Chicken Rice To Prove

The Story behind it

Uzair was not satisfied with my so-so review of his food before, so tonight he volunteered himself to cook and redeem himself to us and prove that he is too a force to be reckon with in group.

So he decided to bet on his chicken rice. It is actually a safe and simple dish originated from Malaysian Chinese cuisine consist mainly of chicken fried/grill, rice cooked with chicken stock and a simple chicken soup accompanies it. It comes also with cucumber, lettuce, tomato as salad.The final component are light soy sauce and chili sauce to be poured onto the salad as dressing and onto the chicken as sauce.

Firstly, I am really sorry that I can’t do the picture any more justice. I try my best but clearly I still can’t compete with other food blogger. Maybe I need to hire someone with a better photographic skill other than me, someone with a SLR or two.

Still what is more important is the taste. But before that let me say this, this is a one plate dish meaning everything must be in together not separately. So first put the rice onto your plate, then the chicken, next the salad, pour a little bit of the soup onto the rice and lastly before you eat pour some chili and soy sauce to the salad and chicken. You take a little bit of everything and slowly shove it into your mouth with your spoon or hand (that is how to enjoy malaysian cuisine!)

The Review

The chickens as explained by Uzair is  marinated in honey and dark soy sauce for 15 minutes before he deep fried it. He said it is slightly overcooked.Yes, the texture is a bit hard, but still good portion of marinate ingredient, the combination of sweet honey and salty soy sauce act as an inducer making you want to eat more and more. If only Uzair not overcooked the chicken and the honey has not been too caramelized, the odd taste will not over-masked the right taste of the chicken.

But the chicken soup is perfect, not to salty and not too bland as I ever taste from a lot of hawker and restaurant selling this chicken rice. Uzair’s effort to decorate it with some parsley leaf also is something not to be left out.  Also not to forget the rice, the staple of malaysian food. If you want to feel light taste of carbs then you better try chicken rice. The rice glistening as it has been stir fry till translucency before it is cooked in chicken stock. Usually I put garlic into the rice and today Uzair also include turmeric to add some yellow color to the rice. I just love the feeling that the rice feel so light entering the stomach.

Overall it is a good dish. We don’t usually eat much but this time the rice cooker is emptied, the chicken plate is spotless. That’s a good sign I presumed. Thus that means, Uzair is a force to be reckon with. Yes, he is up one level.

To do some justice of Malaysian Cuisine to the eyes of world, I include a picture of chicken rice from a restaurant. However this is different chicken rice (Hainanese Chicken Rice), the basic is the same. The difference is the way they prepare the chicken. Stay tuned with my blog and I promise to include the recipe.

Kerutuk for Tonight

It is Uzair turn to cook tonight for our iftar/dinner and he decided to serve us a dish very well known in East Coast of Malaysian Peninsular (Kelantan and Terengganu) which is called as Kerutuk. It is quite a bold move, considering 2 people from our group is a native people there with thick Kelantanese blood run through their veins. I bet they did already tasted a lot of kerutuk since the first time they can eat other dish other than baby food.

Kerutuk is a dry curry. It needs special special curry paste-’kerutuk paste’. Some say the paste can be made by mixing kurma paste (another kind of curry paste) and indian curry paste. It has a bit of sweet particular taste that make it different than other kind of curry. During first time meeting with Kerutuk, It has been served with roti jala (net bread or laccy pancake) but it actually can also accompany nasi briyani (Indian rice pilaf) or lemang (sticky rice in coconut milk cooked in bamboo casing)

The end result is ok actually. The gravy is a bit excessively thick as he let the kerutuk boils instead of  simmer, also due to the fact that the potato is diced quite small that after long boiling, the starch disintegrated and make the gravy to be even thicker. The spice taste, I can taste the unique taste of cardamom, clove and star anise.  Though I think  it has a little bit overpowered the sweetness feeling that the kerutuk should have. It taste more like a rendang rather kerutuk I think. The chicken however is soft and tender just the way it suppose to be.

Still as my Kelantanese group mate more than satisfied with it, who am I to write more than I should. Still despite all of that, I also grateful because Uzair is so generous, his dish is always come large in number, big in quantity. There is always surplus and never deficit.

Always and always  say “Alhamdulillah”

Kerutuk Ayam (Chicken) Recipes

Ingredients
1 lb chicken (leg, thigh or breast. I prefer dark meat)
5 tablespoons kerutuk paste (you can find it in the Asian grocery)
2 teaspoons hot pepper sauce (Sriracha)
1 big onion (thinly sliced)
1 cup thick coconut milk + 1 cup milk (full or low fat)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons kerisik (pounded coconut from the Asian store)

Spices:-
1/2 big onion
1/2 inch ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
3 cloves
3 cardamom
3 tablespoons cooking oil

Directions

Heat oil in a pan over high heat. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Brown each side for 4 mins. Dish out from pan.

Blend 1/2 big onion, ginger and garlic in a processor. Add in kerutuk paste

Turn heat to low and saute the spice ingredients. When the onion, ginger and garlic blend begins to brown, add in coconut milk and stir to blend. Add in the chicken pieces and sliced onion. Let simmer for approximately 20 mins or untill the gravy thickens.

When the oil begin to separate from the curry,add salt, brown sugar and kerisik.

Ragu and Fish-Iftar and Friend

Today is the first day I cooked for my friend. We have dinner-cooking rotation among 4 of us. As it was an iftar rather than usual dinner not to mention it was my first time cooking for them, I believe some good impression is rather appropriate.

Steam Fish with Lemon Grass and Lime Leaves

So I decide to cook steamed fish. I used Basa fish which also famously known here as morskoy yazik (literally mean sea tongue),I seasoned it with pepper and salt, poured  some lemon juice onto it and steamed it with lemon grass, onion, garlic, ginger and some fresh lime leaves for the aroma. Just for the sake of fun, i add some queen prawn (tiger prawn) to it.

The result is magnificent! I always love the soft texture of the fish and the fish’s sweet flavor that has been retained due to method of cooking, along with the acidic taste of lemon alternating in your mouth but the best thing was the fresh lime leaves aroma that rush to your nose when you open the lid; it is so soothing and refreshing suitable after a long tiring day. It is so distinctive that it woke everyone up in the kitchen.

Ragu or Ragout

Then for the second dish, something to celebrate we being here in Russia. I made Ragu/рагу (from french word ragoûter-to revive the taste). It is actually a vegetable, fish or meat stew simmered in a thick sauce.

The one that I prepared was vegetable ragu. I used all the vegetable that can be found abundantly from the market this early autumn; capsicum, cucumber, tomato and carrot. I added some salt, pepper  and to make it felt less alien to my friend, I decided to put some Asian flavor to it. I used coconut milk, instead of sour cream. It tasted like ‘masak lemak’ only without turmeric. Other things that distinguish this ragu from our native dish ‘masak lemak’ is its thick sauce and fish stock flavor which was added earlier. I left it to boil and simmered it then in medium heat. Later I added some lemon juice and  finish it with some dill, parsley and bay leaves. This 3 leaves is used regularly in any soup in Russia, it leaves some nice and comfort aroma to us.

This two dish does not cost us much only around 200 ruble (approx. RM 20). It supposed to be small in amount.

I felt so happy that all of us enjoy the meal that we can’t resist even to eat the onion and slurping the soup. The food is finished and everyone was smiling.

Alhamdulillah