger-to-be in town, Lay Min and friend, Kok Ann, who drove all the way from Butterworth to attend this function. You would be surprised that the oldies and the newbies can click really well that night. Won’t it be great if we were to have more of such happy moments? Gals and guys… plan more in 2010! Hehe!

Since I was the host for the night, shooting great shots was quite impossible. Why not let the rest of the attendees show you how great the food was that night? Here’s a glimpse of some of the food we had.

The celebration ended with a large anniversary Marble Cheese Cake from Jenni Homemade Cakes, courtesy of Carrie, Mary and CW Chan. It was a bonus for all of us and also a few more pounds gained. Haha!

Here’s the group photo of the attendees with the boss of Fun Tea Garden, Mr. Danny, courtesy of CW Chan who has also bought a new RM3.1K Lumix camera on that night to provide better shots for his readers in the future. Thanks for de“virgin”ized your camera for that night. LOL!

Not in photo: NKOTB & hubby

ATTENDEES:
Criz Lai
Alan & Amanda
NKOTB & hubby
Little Inbox & hubby
Eunice, Siew Ying & Kelvin
Lay Min & Kok Ann
Jason & Gill
CW Chan
Steven Goh
Mary Teo
Carrie Soon
Jian Ming

Gosh! I almost could not make it due to a month plus of office relocation and crashed hard backups, followed by the promised “2 weeks of delivery” of internet connectivity by Telekom Malaysia (still waiting since 23 October 2009 and still not fixed!!!). Alternatively, I had to borrow a P1W1max Broadband modem to go online, which was replaced with a new one yesterday due to some latest firmware upgrades. Due to some unforeseen technical setup error, the data was not properly updated and 24 hours were wasted unnecessarily. Let’s hope things would go smoother for Criz Bon Appetite with the beginning of another new year.

Today, the 4th of December 2009, marked my 2 years of food blogging, humbly started in two blogger.com accounts to the presently owned crizfood.com. To show my appreciation to my fellow readers, Criz Bon Appetite is giving away free food vouchers to anyone who would love to try out some of the best food around the Food Paradise of Malaysia – Penang. There are many options ranging from Midnight Dim Sum, Klang Bak Kut Teh, Pan Mee, Tom Yam/Clear Soup Fish Noodles, Nasi Lemak, Hainanese Chicken Rice to authentic dessert such and Glutinous Rice Ball Soup (Tang Yuan) from some of the notable stalls within the island and mainland Penang.

The procedure of claiming the vouchers is real simple. All you need to do is to email your particulars (name & mailing address) to crizfood@gmail.com and a randomly selected voucher would be sent to you in no time. The giveaway would be available until 17 December 2009 or until stocks last. Each person would be entitled to only one voucher. The voucher would be valid until 16 January 2010. Start emailing now to claim your voucher to avoid disappointment.

Do check out the website more often from now onwards for more hidden food treasures in Penang! Have a great meal everyone and a happy 2nd birthday to Criz Bon Appetite!

The Year of the Ox looks rather promising for the future of CRIZ BON APPETITE as the website was mentioned in the local Chinese daily,  Kwong Wah Yit Poh today. I found out about the news last night through a friend and subsequently by a SMS from Carrie this morning. It was on an article I wrote in early December 2008 regarding the longest Chinese cruller in Malaysia. I did not expect my website to be mentioned as it was still a brand new site but I guessed all the hard work done to acquire a new domain surely did help a lot. At least now the public would be aware of the existence of http://crizfood.com/.

For those who can read in Chinese, here’s the special feature on Page C16 of Kwong Wah Yit Poh dated 28 January 2009.

You can also check it out at the daily’s Kwong Wah eNewspaper website in case you cannot get hold of the actual newspaper. This is how it was shown there.

To ease those who like to know what had been written in the newspaper, I had the article translated to English as accurate as I can. Here is how it goes.

Online Advertising

Moving towards the path of creativity and fusion, Te Chang You Tiao Wang had already gained the acceptance in flavors by the public. Local food blog, CRIZ BON APPETITE, had introduced Mr. Tan Teik Hin’s business for free to the world of internet.

Blog author, Criz Lai, introduced the extra long Chinese crullers in his December post. With English as a medium, the blog introduced on the products as well as posted up a road map to the location.

The blog also provided a score with 10 points as maximum for categories such as Ambience, Food Choices, Taste, Pricing and Service. Mr. Tan’s Chinese crullers scored a minimum of 6 points for some categories, with a maximum of 8 points for another.

The Te Chang You Tiao Wang article also received 15 comments from the public. If you are interested to view more, you may wish to visit http://crizfood.com/

I would like to thank Mr. Tan for his free publicity by printing and posting up my article at his stall as well as the staff of Kwong Wah Yit Poh for the publicity. Penang definitely has a lot of hidden treasures and together we shall make the food known to the world.