How difficult is it to make fried chicken right? But trying this very popular recipe made me remember that I’ve never been really successful at making bone-in fried chicken. I’ve made tons of chicken karage, Korean inspired chicken-wings and chicken-wings/nibbles of every conceivable flavour, but have yet to achieve no-nonsense, really good bone-in fried chicken. I’ve followed the steps to the letter and it’s still pollo no bueno…

On one hand, maybe I don’t need to- I’m perfectly happy with KFC chicken and I’ll just stick to that.

One good thing though in making a side dish that should go with the chicken is discovering a fast and tasty way to cook kale. In everyday Philippine cooking, there seems to be just two ways to cook vegetables- boiling them (or adding them to stock) or ‘gisa’ (sautee) with tomatoes, garlic and onions and I picked the latter. Kale is tough and fast cooking actually translates to about 30 to 40 minutes of simmering the leaves in a broth until it softens to the texture of wilted spinach. I’ve done laing with silverbeet/chard twice now and I might do the next one with kale.