Saturday, September 18, 2004

Malaysian Chicken Curry


I couldn't pass this opportunity up. Too rich but I did it anyway. It's got to be the best chicken curry I've ever cooked in my life so far. It's also my first time to cook this recipe but my second time to eat this Malaysian dish. This is loaded with spices but very simple to make. I however do not have the time to write the recipe right at the moment but I will very soon..hopefully in 24 hrs. time. It's the weekend. Have a good weekend everyone.
--------------------------THE RECIPE FINALLY----------------------------------------------
A friend brought this when she celebrated her niece’ first-month’s birthday. A Chinese tradition according to her even though she is a Malaysian. Anyway, I was never successful in getting the recipe from her. Over time I have been getting bits and pieces of what her mom put in the recipe. Because of the distinct taste, I was so determined to learn how to cook it.

The opportunity came. I had a copy of the recipe from somewhere but I couldn’t believe that some of the ingredients in that recipe were actually needed, like fresh tomatoes so I had to wait for the proper time. I certainly did not see any tomatoes in her dish? She however confirmed that her mom actually put tomatoes in it and I will tell you the secret how it did not show in the dish.

Over lunch one day, I talked about what was in the recipe I had in my hand. She finally told me that I had to put everything in the processor to grind them all. Ahaaa! Okey, my next question is how did you make the rice yellow?

Well, here’s the secret.

For the rice

1 cup of glutinous rice
1 ¾ cups of water
1 tbsp of turmeric

Steam rice like you normally do. BIG NO NO! DO NOT USE YOUR RICE COOKER. The color will stick to the pan. Use an ordinary kaldero and do the usual way of cooking rice. Once it boils. Stir in the turmeric and cover pan. Cook slowly, the way you normally cook rice.

For the chicken

1 whole chicken cut into small pieces-remember to skin the chicken. You are already sinning with the coconut oil(I just knew it was going to turn okey so I had my friend in mind to share this dish with-if we had to eat this whole chicken, I will be fried by my family)
1 can of coconut milk
patis to taste
1 tbsp of turmeric
1 tbsp of cumin
1 tbsp of Indian curry powder
1 medium onion
1 medium tomato
3 cloves of garlic
¼ red pepper
about 4 pieces of red chili
about 3 pieces of crushed bayleaves
1/4 cup of finely chopped cilantro (optional)

Extract oil from about 1/3 of the creamy part of the coconut milk. Once it turns into oil, add the turmeric, cumin, fish sauce and curry powder. Saute the chicken using this mixture. Cover pan and simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the remaining coconut milk 1/3 at a time. In the meantime, in a food processor or blender, put the onion, tomato, 1 quarter of red pepper, chilis and garlic in. Process these for about 5 seconds or lesser. You don’t want the onions and garlic to be too fine.

Add the processed ingredients in and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the bay leaves. At some point you would wonder if you got it right. The onion and the garlic would make the dish pungent. Be patient because once these get simmered for about 10 minutes, the aroma changes. Season with patis. My experiment stopped there. It tasted good already. The recipe called for ¼ finely chopped cilantro but I did not want to take the chance anymore. I used the cilantro for garnishing instead. I had 1 chicken to waste when the prices are just too expensive because of the bird flu. It was heavenly. Now my friend wants the recipe.. Oh, and the taste improved after one day.

6 comments:

JMom said...

This looks delish! We love curry too, so I will be looking forward to the recipe. I just made pork curry this week too, and I just got around to posting it on my blog.

Sassy Lawyer said...

Grabe, you make me drool. lol

ting-aling said...

Sassy, this is two thumbs up!!!

Toni said...

I'm a big curry fan. I can't wait to try this out! Do you think this would work well with fish too?

ting-aling said...

Toni, kailangan maingat ka sa pagluto ng fish baka magdisintegrate sila. I try mo kaya iluto yung fish separately and then i add mo na lang kung ready mo nang iserve. I might have to try this myself..binigyan mo ako ng idea.

Ms One Boobie said...

Looks so yummy..!! Unfortunately.. like i said before.. i can't get the ingredients over here.. to cook.. :(
But never mind. .next time i'm up in Halifax. .i will try and look for it.. and not hurry myself.. :)
Usually .. i am so stressed up to do as many things as possible. .plus with my Chloe tagging along during these trip.. i can be quite forgetful. Heh!!