Ayam Masak Bugis (Indonesian) Buginese Chicken Stew

As a non-Asian, when I started cooking Asian food, it was hard for me to eat plain white rice.  I guess it's still not my favourite, so I usually eat my rice with pickles.  Another way to eat plain rice, probably my favourite, is with curry.  Indian people call "curry" mostly any dish in gravy or sauce, and plenty, PLENTY of sauce on my rice is the way to go, I usually even take a second serving of rice to finish the sauce!

This Indonesian curry might look like nothing, but it impressed me so much, I know I'm bound to cook it again!  Also I'm starting to enjoy a lot the taste of terassi/belachan (dried fermented shrimp paste sold in block, used in Indonesia and Malaysia too I think).

This curry is sooo easy to prepare! The dish itself was only chicken and sauce, but I was kind of too lazy to prepare a vegetable side dish so I added green beans, carrots and white mushrooms to it, and it was delicious.  I served it with some sambal oelek of course.  So here is the recipe for Buginese Chicken Stew from the book Authentic Recipes from Indonesia by Heinz von Holzen and Lother Arsana.

-a chicken, about 1kg/2lbs, cut in 4 or 6  (i used the same weight in legs only)
-4 cups chicken stock from chicken bones of chicken powder
-2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
-12 shallots, thinly sliced
-1tbsp terassi (Indonesian dried shrimp paste), roasted in a piece of aluminum foil in the oven for 5-10 minutes at 400F3200C
-2tbsp tamarind juice (see this post for a how to: http://sunnysdelights.blogspot.ca/2014/06/asem-udang-bakar-sambar-telur-and.html)
-1tsp white pepper
-2 salam leaves (also called Indonesian bay leaves, but if you can't find them like me, use curry leaves which are a closer substitute than bay leaves)
-a cinnamon stick
-4 cloves
-1/4tsp nutmeg
-1tsp salt
-1tsp palm sugar or brown sugar
-1tbsp white vinegar
-1 cup coconut milk (thick if you can find it)
-fried shallots to top if desired (I desired it, I just forgot to put it!)
-some vegetables if you want to make this a whole meal 

Bring the stock to a boil over medium, then add all the ingredients except the chicken, coconut milk and vegetables if using, bring to a boil again and simmer for 5 minutes.  Add the chicken and coconut milk and bring to a boil again, then simmer for 20 minutes, turning the chicken every once in a while.

After 20 minutes, remove the chicken and place in a deep serving plate, (add veggies to the sauce if using) and simmer until (the veggies are cooked and) the sauce is reduced by half, about 10 minutes.  Pour the sauce over the chicken and serve with white rice!

Rendang (Indonesian)

On June 5th I turned 25!  I had good times even though my boyfriend and I were broke...  The previous weekend, we went to my mom and had T-bones on the barbecue, got some money and a food processor from mom and dad!  On the 5th, I met my boyfriend downtown after his job and we went light shopping (we had $30-40!), had cheap delicious Banh Mi in Chinatown, found a plant of Vietnamese mint!, then I chose this Indonesian cooking book (I'll elaborate later)!  Then on the weekend, we had a couple friends over, our apartment is small, our balcony is kind of spacious and the weather was really nice!  We ended up chilling on the balcony most of the day.  A friend brought drinks, chips and candies, another friend bought everything to assemble a sponge, whip cream and fruits cake, and I made maki sushi, oyaki with soboro pork and some crazy indonesian eggs that I'll have to make again just to share the recipe with the world.  I really should have taken pictures of the feast.  It made me really happy because everyone kept on saying with their mouth full how good it was, or eating and just nodding with the "this is good!" eyes!  It makes me so happy to cook for others!

So back to this Indonesian book!  We went to the bookstore and I had $20 and some change left from our bithday date budget to buy a book.  I cooked enough Vietnamese food lately and I wanted to try some new flavours!  When I check a book about a type of cooking I never tried before, I mostly look at the ingredients.  Indonesian food, of which I know almost nothing of, is full of garlic, chillies, sambal oelek, kecap manis (sweet soy sauce with the texture of oyster sauce), coconut milk, lemongrass, galangal, palm sugar...  Everything I like!  And no cilantro anywhere (poor cilantro, I hate him)!

