The Food Site

Once in a while, I’d get this craving for pita bread, wholemeal pita bread, that is. And no, I am not pregnant but thank you for your concern.

I’m just being my usual food-loving self. So, when I want pita bread, then it is what we have for dinner. Other than being healthy and wholesome and all, it is pretty easy to prepare with minimal cooking. Really, I’m not lying.

Okay, so I cheated by buying the pita bread but heck, it is readily available and the healthy, wholemeal, no-preservative types can also be bought so might as well buy them than spend goodness-knows-how-many-hours kneading and whatever making them, right? Right. I did say minimal cooking.

Now, let’s get on to the minimal cooking part…the meat fillings for the pita bread

Chicken breast recipes: Healthy baked chicken breast with mushrooms

Ingredients

For the baked chicken breast:

200g chicken breast meat strips

4 tbsp teriyaki sauce

1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped into tiny smithereens (or roughly chopped, whatever)

a dash of black pepper (or 1 tbsp if you really like black pepper)

olive oil (I use cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil for maximum health benefit but you can use any old un-virgin olive oil or any vegetable oil you like, for that matter.)

For the sauce:

4 medium-sized fresh shiitake mushrooms, cubed

4 button mushrooms, cubed

1/2 cup frozen mix vegetables, defrosted

3 tbsp oyster sauce

3 tbsp water

olive oil

For the fresh ingredients that don’t need to be cooked:

5 cherry tomatoes and some sliced tomatoes

1 cup cabbage, sliced thinly

Plenty of salad greens like baby butterhead

Oh, you can totally leave out the cabbage and replace it with thinly sliced carrots. I just happen to get a big huge head of cabbage so I had to use it. In fact, I came up with some other recipes because of the head of cabbage I needed to finish! But that’s some future posts, so let’s continue on with this one.

Here’s a pictorial idea of what you’ll need…

Don’t forget the most important ingredient…the pita bread!

Chicken recipes: Baked chicken breast recipe with mushrooms

Instructions

1. Season the chicken strips with the teriyaki sauce.

2. Add in the black pepper and herbs.

3. Use your fingers or spoon to mix it all around till it is all evenly covered in the sauce, pepper and rosemary (or whichever herb you took a fancy to, it doesn’t really matter).

4. Place the seasoned chicken breast meat on a tray covered with foil and then drizzle some of the thawed frozed vegetables and chopped mushrooms on top like so…

5. Don’t forget the extra virgin olive oil. Drizzle some on top of the chicken and then pop the tray into the oven and bake at 200C for 10 minutes. Then turn over and bake for another 10 minutes. Do check in between to make sure it is not being baked to a dried out old hump. These baking time are not as accurate due to different sized ovens, different wattages, different climate, different countries, different worlds, different chicken, I dunno. Just check the chicken.

Anyway, once done, they should look like this:

See? Juicy, succulent, cooked and NOT like dried out old hunks of stringy meat at all.

Now, on to the sauce for this beautiful, beautiful meat for the best, pita bread meal ever.

What sauce?

What do you mean what sauce? I don’t know about you but I don’t eat my pita bread with meat and veg without any sauce. That’s just too darn weird. And no, I don’t mean ketchup. Puh-lez!

Now, remember those chopped mushrooms and frozen vegetables?

6. Heat up some extra virgin olive oil in a wok or pan and then sautee the mushrooms and mixed vegetables like so:

7. Add in the water and the sauce and then stir-fry for a while till fragrant. Add a pinch of flour if you want a thicker sauce.

There you have it, simple and easy sauce to go with the chicken and pita bread and plenty of fresh vegs. YUM.The best part is that you can serve up the baked chicken breast covered in this sauce as a main dish itself, other than for use with pita. Look…

But me, I pour some sauce over the chicken and then the rest in a bowl and serve it all up like this:

Yep, everyone get to stuff their own pita with whatever is on the table and dribble as much sauce (or as little) as they want. Simple, easy and importantly HEALTHY!

Now, we’re talking. Whoever said healthy food is tasteless have not tried MY version of healthy food. Baked chicken breast, plenty of vegetables and wholemeal pita bread. What could be better eh?

Go on, try this out and if you don’t have any of the sauces or even pita bread or want to try out extra virgin olive oil, you can shop for them online here:

When we talk about chicken breast meat, I can safely say it is pretty much our staple food at home. That’s why I even have a chicken recipes series or chicken breast recipes series. That’s because each time I cook, there must always be chicken. What can I say? We all love chicken.

Now, enough raving about the chicken and let’s get on to the three-step, stir fried chicken breast meat with Thai basil. Why three step? Well, because it isn’t four steps or one step or any other step. Just three easy steps. You slice the chicken, marinade the chicken and stir fried the chicken. Oh, yeah. There is a fourth step. You EAT the chicken.

Okay, okay, enough rambling on and on. I know you are here only for the chicken. Err…chicken recipes, I mean.

Chicken breast recipes: Stir fried chicken with basil

Ingredients

1 piece chicken breast meat (about 200g, I think), sliced thinly

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

(and if you are concerned over the almost excessive use of sauces, just use those no-MSG, low sodium, organic, healthy, lowwhatever kinds. But please, don’t skimp on the sauces, it is what made the whole dish flavorful.)

A handful of Thai basil leaves (in case you are wondering, here’s what it looks like below:)

2 tbsp diced garlic

2 tbsp cooking oil (go ahead, use olive oil if you want, that’s what I use all the time)

The Three-step Stir Fried Chicken with Basil

1. Marinade the chicken with the sauces and add the leaves too (rub the leaves in to release its beautiful scent) for about an hour or so or less, however long you want.As long as you marinade it, it is good enough.

2. Heat up oil in wok, sautée the garlic till fragrant and then dump in the chicken together with the basil leaves.

3. Final, crucial step: Stir fry the chicken till it is cooked through. That will be between 5 minutes to 10 minutes depending on your heat but please don’t cook it over high heat or else you may risk burning it.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot the fourth even MORE IMPORTANT step…

Due to our eternal love (or so it seemed) for chicken and chicken breast meat, do stay tuned or better still, SUBSCRIBE to this blog for more healthy, wholesome chicken breast recipes. Really. No tricks. And yes, I also offer some sinful unhealthy selections of chicken recipes and other recipes too. This is not exactly a chicken recipes site or anything. I promise. We do eat other stuffs too.

I highly recommend these sauces to use with this recipe: