My Very Own Chicken Curry in a Casserole

This chicken recipe I made up myself when I was a student in England in the 70's.

It helped save time when I was alone in the kitchen trying to prepare a decent meal.

Ingredients:

1/2 chicken, skinned and cleaned, cut into 6 to 8 pieces.
3 large onions, chopped fine
2 teaspoon chilli powder
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder(serbuk kunyit )
1 teaspoon cumin powder (serbuk jintan putih)
1 teaspoon fennel powder (serbuk jintan manis)
3 cloves (bunga cengkih)
4 cm cinnnamon stick
2 cardamom seeds
Salt to taste
Cooking oil
1 1/2 cups of water

Cooking Method:

You can use a frying pan or a deep pan to fry the onions and all the spices, till fragrant,  in a little cooking oil. Add the chicken pieces and fry for another 5 minutes. Add in 1 1/2 cups of water.

Remove from heat and place in a deep casserole. Place the casserole in an oven  and cook for about 30 minutes at 250 degrees Centigrade, or till the curry turns red in colour.

When the chicken is cooked, take the casserole out of the oven using oven gloves or a piece or kitchen towel. You can skim off the layer of oil formed on the surface or the casserole.

(You may add coconut milk if you prefer. I did not do so because the curry tasted good even without the coconut milk).

Delicious when hot and eaten with bread or rice on a cold winter night.

In those days, communication was not as it is today. We could not afford oversea phone calls. Even if we could, we had to go to the post office to make a call. There were no parcels of foodstuff from home either. So we did not have our supplies of curry powder from home. You may ask why I used powdered spices. I remember using chilli powder in those days as neither chilli paste nor fresh red chillies were readily available.


I had to mix my own curry powder by trial and error. Luckily, I had the experience of grinding the dried chillies, coriander and other spices to make curry paste as a child. In those days, making curry involves tedious manual tasks of processing the spices into paste using a 'batu giling' ( an oval bed made from river stone coupled with a cylindrical roller also from river stone- you can hardly see this manual grinder in our homes now). We not only have to prepare the curry paste but we also had to process the coconut from removing the husks, scraping the kernel, to extracting the coconut milk. Making curries can last a full morning!
 
 I must thank my late grandmother for teaching me how to prepare the right proportion of spices to use in a curry. From my own experience, freshly mixed spices are more delicious compared to the ones you buy at the supermarket.
 
Try it, if you don't believe me.

Grilled Beef/Boiled Beef Kampong Style

In my home state of Kedah, Eidil Adha is celebrated on a grand scale. The act of 'Qurban' or sacrifice is done by the faithful every year.

The fresh meat obtained from the Qurban is often just boiled or grilled and then sliced thinly and eated with a simple tamarind sauce (air asam), together with plain white rice.

The marinate and 'air asam' is prepared as follows:

Marinate for grilled meat:
1.5 cm ginger
2 large onions
salt to taste
fresh turmeric rhizome.
All the above ingredients are grounded and used to marinate the meat and then placed in aluminium foil or banana leaves.The wrapped meat is cooked in an oven or above a grill or barbeque pit.

If boiling, just place all marinated ingredients in a pot and add water to cover the meat. Cook until all the water evaporates. Take care not to burn the meat by adding more water as necessary.

'Air Asam' used as dip.

2 tablespoon tamarind juice
1cup water to extract tthe tamarind juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 bird chillies
2 large onions, sliced
2cm shrimp paste (belacan)
lime juice ((3 limes if using kasturi limes or 1 if using normal lime (limau nipis), or 1/2(lemon))

The bird chillies, shrimp paste are pounded or grounded before being added to the tamarind and lime juices and sliced onions.

To make a tastier dip, sliced lemon grass, roasted dessicated coconut (kerisik) and sugar are pounded and added to the dip. 

Daging Dendeng ( A Simple Meat Dish)

Muslims all over the world will be celebrating Eidil Adha soon. That means we would be getting an overdose of meat from the 'Qurban' done.Below is a recipe for meat.


Daging Masak Dendeng is another recipe from Negeri Sembilan. It is simple to prepare but one must do so with care that the meat is not tough. Use only lean meat. It is best to cut the meat into thin slices across the grain ( about 1/2 cm thick and 4cm x 4cm size), removing all visible fat and tough tendons.The meat is first boiled till it is tender.


The Ingredients:


500 g meat
20 small onions or shallots, sliced

3 cloves garlic, crushed
3 tablespoon chilli paste
2 sticks lemon grass, grounded
50 g brown sugar
1.5 cm ginger, sliced

salt to taste
1 tablespoon tamarind juice
1 cup cooking oil


Way To Cook:

The sliced meat is fried till it is just crispy and not to overcooked.Set aside.
Stir fry the shallots till fragrant.Add ginger, garlic, lemon grass and chiili paste. Fry on gentle heat until all spices are cooked and the oil rises to the top. Add the tamarind juice, brown sugar and salt.
When everything is done, add the meat and mix well before serving. Although the dish is not too dry,the gravy must cling to the meat and not look like a curry.



