Nyonya Style Ayam (Chicken) Pongteh

My heritage is of Indonesian Chinese so a lot of Indonesian dishes are very similar to the Malaysian's Nyonya dishes.  One of my old time favourite dishes that my mum used to cook at home is this dish.  According to my hubby who is a Malaysian Chinese, its very similar to Nyonya style Ayam Pongteh.. so its not exactly the same version but its a mixture of chinese indonesian/malaysian version.. haha.. whatever you want to call it .. but give it a try.. its nice!! *grin**..

Nyonya Style Ayam Pongteh - serves 4

Ingredients:
* Half chicken (cut in small parts)
* 4 med size potatoes (cut in big cubes) - preboiled
* 4 full boiled eggs
* 3 cloves of garlic (sliced thinly)
* 3 small red onions (sliced thinly)
* 3 T of Light Soya sauce
*  1 T of Dark Soya sauce
* 4 pcs of cloves
* 1/2 block of chicken maggie
* 1/2 cup of boiled water
* 2 buah keras (kemiri) - blended
* 2 big red chillies ( sliced big)
* 1/2 small tomatoes
* 1 t of sugar
* 1/2 t of white vinegar
* salt / pepper to taste

Method:
1) Fry garlic and onions until browned, add chillies & tomatoes and the buah keras, stir fry for 30seconds.
2) Add chicken pieces and stir fry till half brown, add soya sauce, black soya sauce and the rest of the spices ingredients, add eggs, potatoes, stir fry for about 2 minutes.
3) Add water, cover and let it simmer for 15mins.
4) Served with fried shallots and warm steam rice !!
5) Enjoy :)))

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Cajun Chicken

This is one of the simplest western style meal that I love to make especially when I want to eat a very light but healthy meal (called it 'Diet Meal' watever.. hehe..) .. so yeah.. its great as it is with salad on the side, but its also great to accompany caesar salad or any salad that you like, just throw in some of these cajun chicken and VOILA... instant cafe style meal!!..

So Im going to share with you all how I make my Cajun Chicken.. hope you'll enjoy it as much as me..

Cajun Chicken - Serves 2

Ingredients:

* 400g of Chicken fillet (breast or thigh) - cut in strips or cubes

* Cajun Seasoning

* 1 cloves of minced garlic

* 1 teaspoon of Mustard

* 2 T of Worcestershire sauce ( I used Lea & Perrins brand)

* Ground black pepper

* Salt to taste

* 1T of Olive oil

Method:

1) Fried garlic until slighly browned with the olive oil in a pan

2) Add Chicken pieces, mustard, sauce, and the rest of the ingredients and fried until Chicken become golden brown.

3) Served over salad or on the side..

Baked Roast Herb Chicken with Roast Vegetables

BEWARE!!! - before you continue reading and wanting to try this recipes.. I have to warn you that this dish took bl_0_dy 3 HOURS TO BAKED!!! YES.. 3 WHOLE HOURS IN THE OVEN!!!!.. and its not even a full chicken (but 3/4 chicken cut into quarters..) and I have to drizzled it wif virgin olive oil like every 15MINS!!! Was like swearing of not ever gonna make it again..but HB loves it soo much he kept complimenting it ...and gobbled it all down!! So yeah..worth the effort and heehe guess this will be on dinner menu every now and then! lol..:P so yeah.. for those brave souls out there... SCROLL DOWN....

BAKED ROAST HERB CHICKEN WITH ROAST VEGETABLES - serves 3-4

Ingredients:

* Whole chicken (you can either cut it into 4 pieces like I did or just have it as a whole)
* 12 cloves of garlic (just peeled and smash it)
* 4 big onions (peeled and cut into 4)
* 3 big carrots (chopped abt 2 cm)
* 1/4 pumpkin (chopped into cubes)
* 2 long eggplant (chopped into 2 cm)
* Optional: Celery, brocolli, cauliflower or other veggies up to your taste
* Salt
* Grounded black pepper
* 3 T of honey
* Olive oil
* Garlic herbs
* Chilli powder/crushed dry chillies
* Thyme
* Rosemary
* Dry parsley


I did told you its not a simple recipe... didnt I.. hehe.. but cmon.. look at this nicely roasted chicken... hmm.... tempt your buds huh!!! so scroll down...



Method:

1) Marinade the chicken with all the seasoning ingredients.
2) Brush it with olive oil and honey
3) Put all the vegetable around, over, under the chicken and drizzled it with olive oil and honey, sprinkled some salt and black pepper
4) Baked it under 230 degrees celcius oven.. for 3 HOURS!!! covered with aluminiumfoil poked with holes for the first 2 hours. Be sure to drizzled it with olive oil every 15 MINUTES!! and turning it around once. To get the burn and crunch effect, remove aluminium foil the last 40 minutes.
5) ENJOY YOUR LONG BUT WORTH IT EFFORT... AND MAKE SURE ASK YOUR HB OR CHILDREN TO TRULY COMPLIMENT YOU OR THROW THIS DISH AT THEIR FACE.. HEHE.. JUST KIDDING!!!


Note: I served my baked chicken with smashed roasted potatoes and uses the drizzled leftover and made it into a gravy.. damn delicious !!!

(I know what some of you all thinking.. STOP IT!!!!)

Crispy Fried Chicken ala Leni (KFC style) :P

Of all the food that I loves (and i loves so many different types of food), I must said that Fried Chicken is definitely in the top 5 of my most favourite food.. and I loves all the different type of fried chicken. In Indonesia, there's just so many version of fried chicken and I loves most of them.. *giggles* anyway, here's the most simplest version of the basic fried chicken that I usually cook for the family.

