양념치킨 Sweet & Spicy Chicken

During college, I used to make this Korean sweet and spicy chicken all the time. I guess I still do too (it's Joe's favorite), and since college, I have made some changes and improvements to the recipe. I've shared the recipe with many friends, and I wanted to share the new and updated recipe with everyone.

I wanted to apologize in advance for the horrible pictures.. Bad lighting in the kitchen, and I was experimenting with some settings on my camera... I'll replace the pictures next time I make the chicken again.

Ingredients:
1 pack - Bonless Skinless Chicken Thigh (mine was 2.5 lbs)
1 Tsp - salt
1/2 Tsp - pepper
2 Tsp - sesame oil
1 Tsp - garlic powder
1 Tsp - curry powder or cumin
1/2 cup - milk
1 Large Egg
1 tsp - baking soda
1/2 tsp - baking powder
4 cups - flour
4 cups - frying oil

Sauce
1 cup - light corn syrup
1/4 cup - Korean hot pepper paste
1/4 cup - ketchup

Step 1

Cut the chicken into bite size pieces. I've found that boneless skinless thigh works the best. Bnls skls breast is too dry, and drnsticks are tricky to fry. Unless you have a deep fryer (I don't), I don't recommend using drumsticks or whole chicken. Plus it takes much less time to just use bnls skls thigh.

Step 2

Season the meat with salt & pepper, garlic powder, sesame oil, curry powder, and milk.

Step 3

In a small bowl, mix the egg with baking soda and baking powder, then mix this in with the chicken.

Step 4

Shake the chicken pieces from excess liquid and put them one batch at a time in a large bowl with flour. Cover the chicken with flour.

Step 5

Prepare the fryling oil. Set the heat at Medium High. Drop a little bit of flour or a small piece of chicken to see if the oil is ready. The oil is ready when the flour mixture sizzles and floats up right away.

Step 6

Put the chicken in the oil once piece at a time, after shaking the excess flour off. Take them out when the chicken turns light golden brown. (The chicken will darken more as it cools so you have to take them out a little early).

Step 7

When all frying is done, prepare the sauce in a separate pan (use a wok or a pot so you can mix easily later). Heat the corn syrup in medium-high heat and add the hot pepper paste and the ketchup. Mix throughly (it'll mix better as it heats up) and let is simmer a little on low heat. If you prefer a really sweet and thick sauce, simmer for a long time, but if you just want a light coat of sauce on the chicken, take it off the heat early and mix in the chicken before it cools down.

Step 8

Coat the chicken with the sauce and enjoy!

Try the recipe and let me know how it went!

"I love you, baby!"

Elijah is referred to as the "baby" in the family. Ellie used to be called the baby a long time ago, and I'm not sure exactly when we stopped calling her the baby, probably only a couple months before Elijah was born... Everyday, Al and Ellie shower Eli with hugs and kisses, to the point that I have to restrain them and stop them from suffocating the baby. They just LOVE their little baby brother and can't get enough of him.

 

 

 

 

Scripture study

We read the scripture stories with pictures for our family scripture study before going to bed. We have the Book of Mormon Stories and the Old Testament Stories. Ellie loves to look at the pictures and pretend to read it, or she points out things in the pictures. For example, she would point at a sick person or people fighting and say, "아야 아야 (Ouch)." or pictures of food or fruit (the tree of life) and say, "eat, eat." Or point out fire and say, "아뜨 아뜨 (hot, hot)."

Alden's gotten really good at reading, and he can read most of the stories without any help (occasionally he needs help with reading words like shadrach meshach and abednego). A lot of times, he has favorite stories he likes to read repeatedly, and lately, it's been the story of David and Goliath. 

It's really wonderful to read stories from the scriptures and have the kids become familiar with them, but sometimes it gets really hard to explain things, especially when Al asks questions that I don't exactly know how to answer.

Alden: (dramatically) Goliath came at David to fight. Then David put a stone in his sling and threw the stone! ... Why did he throw the stone?

YY: So he can hit Goliath.

Alden: But hitting is not very nice.

YY: Yeah. But Goliath is a very bad guy. (Then I thought hitting shouldn't be permitted even if it's at a bad guy.) Well, hitting is bad but during a war, sometimes it's okay to hit bad guys.

Alden: The stone hit Goliath in the head. Goliath fell to the ground! David took Goliath's sword and CUT OFF HIS HEAD!!! Why did he do that?

YY: Um... So he can ... Um... Well, that way, Goliath can hurt REALLY bad and not be bad anymore. Heavenly Father said it was okay.

Anyway... It goes on like that during many nights, and sometimes I just pretend I didn't hear the question. Oops... Hopefully he can grow up and understand better the way Heavenly Father works...

Here we go...

I have had a horrible experience with trying to post from the iPad, so I've stopped posting altogether since it's very inconvenient to have to get on the laptop when I've got an iPad... Well, joe had an idea of just having me write on the notepad or in an email then just getting on the laptop for a few minutes to just post what I've written. So here it is...

I am not even sure where to begin... I guess I should update on Elijah's 2 month check up.

Numbers first... His weight and height are in the 89-95th percentile, and head circumference is in the 70th percentile. He eats pretty well, considering I don't produce enough milk. Supplementing with formula had been working okay, and he takes warm, cold, lukewarm milk all very well. He eats about every two to three hours, but that has been getting longer in the last few days. Longest he's gone is 6 hours so far, and I'm hoping that he'll start sleeping through the night pretty soon (he wakes up once anytime between 2-4 now).

He loves attention, and he smiles when we make faces at him. He's also cooing a lot. He only poops only once a day, and for a newborn baby, we are glad to only have to change a dirty diaper once a day. He's a pretty calm baby, and only cries when he's hungry, tired, or has a wet diaper. He puts up so much with his older siblings always wanting to hug and kiss him. 

We think he looks a lot like Joe (or any of the Rigby boys when they we babies), but we can definitely see the family resemblance between all three kids.

I will try to keep the blog going more now. Maybe try to catch up on what's been going on while not getting any further behind...