Hello everyone! Yesterday felt like a long day. It was Eid and cooking the chicken meal had to be scheduled early in a rush due to the last minute change of date of the festival.
Chicken rendang, or rather rendang ayam is a Malay cuisine dish. It is prepared in Malay cooking style with certain special ingredients that give a wonderful taste and thick texture. My family and I love eating it. We also thought that the Eid festival will be incomplete without this meal. Usually we get a chance to eat it when we visit open houses. However ever since the pandemic happened, open houses were not held as much as they were before and there we learned to prepare it on our own.
First of all, turn the fire on and let the wok heat up. Then, add some cooking oil. Next, add cinnamon, star anise and cloves.
Add some grinded lemongrass. This will give a wonderful fragrance to the rendang gravy. Moreover, it also gives a unique texture and makes it thicker.
This is grinded chilli, garlic, ginger and live turmeric. By live turmeric, I mean the natural turmeric from the bark, not the turmeric powder. Please remember to use gloves when you handle the turmeric because it stains our hands.
Add the grinded paste into the wok and mix everything well.
Add salt to taste.
Add a few kaffir lime leaves for more fragrance.
Then, add some coconut milk. Use a sifter like this while adding to avoid any lumps from getting into the mixture.
This is how it looks after mixing it. Give it some time until the coconut milk mix well with the rendang paste.
This is kerisik. It is actually grated coconut which is toasted until it becomes dry and brown in colour like this. Then it is made into a paste. We just used ready-made kerisik because it is convenient and saves time of preparation.
Add that. In case we are wondering, my mother added the entire packet of kerisik for this cooking. Let the mixture cook and mix it once a while. Keep cooking it until it starts to boil.
In the meantime, deep fry the chicken pieces. Not to worry, the timing will probably be enough because that is how we did it at home. We used a deep fryer for convenience. Another reminder, the chicken was marinated in turmeric in prior.
Take note when it starts boiling like this. Be careful when you check it, as it can get to your skin if you are too close. It got on my skin slightly and I went on yelling "Aargh!!". Take a little spoon and taste a sample gravy to check for salt and spicy taste. Add more salt if it is needed. If it is too spicy or you prefer your gravy to taste sweet, add some sugar. The sugar helps to cut down on spicy taste so you can use it for that reason too.
Then, add all the chicken pieces one by one.
Mix them up and let everything cook until the oil comes out like in this picture. Then it is done, so turn the stove off.
Chicken rendang can be served with regular rice or with ghee rice like in the picture above. This is actually my Eid lunch meal =)
Thank you for dropping by and I hope that you have a wonderful day ahead! Also, good night to the night owls like myself XD