CRISPY FRIED CHICKEN

Ingredients:

* 1/2 chicken pieces (cut into small size)
* Oil for deep frying
* 2 egg whites



Marinade ingredients:

* 1 t pepper
* 1 t salt
* 2 cloves garlic (minced extra fine)
* 1 t mixed spices powder
* 50 g maizena flour
* 1/4 t chilli powder
* 20 g flour


METHODS:-

1) Marinade the pieces of chicken in the marinade ingredients, mix well, put aside for at least 1 hour.
2) Heat oil in deep frying pan, coat chicken with egg white then flour, fry till golden brown under medium heat.
3) Serves hot and crunchy with chilli sauce or tomato sauce.

Indonesian recipe - Soto Ayam Ambengan

This is one of my hb's favourite's indonesian dishes. My mum makes it the best and I still cant compete with hers but since my mum cant cook it for us.. I have to learn to cook it, it still tasted pretty good hehe.. except not as original as hers..

In Indonesia, we have so many different type of soto dishes. There's soto daging madura (my favourite..), soto kudus, soto bandung, soto betawi, etc, etc... anyway, here's a description of soto according to the wilkipedia:-

Soto, sroto, tauto or coto is a common dish to be found in various regional variations of Indonesian cuisine. It is a soup mainly composed of broth, meat and vegetables. The meats that are most commonly used are chicken and beef, but there are also variations with offal, mutton, water buffalo meat and pork. The soup is usually accompanied by rice or compressed rice cakes (ketupat or buras). Sotos are commonly differentiated by the meat ingredient in them, e.g. soto ayam (chicken soto) and soto daging (beef soto). Offal is a very common ingredient in soto, and is considered as a delicacy: the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe) and the intestines are all eaten.

This is my version of soto, which is the soto ayam ambengan and is typically can be found almost in all parts of Indonesia.

SOTO AYAM AMBENGAN - serves 4

Ingredients :

* 1/2 chicken

* 2 stalk of lemongrass stalk

* 5 pieces of lime leaves (jeruk purut) - smashed

* 1 litre water

* 2 t salt

* 30g dry shrimps (fried and blend till smooth)

* 3 small red onion (minced)

Spices to be blend together:

* 4 cloves garlic

* 2 cm yellow ginger

* 1/2 t lengkuas

* 1 t pepper

* 4 pieces of kemiri

Compliment ingredients:

* 200 g so hun (soak with hot water for 5 mins)

* 2 stalk of spring onion

* 2 potatoes (cut in small cubes - fried until browned)

* some shallots

* Beansprout - boiled

* Shredded chicken

* Cabbage - cut thinly and boiled

* 4 boiled eggs

* 1 lime (for garnish)

* sweet soya sauce

* chilli sauce

METHOD:

1) Fry onions, lemongrass stalk, lime leaves for 1 min, add the blended spices, fry for 2 mints, add chicken, lightly fry for another 1 min, add water, boiled until chicken is soft (about 30mins)

2) Take chicken out, shred chicken, leave aside.

3) Served with all the compliment ingredients, pour hot soup over it, garnish with shallots, spring onions, lime juices, sweet soya sauce and hot chilli sauce.

Gung Bao Chicken With Dry Chillies

This is one of my favourite dish to make and also a quick one if you want to whip a meal in less than 30mins without fail. Back when I was still living in Perth, theres this one chinese restaurant located in Kardinya, Perth near my house where I reckoned they served the best Gung Bao Dry Chilly Squid... yummm my favourite, very thick black sauce and I liked to asked for my Gung Bao dish to be cook extra spicy... and since cleaning squid is not really my fancy, I did this version in chicken instead.

Some interesting facts about this dishes...(that you might like to know)

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History:

Gung bao dishes are traditionally attributed to the private kitchen of a certain Duke of Bao in ancient Sichuan, whose personal chef was reigning master of gourmet cuisine in his time. It involves first scorching dried red chillies in searing hot oil until they are almost black, then tossing in the main ingredients to 'explode-fry' (bao chao) them quickly in pungent hot oil, and finishing it all off with a savoury sauce.

Gung Bao Chicken - serves 4

Ingredients:

* 1/2 kg of Chicken meat (thigh or breast fillet) - cut in cubes

* 10 dry red chillies (soaked first before cooking)

* 3 cloves garlic (minced)

* 6-8 slices ginger (thinly sliced)

* 3 Spring onion leaves (cut about 4cm)

* 2 T vegetable oil

* crushed peppercorn (about 10 round pieces)

Marinade for Chicken meat - 20mins

* 1 T chinese wine or mirin
* 1 t soy sauce
* 1 t sesame seed oil
* 1/2 t sugar
* 1/2 t corn starch (dissolved in 1 T water)


Sauce to mix:

* 3 T sweet thick soy sauce (thick caramel sauce)
* 1 t white vinegar
* 1 T chinese wine or mirin
* 1 t sesame seed oil
* 1 t salt
* 1 t cornflour dissolved in 1/4 cup water


METHOD:-

1) Place chicken in bowl and pour marinade ingredients over. Mix well with finger (or spoon if you're too grossed out) and leave for 20mins covered in fridge
2) Combine 'sauce to mix' ingredients in bowl and mix well.
3) Heat oil until hot, fry dry chillies, peppercorn, garlic and ginger for 1-2 minutes or until slightly browned.
4) Add chicken and fry quickly until browned/cooked (about 3-5 mins)
5) Add sauce to mix until even and cover with lids. Cooked until sauce is marinade well over chicken.
6) Add spring onion last and served over warm cooked white rice... hmmm.. enjoy!!!



Ps: Dont be alarmed by the long list of ingredients, trust me, its easier than it looked like on writing..!!