Chicken with wasakaka

Our whole family loves roasted chicken and we also love fun words, so when I was researching our Dominican Republic weekend and I saw a recipe for pollo con wasakaka, or roasted chicken with garlic sauce, it was hard to go past. Unfortunately, garlic is high in FODMAPs, so I knew I was going to have to come up with an alternative. I’m a little ashamed to admit just how easy it was.

Mu shu duck

I feel like I cheated when I made this dish. It was so easy and yet felt so festive, what with the duck, the multiple plates and of course the wrapping up of the pseudo mandarin pancakes.

Here’s one secret: I pre-made the pancakes, so all I had to do was pull them out of the freezer and defrost them. Here’s another: they were actually just general-purpose gluten-free savoury crepes. There are recipes for more authentic-tasting gluten-free mandarin pancakes out there (The Gluten-Free Asian Kitchen cookbook has one) but crepes work wonderfully and I don’t think anyone noticed the difference.

One last secret: I didn’t roast a whole duck. I bought duck legs only and roasted those. It was plenty for this dish and so much faster and easier to make than a whole greasy bird. So yeah. Here’s my recipe for a lazy cook’s mu shu duck.

Kung pao chicken

I love kung pao chicken. I make it regularly without consulting any recipes, so the following is a bit approximate. That’s OK. Kung pao chicken is a forgiving dish, the kind of dish where you get to unleash your creativity, improvise, maybe use up whatever’s in the fridge – and it’ll still come out tasty.

It might be argued that this isn’t a proper kung pao chicken at all, since it’s not spicy, or not necessarily. I have small children. If I make spicy food, they won’t eat it. Since I love hot food, I add the spice to my own plate. I don’t care what the purists may say – it’s still kung pao chicken to me. It has chicken. It has sweet peppers. It has nuts. It has kung pao chicken-y flavour. What more do you need?