Quick Chicken Dinner with Mango Salad

(The large Indian mangoes were not used for the mango salad but the wild ginger flower and lemon were used)

I had to go to a dinner meeting last night but I did not want to leave without cooking something for Afif and his Dad. As time was not on my side, I hastily prepared a marinade for 5 skinned chicken pieces using the following ingredients which I ground in an electric blender with some water.

• 1 large onion, skinned and cut in large pieces
• 2 cm ginger
• 1 stalk serai (lemon grass), cut in small pieces
• 2 cm fresh turmeric
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Actually, the ingredients in red font were from the ayam penyek recipe, which I had modified.
Instead of steaming the chicken, I cooked in together with the marinade in a wok until it dried up. I then removed the chicken pieces from the wok and placed them in a greased pan. After adding a dab of butter on each piece, I put the pan in a pre-heated oven (which was heated from the top and bottom) for about 20 minutes before asking Afif to turn them and leave them to cook for another 20 minutes.

Together with the chicken, I had cooked the rice in a rice cooker and also prepared a quick salad using:

1 large onion, sliced
1 fresh red chilli, sliced
1 wild ginger flower (bunga kantan), cut into small strips
2 unripe but mature mangoes, skinned and cut into small 5 cm strips
a little sugar and salt
The juice from 1 lemon was squeezed on to the above ingredients before mixing them thoroughly in a large bowl.

Adding roasted peanuts and fried anchovies would have made the salad taste and look better. Another ingredient that I had left out was the Thai fish sauce, which I had run out of.

I had no time to prepare the gravy to go with it and I was told that Afif had it with soya sauce.
When I returned home later in the night, there were no leftovers of the chicken. You must ask Afif how it tasted.