Saturday 26 September 2009

Ayam Goreng Lengkuas (Fried Chicken with Galangal)

This is one of my favourite recipes. A sure hit with my kids. It is a bit tedious to make as I highly recommend that the galangal be grated and not chopped using a food processor, but worth it as the shredded galangal makes it more palatable. Try using younger galangal as the older one gets a bit to difficult to grate. Another thing that I recommend is that you use a fry-siever to catch all the tasty fried morsels. Try as best as possible to get all of it before proceeding to frying the later batches as these will get burnt and ruin the over all taste. I sometimes resort to pouring everything through a sieve lined with paper towels to catch everything and pour the oil back into the wok, reheat to be used for the next batch.

Ingredients:
1 chicken cut into 8 parts
1 stalk lemongrass buised
4 tablespoon shredded (or coarsely grated) galangal
2 pcs of bay leaves
1 tablespoon oil

Finely grounded (using blender or food processor)
5 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
3 candlenut (dry roasted in a pan)
1 small pc of fresh tumeric ( or a teaspoon of dried turmeric)
1 tablespoon of tamarind - use quarter of a cup of water to extract the juice.

Salt and sugar to taste.
Oil for deep frying Photo above from top left: Chicken, galangal, tamarind juice, bay leaves, roasted candlenuts, fresh tumeric, garlic and shallots and bruised lemongrass.


Clean chicken and place all ingredients into a roomy saucepan or wok.

Using medium heat cook the chicken. Once half cooked remove from pan. Reserve the gravy. Continue cooking the gravy until the gravy is dried. Heat oil in wokDeep fry the chicken. Drain the chicken and any residue from the frying (that is the delicious part of the dish!) Once the chicken parts are fried to golden brown, drain on paper towels. Serve with the dry-fried gravy and fried residue. Delicious with Nasi Lemak!