30 Rock

For a long time I have looked longingly at my 'Drinks On Me' label wishing it grow. For a long time I was off alcohol you see (long story, don't ask), and swore that the minute I start drinking again, I must mix something for the blog.



So when I did end up mixing a drink, the recipe came to me from one of my favourite TV shows. Fans of 30 Rock will recognise this as Jack  Donaghy's signature drink...other than whiskey ofcourse. To the bartender, its called a Nancy Drew (or Hardy Boy for men if you listen to Jack). To me, its one of the tastiest drinks I've had. It's so refreshing in the summers that sometimes I forget it's alcoholic.

Alec Baldwin calls for a white rum with diet ginger ale and a splash of lime. I've going to go further and use citrus rum to give the drink a nice tangy twist.



In a tall glass pour the following ingredients over ice cubes:

50ml Bacardi Limon or any other citrus white rum*
1/2 can of ginger ale
Juice of 1/2 lemon

*regular white rum will do too

Cheers!

Barbecue Pulled Chicken Sliders

Heaven comes in 360 degrees of bread, chicken & saucy goodness.

I had quite a bit of home-made barbecue sauce left from my pork ribs recipe and I was still in my American diner food phase. For the record, there are tons of things you can do with BBQ sauce. It goes with everything! While grocery shopping this week I was basically looking out for something to recycle my sauce in. I found bagels and really fresh pita bread, but eventually settled on mini burger buns. Which gave me the idea to made some pulled chicken sliders. I had most of the stuff at home, so this is really is star leftover dish and even though there were many elements, it really took no time to put together. Didn't think pulled chicken was possible in less than 20mins? Read on below, and you'll become a believer of this delicious sweet and savoury sandwich.



Serves 4
4 mini burger buns
400gms chicken
2 cups BBQ sauce
4 slices cheese
4 eggs
4 cloves of garlic, grated
4 tbsp butter
2 onions finely sliced
Salt & pepper to taste

Boil the chicken in water with some salt added. Once cooked and cooled, shred the chicken. Save the water as this is now chicken stock and makes an excellent base for gravies. I usually freeze it in an ice cube tray and use it to flavour practically anything.

In a sauce pan, add the shredded chicken with the BBQ sauce. Cook for 5-10mins till chicken is thoroughly coated. if the sauce is too thick, use some of the leftover chicken stock to loosen it up.

Now comes the best part, assembling the slider. I toasted the buns with some garlic butter. Just melt butter in a pan and add the grated garlic. Cut the buns in half and place on the melted butter and get it nice and toasty. Once fairly brown, remove from pan. In the same pan, fry the eggs sunny side up. I love a half fry eggs, but for those fussy about the runny yolk, skip the egg all together.



To plate up, place some finely sliced onions on the base bun. Now add good spoonful of the shredded chicken. Place a slice of cheese on top of the chicken and then top off with the fried egg. You can eat the slider open faced as is, or place the top bun and dig in! The slider is extremely juicy and will have a lot of goodness oozing out, so make sure you have plenty of tissues at hand.



I served my sliders with some traditional fries and a potato salad. I admit I got a little carried away with the potatoes, but my brother wanted fries, and I wanted a potato salad.

For the potato salad, just mix up all these ingredients:
1cup baby potatoes, boiled and peeled
1/2 cup yoghurt
1/4 cup tahini sauce
 Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Salt, pepper & chilli flakes to taste
1tsp sumac (optional)



Trust me, don't skip on the salad. Its a perfect balance to the tangy slider. And you can also serve it cold straight out of the fridge. How cool is that? (pun intended)