The said book is called Indonesian Cooking by Dina Yuen.  It's a book of mostly easy but really tasty dishes and also a couple different sambals (really intense condiments served with satays, lalapan, everything really).  I didn't know until I checked on the internet, but a proper Indonesian meal is served with a lalapan, which is an assortment of fresh and blanched vegetables accompanied by any kind of sambal from what I understood.  The vegetables can be tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces and herbs, blanched green beans, any type of vegetable that ends with choy (blanched), any type of cabbage (blanched), any greens...  That's what I've seen around the internet, but I guess you can put whatever you want or have in the fridge.  Tonight I'm making a noodle stir-fry that doesn't have that many veggies, so I'll try making lalapan to balance things out (and for fun!).

You'll hear a lot about this book, Indonesian Cooking by Dina Yuen, from where today's recipe comes from.  I present to you Rendang, some kind of very fragrant beef curry, from the book, simplified by me and including some of my tips!

(serves 4)

Grind everything into a paste (with mortar or food processor):

-14 garlic cloves, peeled

-2inches of peeled ginger, sliced

-1inch galangal, peeled and sliced

-white parts of 2 lemongrass stalks, roughly chopped

-1 1/2lb beef, cubed (for short time stewing)

-2tsp sambal oelek

-3/4tsp salt

-2cups coconut milk

-1tsp or more black pepper

-1/2tsp sugar

-1/4tsp turmeric powder

-10 kaffir lime leaves

In a medium sized NON-STICK (learn from my experience) pot or high pan, warm up 2tbsp of oil.  Add the paste, sambal oelek and salt and stir 2 minutes until fragrant.  Mix in the beef cubes for a minute, then add the coconut milk, black pepper, sugar, turmeric powder and lime leaves and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium/medium-high, and simmer for 45 to 90 minutes (depending on the cut of beef) until the beef is soft enough. If it needs more liquid, add a little hot water.  To test this I poke one big chunk of beef with a fork, and if it's too hard to pull the fork out easily, it's not ready yet.  Serve with rice and a salad or veggies or lalapan!

Shahjahani Murgh (Indian)

Maybe this will surprise you, but I'm not a stranger to Indian cuisine.  As with all my phases, my Indian phase lasted maybe four months where I would cook 2 different curries and serve them with rice and one of the many Indian flat breads, or some appetizers and chutneys and raita, and this EVERY day.  I love really spicy Indian curries that makes your nose leak!  By the way, Indians call "curry" everything in sauce, it doesn't need to contain "curry powder".

(I posted the best, most authentic butter chicken and a tandoori marinade before, see here: http://sunnysdelights.blogspot.ca/search/label/Indian)

When you think curry, you probably think bold and spicy flavours.  This Chicken Shah Jahan doesn't fit in this category at all.  It is creamy and contains a lot of different spices like other curries, but it's not spicy at all (there's no chilli in any form in this curry) and has very mild but complex aromas.  It's a really subtle but delicious dish.

I took this recipe from the book Cuisine Indienne by Manju Malhi.  I have some really good cookbooks written by foreigners to the country where the recipes are from, but I usually trust, lets say, an Indian cookbook written by an Indian lady, I know it has more chances of being authentic, it's all about authenticity with me!  Anyways, in the book, they explain that Shah Jahan was the emperor who ordered the construction of the Taj Mahal for his favourite wife, Mumtaz-i Mahal.  This dish was created for him.  If that curry was made for an emperor, it has to be good for me, no?

You might be scared with all the spices, but just find a small Indian market, Indian people are usually really nice and happy to see non-Indians interested in their food!  They'll help you find whatever you need, and spices are like 2 to 4 dollars each. Once I asked a store-owner for some spice, he told me to wait, exited his shop and came back with the spices I needed, but since he didn't have them, he bought them for me from a near shop.  He also gave me a bag of fresh curry leaves on the branch for free.  Each time I go there I'm received like a friend! When I started my Indian cooking phase, my boyfriend bought me two books, I went through all the recipes and made a list of all the spices, seeds and powdered version.  It cost me a total of $30-40! Also, Indian cooking only requires a pan, and maybe a coffee grinder or small food processor to grind your own masalas.  It's a really easy, often quick and cheap cuisine.  And curries are essentially always cooked the same, first whole spices and onions, garlic and ginger, then meat/lentils/peas/paneer, then cream or yoghurt if used and powdered spices.  That simple. 

