Ayam Penyek

I couldn't resist buying a recipe book I found at a hypermarket yesterday. It was written by a famous actress, now retired, and operating a successful restaurant in Kuala Lumpur.

It was Zaty who wanted to try the Ayam Penyek recipe as she had eaten it before, near her College. She cleaned the chicken and marinated them.

I have adapted the recipe for only 6 pieces of chicken.

The ingredients used for the chicken were:

2.5 cm ginger
2 stalks lemon grass
5 cloves garlic
2 tsp turmeric powder
salt to taste
3 cups oil for deep frying

Clean the chicken. Blend the ginger, lemongrass and garlic in water in a blender.Add some salt and turmeric powder.Marinate chicken with the blended paste and let stand for 1 hour.

Meanwhile prepare a steamer and steam the chicken for 15 minutes.
Fry the chicken in hot oil after draining excess liquids from the steamer. Fry until golden and cooked.

Remove the chicken from the fryer and flatten each one on a chopping board using the blade of a large knife and a pestle. (This is similar to the practice adopted by chicken rice hawkers.)
The chicken is served with lettuce, tomato and cucumber salad and dipped with chilli sauce.

To make the chilli dip you need:

5 fresh red chillies
5 fresh bird chillies
2.5 cm shrimp paste, grilled (belacan)
2 tabsp sugar
salt to taste
lime juice from 2 limes

Blend all ingredients in red font in a blender till fine. Add salt and lime juice. If it is too thick, add cool boiled water.

Zaty liked the hot chilli sambal, but I would prefer to eat this ayam penyek with the garlic chilli sauce as in the chicken rice recipe. Maybe because I am used to eating sambal belacan with fresh kampong salad and not the salad as suggested.