As part of my malaysian cooking class that I did in Kuala Lumpur, I’ve learned to cook this fascinating dish, which I would like to share with you. Thanks to Sarang Cookery for the fantastic cooking class. If any of you are in Kuala Lumpur at any time, make sure to book a class with Christina & her team, you will learn so much!
Alright, here comes my first recipe that I’ve cooked myself in a cooking class during the last months (I will make sure to also post the ones from my Balinese cooking class soon!)
First of all, I LOVED the cooking class with Christina & her staff from Sarang Cookery! This was the first time that every participant had the chance to actually cook all parts of the recipe and not only bits of it. We were a small group of only 5 students and everyone had his/her own cooking station for all recipes. We were first shown by the chef how the recipe is being made and were then send back to our own station to cook all steps ourselves. They encouraged us a lot to not focus on following the recipe, but rather tasting it in between and adjusting it to our own taste. Therefore, at the end, we had not five times the same dish, but actually five different versions of a dish. So my advice to you already: Get all the ingredients, maybe a bit more of all of them, then start cooking and add more or less of each ingredient according to your own taste.
HAPPY COOKING!
Today I’m showing you the recipe for Rendang Ayam (Chicken) as this was my favourite one in the cooking class. (I will also post the other four recipes later as well!)
Rendang Ayam (Chicken), serves 4
Ingredients (A)
- 1 kg of chicken (make sure you get chicken with some bones as the bones add more flavour to the sauce), cut into small pieces
- 1 cup (appr. 200 g) of grated coconut
- 500 ml thick coconut milk
- 8 pieces of turmeric leaf
- 8 pieces of kaffir lime leaf
Add according to taste:
- sugar
- salt
- pepper
- turmeric powder
- chili powder
- cooking oil (preferably coconut oil)
- 500 g rice
Ingredients (B)
- 5 small onions
- 40 g sliced ginger
- 8 cloves of sliced garlic
- 3 stalks lemongrass (fresh)
- 20 g turmeric (fresh, sliced)
- 10 dried chili (up to you to decide how many you want to add!)
- 20 g Gallangal
- evtl. cumin powder
Preparation:
- Fry grated coconut until it turns golden brown (don’t burn it, but roast it very well!), then pound it until it is only powder- Set aside
- Blend all the ingredients (B) with a blender until it is all chunky and then pound in a pounder until it is a thick chili paste (you can also only pound it all, but this will take a lot longer)
- Mix the chicken with some turmeric powder, chili, pepper & salt and prefry with some oil (at least 5 tbsp) for a few minutes in the pan (don’t cook it fully!). Set aside
- Use 2 tbsp of oil used before to heat in a pot and fry chili paste until almost dry
- Cut turmeric & kaffir lime leaves into very small pieces (leave some leaves out for decoration later) and add together with fried grated coconut powder, salt & sugar. Fry until fragrant
- Add chicken into the mixture and cook for 20 min
- Pour in the thick coconut milk and simmer in low heat for another 10 min, add water to make lighter texture and simmer down to desired thickness
- Serve with rice, decorate with turmeric & kaffir lime leaves
ENJOY! (And send me pictures & comments on your own rendang ayam!)