So here is the recipe for Shahjahani Murgh from the book Cuisine Indienne by Manju Malhi.  There is so many good chefs on YouTube and the internet, incredible authentic resources on the internet if you are interested in Indian cooking (luckily most Indians speak a good English, so it's easy to find real Indian food!).  If you are interested, I thought I'd post a list of all my resources for all different ethnic cooking I've been into since I started cooking seriously, 3-4 years ago (I still have a long post to write about Ramen today, so maybe the resources will wait tomorrow).

(serves 2-3)

Masala (is it the good term, I think masala is a spice mix...?)

-3 bay leaves

-3 black cardamom pods

-4 green cardamom pods

-1 cinnamon stick

-4 cloves

-1/4tsp cumin seeds

-10 black peppercorn

-2tbsp ghee or butter (to make a ghee replacement if you're motivated, melt a couple spoons of butter and remove the scums, there you have it, clarified butter!)

-1 onion, finely chopped

-3 garlic cloves, finely grated or puréed 

-1tsp peeled ginger, finely grated

-1/4tsp salt

-1/4tsp white pepper

-400g chicken breast in cubes

-4tbsp cream (I use fat 30%)

-10 saffron strands, Spanish and Iranian preferred to American of course (mixed and resting in the cream while cooking the rest)

-100ml water

-2tbsp almond powder (I grind almonds with skins in a coffee grinder)

-some fine ginger matchsticks for garnish

In a warm non-stick pan, on medium-high, melt the butter or the ghee and add the masala ingredients.  Roast a couple second until aromatic, then add the onion, the garlic and the ginger and stir-fry for 3-5 minutes. Add the chicken cubes and cook for 10 minutes (at this stage the chicken should be white, but it might not totally be cooked in the center, that's fine).

Make the almond powder rain over the chicken, mix and cook 2 minutes.  Add the salt, the white pepper and the saffron cream and water and cook 2 more minutes or until the thickness of the sauce is to your taste.  Top with ginger strips and serve with basmati rice (and maybe a lentil curry or some aloo gobi perhaps)?

Kroeung Khmer Chicken (Khmer)

This isn't the first time I tried this recipe, but now I remember why I liked it so much and I'm totally sold out to Khmer cuisine (pronounced ku-mai I think, it's Cambodian cuisine).  If any of you have any good resources (blogs, recipe database, I know a couple YouTube channels) or books that can be found or ordered in Canada about Khmer cuisine, please share with me!

This recipe is a cambodian curry including lemongrass, coconut milk, fish sauce, kafir lime leaves and everything I like.  Like for Thai curries, you have to make a paste first, then the rest is pretty easy.  I had such a hard time making the paste with finely chopped ingredients in a bowl with a stick blender!  It's my birthday tomorrow, so last weekend I went to my mom's and my step dad (who asked my boyfriend what I'd like) bought me my first food processor and it's amazing!  Can't wait for the next time I'll make this chicken curry, it'll be so much easier! But let's go back to these recipes, they are from the book Ginger and Lemongrass by Leemei Tan, a really amazing book if you want to discover a little of all Asian cooking (including India!).  If you try this curry, you won't regret it!  Let's start cooking!

(serves 4)

Kroeung Khmer (curry paste), mix all together in a food processor or mortar:

-1 seeded red chilli, I used a bird's eye but it wasn't really clear which one you should use

-4 garlic cloves

-5 shallots

-white parts of 2 lemongrass stalks

-2cm fresh turmeric, or 1tsp turmeric powder

-2cm galangal

-3 kafir lime leaves

And then...:

-1 recipe of Kroeung Khmer (jthe one you just read before this, if you're not following haha)

-1 small onion, roughly chopped

-600g chicken legs or breasts, deboned, without skin, and cubed into bite-sized pieces

-2 kafir lime leaves

-1 carrot, cut in pieces

-150g/5 1/2 oz. green beans, cut in 2"/5cm lengths

-400mL coconut milk

-2tbsp fish sauce

-1tbsp cane or brown sugar

Cook the onions with a little oil in a large NON-STICK pan on medium/high until translucent.  Add the Kroeung Khmer paste, and roast for about 10 minutes, mixing every once in a while.  

Add the chicken and kafir lime leaves and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the carrots and green beans and cook for 3 more minutes.

Pour in the coconut milk, bring to a boil, then add the fish sauce and sugar and mix well.  Simmer for about 10-15 minutes on low, or until the beans are cooked and the sauce has thicken.  Serve with rice!

