Cook with Us #24: Honey Tea Chicken & Strawberry and Tomatoes Salad

It’s great to be back for Round Two of the @docsmith handcrafted knife contest by @cookwithus. I can honestly admit that I can feel the pressure mounting a notch. Over the last 24 weeks or so of participating in this contest I’ve learned a lot about myself, my culture, my cooking skills, and at another level, my husband’s culture. In the latter case, most cultural memories appear to be linked to food! So when I saw the list of ingredients for this week I thought: “No way he can have an anecdote about tea?” But he did!

Of all the ingredients in this week’s challenge, tea was definitely one that I didn’t expect. I love drinking tea every now and then; black tea mostly. When I am on a diet I would try green tea or Oolong tea or even Camomile tea to calm myself before sleep. But I can’t remember incorporating it in my cooking. I’ve thought a few times of giving Matcha a go but haven’t quite master it. With this week’s challenge I thought it was the best opportunity to really give tea a try. I mean from a culinary perspective! I just needed the right recipe to definitely convince me. I did a search on social media and other culinary sites and found a few interesting recipe. Eventually I’ve settled on this week’s recipe. However, before getting on to this let’s go back to my husband.

As I’ve written here a few times, he appears to have a history for most dishes I’ve presented. So what could he come up in relation to tea? Well it appears that Mauritius used to be a small player on the big tea market. They didn’t compete in the same category as Sri Lanka and the Dilmah family but they had a couple of good blend; namely Bois Chéri and La Chartreuse. Bois Chéri, it appears, was created in 1892 and are still in activity to this day. According to my husband, ithe tea factory is located in  a small village in the south of Mauritius with a breathtaking view over 250-hectare. As a kid, they would have tours of the plantation and even get to delicately pick the tea leaves. Later, when he worked as a journalist, he would attend car rallies at the same location. And last tip from him, if you do venture to tropical Mauritius add the Tea Tour as part of your trip!

Back to this week’s contest. I saw this beautiful chicken and tea recipe that I’ve been willing to try. The chicken is poached in honey, ginger, chilli, and freshly brewed tea. I didn’t take me too long to prepare the dish and get everything in place. And funnily enough the tea wasn’t that big a hurdle after all. And it blended beautifully with the chicken and the honey was great in balancing all the different taste together. The hard part was to try and find a good way of adding the strawberry to the mix. I then remembered being at a party where I had a nice salad with Strawberries, Bocconcini cheese, and cherry tomatoes. So I thought it would be great to present the honey tea chicken as a salad with strawberries and tomatoes. And I think I was right to do it this way as at the combination of flavours was great. Together the dish was well balanced and relatively light. I will definitely try it again in the future.

I hope you enjoy it too!

Bon appétit!

And good luck to everyone.

INGREDIENTS

For Honey Tea Chicken

• 1 cup black tea
• 2 tbs honey
• 2 tbs soy sauce
• 1 clove fresh garlic, crushed
• 1 whole fresh red chilli, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp fresh ginger
• 540 g skinless chicken breast, fat trimmed

For Strawberry Salad

• Strawberry
• Bocconcini cheese
• Cherry tomatoes
• Peppermint basil
• Rocket Salad

METHOD

1. Combine tea, honey, soy sauce, garlic, chilli and ginger in a deep non-stick frying pan over high heat. Bring to the boil.
2. Add chicken. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, turning occasionally, for 14–16 minutes or until cooked through. Transfer chicken to a plate. Cover chicken with foil and set aside to rest for 5 minutes before slicing thinly.
3. Meanwhile, boil tea mixture for 5 minutes or until reduced. 
4. For the salad, slice the strawberries and cherry tomatoes on a plate and add in the cheese, basil, and rocket salad.
5. Plate everything and serve the chicken drizzled with sauce.