Another method of preparing daging dendeng is to marinate all the ingredients with meat overnight. In this case, the ingredients must be grounded into a paste before adding the tamarind juice.If you must add salt, do it sparingly as marinated meat with salt tend to be salty as the salt assimilates into the meat over time.You can fry the marinated meat and you get the second version of daging dendeng. Make sure you do not overcook it and the meat becomes too tough.


You can eat your daging dendeng with hot boiled white rice, pilau, beriani or with cooked glutinous rice.


Daging dendeng is served not only during Eid, but also at weddings and other family feasts.It is a better way to prepare meat compared to making 'rendang' which involved using coconut milk. Even though sugar is used, you can always limit it if you use less chillies.The only unhealthy thing about this dish is that you have to fry it.

Dalca

Dalca is actually curry mixed with pulses, vegetables and leftover cuts of meat, bones or chicken. It is a popular dish at weddings and family feasts.

Ingredients:

1/2 kg chicken or meat leftover cuts
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
2.5 cm ginger
5 tablespoons curry powder
4cm cinnamon stick (kulit kayu manis)
2 cloves star anise (bunga lawang)
3 cardamom seeds (buah pelaga)
1 sprig curry leaves (you can use bay leaves if you cannot get curry leaves while abroad)
3 pieces tamarind (asam keping)
2 cups coconut milk
1/2 cup cooking oil (You may notice that I don't recommend too much oil as I don't like oily curries)

2 potatoes, skinned and quartered
2 brinjals (eggplant or aubergine), cut into quartered and cut into 3cm strips.
1 carrot, cut as the brinjal
5 long beans, cut into 4cm pieces. Replace with French beans if not available.
2 tomatoes, quartered
2 green chillies, split in 2
1/2 cup dhall (previously steeped in cold water for two hours)

Way to Cook:

Clean the leftover cuts and set aside.
Grind the onions, garlic and ginger fine.
Heat the oil in a deep pot and fry the grounded ingredients with the cinnamon stick, star anise, cardamom seeds and curry leaves (without the sprig).
Add the curry powder and stir fry till the oil rises to the top. Add water if necessary. When the ingredients smell fragrant and is cooked, add in the the chicken or meat and bones pieces together with the steeped dhall.

Add coconut milk, tamarind pieces and potatoes and cook till the dhall and potatoes are nearly cooked, stirring frequently. Add in the carrots and brinjals.

Finally add in salt, with the beans, tomatoes and chillies.

Serves hot with boiled white rice or best eaten with bread or paratha.

If you have cooked too much at one time, it is okay. You can pack the balance in freezer packs and keep them in the freezer. You can heat them up in the microwave oven when you want to enjoy them later. They become useful when you are tired after a hard day at work or at school.

Ayam Masak Lemak Cili Api (Chicken in Creamy Coconut Milk and Bird Chillies)

This is a simple recipe popular in Negeri Sembilan, one of the states in Malaysia where most of the people originate from Minangkabau in Sumatra.
I never miss the 'masak lemak' whenever I pass Nilai. Seremban or Kuala Pilah in Negeri Sembilan. The dish here is original and full of 'oomph' with the bird chillies. In Kuala Lumpur, it is not so hot.

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut to 12 pieces
12 bird chillies
5 shallots
3 cloves garlic
3cm fresh turmeric
3 cups coconut milk
enough salt
3 sticks lemon grass, crushed
1 turmeric leaf, cut to 3 or 4  pieces
3 potatoes, skinned and quartered

Way to Cook:

Skin and clean the cut chicken pieces.

Pound or grind the bird chillies, shallots,garlic and fresh turmeric till fine.
Place the pounded ingredients in a deep pot. Add the cleaned chicken and cook above a gentle fire, stirring continuously. When the ingredients has dried up, add the coconut milk and potatoes. Stir all the time to prevent the coconut milk from greasing, that is the oil must not separate from the milk. Therefore, the fire must always be small. This is the secret of making a good 'masak lemak'. You must be a patient person as cooking chicken 'masak lemak' will take quite some time compared to cooking fish 'masak lemak'.

Add the lemon grass, cut fresh turmeric leaf and salt when the potatoes are cooked. Stir until the gravy becomes thick and quite concentrated, maybe 1 cup less than originally added.

'Masak lemak' is best eaten with hot boiled white rice and sambal bilis (anchovies) or any sambal.