Indoneasian Recipes

Balinese Spicy Fried Chicken

Ingredients
1 cup (8 fl oz) coconut milk
3 kaffir lime leaves, or zest of 1 lime
2 Asian red shallots, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 x 2 cm (3/4 in) piece galangal (or ginger) root, sliced
3 green chillies, roughly chopped
1 tsp turmeric
1 tbsp salt
1 x 1.5 kg (3 lb) chicken, cut into 16 pieces
Vegetable oil for frying
To Serve:
Sweet chilli sauce
Cucumber slices
Coriander (cilantro) sprigs

Method

• Place coconut milk, lime leaves (or zest), shallots, garlic, galangal root (or ginger), chillies, turmeric, salt and 2 1/2 cups (20 fl oz) of water in large saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.
• Add chicken and cook for 20 minutes or until chicken is tender and just cooked.
• Remove chicken from saucepan and leave to cool on a wire rack.
• Heat oil to 3 cm (1 1/4 in) in a wok or deep frying pan on high heat. Cook the chicken in batches, being careful not to overcrowd, until golden.
• Drain on paper towels.
• Serve with sweet chilli sauce, cucumber slices and coriander sprigs.

Chicken Satay

Ingredients

For the chicken:

Chicken Thighs- 6 or Chicken Breast- 1

Cumin powder- 1/2 tsp

Chilli powder- 1 tsp

Coriander powder- 1/2 tsp

Ginger Garlic paste- 1 tsp

Sesame oil or sunflower oil- 2 tsp

Soya sauce- 1 tsp

Lemon juice- 1/2 tbsp

Salt- as required

For The Sauce:

Dry roasted peanuts- 1/2 cup

Coconut milk- 1/2 cup

Sesame oil- 1 tbsp

Dried red chillli- 2

Garlic paste- 1 tsp

Palm sugar- 1/2 tsp

Salt as required.

Method

• Carefully remove the chicken from the thigh bone by running a scissors in the middle or use a chicken breast by cutting them into thin long strips. Dip about 6 to 7 wooden skewers in water for more than five hours this stop burning the sticks when you are cooking.
• Marinate the chicken with all the chicken ingredients for about 1 to 2 hours. Take the chicken strips and insert them into the skewers. You can grill them in a griddle pan or you can cook them in the oven.
• To cook it in the oven, preheat the oven to 220 degree celsius and grill them for 20 minutes on each side.
• To make the sauce blend all the sauce ingredients in a blender to a coarse paste.
• Serve the chicken and sauce with lime wedges on side.

Otak Otak - Indonesian Grilled Fish Cakes

Ingredients

Otak-Otak

500 g fish paste (mackerel)

2 egg whites

150 ml coconut milk

100 ml water

5 shallots / 1 medium red onion, minced

4-5 tbs chopped green onions

150 g tapioca flour

1tbs oyster sauce (optional)

Salt, pepper and sugar to taste

Banana leaves for wrapping (cut into 10x10 cm)

No-cook peanut sauce

4 tbs peanut butter

100 ml boiling water

3-4 tbs sambal oelek

2 tbs vinegar

3 tbs sweet soy sauce

1 tbs lime juice

Method

Otak-Otak

• Mix the ingredients well (except the banana leaves, of course!).
• Place about 1.5 tbs otak-otak paste in the centre of a 10x10 cm banana leaf.
• Fold the leaf as the pictures above.
• Staple the top and bottom parts of the leaf.
• 'Grill' the otak otak on a non-stick pan (7-8 minutes on each side).

No-cook Peanut Sauce

• Simply mix all the ingredients and stir well. 

Sambal Belacan Recipe 

Ingredients

6 fresh red chillis, deseeded and roughly chopped

2 tsp shrimp paste (belacan)

2 tsp sugar

Juice of 1 lime (Note: Calamansi lime / Limau kasturi is almost impossible to find outside South East Asia, so I have used normal lime as a substitute)

1/2 tsp salt

Method

• Toast the shrimp paste. You can do it by dry frying the shrimp paste in a fry pan over low heat until fragrant. (Note: I prefer to the less messier way by wrapping the shrimp paste in foil paper parcel and toast it on a fry pan over low heat. It will take approximately 2 minutes, turn the foil parcel mid way through heating once.)
• Add chillis, toasted shrimp paste, lime, sugar and salt in a mortal and pestle or a food processor. Pound until a rough paste is formed.
• Serve as a condiment to main meal, noodle, rice dish or as a dip to salad, cucumber, prawn crackers.