Chicken with Dried Shrimp

A Cooking Arrangement
Early on, when I first moved to Sagada, I had an arrangement with the village's resident french chef - I bring the main ingredient for dinner every Friday, and he gives me instructions on how to cook the dish. I learn how to prepare a new dish, I eat good, and I get to practice my french - not a bad deal at all. That was cut short though - I opted out. However, I asked him if we can resume that arrangement, to which he agreed....nice!

It's a Chicken Dish
Since we were going to have Janet and John as dinner guests, he asked me to bring 1.5 kilos of chicken. He'll take care of the rest. I didn't bother asking him what dish we were making. Chances are, there's no name. The dish is something he makes up. I'll just call it chicken with dried shrimp.

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots
• 1 cabbage
• 4 onions
• 2 bulbs garlic
• black pepper
• salt
• chili
• bay leaf
• 1.5K chicken
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 cup dried shrimp
• 2 cups water
• 6 potatoes

Cooking Process
Chop onions, garlic, cabbage and carrots. Mix together in a bowl and add pepper, salt, chili and bay leaf. Combine the dried shrimp and water and puree it in a blender. Strain and keep the juice. Discard the solids. On high heat, brown chicken until it caramelizes. Add tomato paste and mix until chicken is coated red. Add to it the veggie mix and dried shrimp liquid. Mix. When it boils, lower the heat, cover the casserole and let simmer for 25 minutes. In the meantime, grate the potatoes. After 25 minutes, add the grated potatoes, mix and cook for another 1 minute. Shut the heat. It's done.

The Verdict
The blending of the dried shrimp and the chicken produced an unusual flavor. It's an ok dish but not exactly what I would call blow-your-doors-off. If I were to do it next time, I'll put less shrimp, to coat a thin layer of flavoring on the chicken to give it that 'je ne sais quoi' dimension...like bass in an orchestra that adds wholeness, but you don't hear it.

--- TheLoneRider

Tip:

• tomato paste - add this to the frying process until it coats the whole thing red. Adding this to soup doesn't do much - it has to be fried.
• The quantity of the veggies doesn't matter. You can use whatever veggie leftover you have in the kitchen. What's important is the process.

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