Recipe For A Mouth-Watering Chicken Rendang!

One of my most favorite dish of all time is my mothers’ Chicken Rendang. This is my mother’s signature dish. Every Hari Raya, she would make this dish. This dish is so delicious that every time I see it, my mouth would start to water. Chicken Rendang is actually a rich coconut chicken stew. It’s a bit spicy and has a rich flavor and best eaten with plain or glutinous rice. I will give you the recipe for this dish so that you all can enjoy it too!

The ingredients are:

4 tbsp of cooking oil
3 lime leaves, torn
1 whole chicken (900g/2lb), cut into 8 pieces
1.5 cup coconut milk
palm sugar (to taste)
salt (to taste)

The ingredients for the spice paste are:

8 dry medium-sized red chillis, softened
10 small shallots, finely chopped (or an onion if you don’t have any shallots)
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
50g ginger
30g galangal, peeled and thinly sliced
2 stalks lemon grass, smashed
1 turmeric leaf (or some turmeric powder)

The methods to cook it are:

1. Grind the softened chillis, shallots, garlic, ginger and the turmeric leaf either in a pestle and mortar. Or if you want to be lazy, put it in a blender. (Pestle and mortar version makes it taste better for some reason though)

2. Heat the oil in a wok or a pot over moderate heat and fry the paste in step 1 for about 10 minutes until fragrant. Keep adding a little oil a bit at a time if the paste becomes too dry to avoid the paste from burning.

3. Add the galangal, lemongrass, lime leaves, turmeric leaf and the chicken pieces into the pot. Then stir in the coconut milk and add salt to taste.

4. Bring to a simmer, cover, and stir from time to time until the chicken is cooked. (About 20 minutes).

5. Add palm sugar to taste, increase the heat and cook a few more minutes until the sauce has thickened.

I hope you all will like this dish as much as I do. ENJOY!