Chicken with Green Peppercorns (Vietnamese)

This chicken dish was simple and elegant, and made a perfect Sunday night meal.  This post is my last for today, so excuse the short intro.  I finally found green peppercorns (in brine) and I've been waiting to make this dish!  I bought a whole uncleaned chicken by mistake and it was gruesome haha.  So here's the recipe, simplified from the book The Food of Vietnam by Luke Nguyen.  You can also see him cook this dish in a peppercorn field here:

http://youtu.be/KPfgYx5sYEU

(serves 4-6)

Marinade for a whole clean chicken, cut into quarters, weighing about 1.5kg:

-25g lightly bruised (with a mortar and pestle) green peppercorns (I bought mine in brine)

-1tbsp chopped garlic

-2tsp salt

-1tsp sugar

-25g green peppercorns on the branches

-1tbsp chopped garlic

-1tsp salt

-1tsp sugar

-2 tomatoes, in 2cm cubes

-1-2 carrots, in 1cm cubes

-1tbsp annatto oil

-about 2 litres of young coconut juice

-8 peeled whole shallots

-1/2 an onion cut into big wedges

-4tbsp fish sauce

-rice or baguettes for serving

Mix the marinade ingredients and rub the chicken carefully with it, putting peppercorns under the skin too.  Marinate for an hour or more.

In a big wide pan or a high, large saucepan, fry the garlic and peppercorns with 2tbsp oil for a couple second, until fragrant.  Add the chicken pieces and slightly brown on both sides.

Add all the other ingredients and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 40 minutes.  Serve with white rice or baguette.

Butter Chicken or Makhani Gravy for Butter Everything! And Tandoori/Tikka Chicken Marinade (Indian)

This recipe is the one I've been using for more than a year to make Murgh Makhani, known as Butter Chicken.  This recipe is for the tomato gravy sauce, and for real restaurant butter chicken you have to have to have to use cooked tandoori chicken (so I'll provide a marinade recipe in this post too!)!  I took this recipe from the very talented and funny celebrity chef Harpal Singh Sokhi.  This is a recipe from one of his videos, but written down by me for your commodity in the kitchen (and mine!).  You can see the video here:

http://youtu.be/-nzHXxasZ8E

So here's the written version of Murgh Makhani by Harpal Singh Sokhi:

(for 3-4 people)

-500g tomatoes, diced in big cubes

-1 tbsp oil

-1 tbsp butter

-3-4 green cardamom pods

-a couple blades of mace

-1/2tbsp garlic, chopped

-1/2tbsp ginger, finely julienned

-1-2 green indian chilies, cut in 2 lenghtwise and deseeded, julienned

-1tbsp butter again

-1/2tbsp red chili powder (or less if you can't stand spicy, this is authentic indian food!)

-salt to taste

-half a cup 30% cream

-a pinch or 2 of green cardamom powder

-1/2tbsp honey

-1/4tsp (I use 1/2tsp to a tsp) kasoori methi leaves

-tandoori chicken (see marinade at the end of this recipe) or paneer and/or vegetables... for 4 people

In a warm pan, add 1 tbsp butter and the oil.  Once it's hot, add cardamom pods and mace and stir a little.  Then add garlic and cook 2-3 minutes.  Add tomatoes and simmer 10 to 15 minutes until cooked and soft.  Allow to cool down a little then grind in the blender into a fine paste.

Add the remaining 1 tbsp butter to the empty pan and melt, then add ginger and chilies.  Strain the tomato mixture over the pan and simmer for another 10 minutes stirring once in a while, until the acidity and rawness of the tomatoes fades totally.  Add chili powder and salt to taste, then add your main ingredient (chicken, paneer, vegetables...) and cook 5 more minutes.  Stir in cream, cardamom powder, honey and crumbled kasoori methi.  Simmer a minute or two and it's done! 

Tandoori Chicken Marinade, from "Ginger and Lemongrass" book by Leemei Tan:

-5tbsp Greek yogurt

-4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

-2tsp red chili powder

-1tsp paprika

-2tsp cumin powder

-2tsp turmeric powder

-1tbsp coriander powder

-1/2tsp ground black pepper

-1/4tsp saffron powder

-1/2tsp sea salt

-the juice of half a lime

-1tbsp vegetable oil

-30g butter, soft

Mix everything and marinate 6 whole chicken legs (with 4 deep slashes on top) or 3-4 deboned breasts in cubes overnight, then bake in the oven (skewering the breast cubes is convenient).

Hope you enjoy this really addictive, delicious authentic butter chicken!