ayam bercili masak ketumbar

today we travel to perak. malaysia's second largest state. since i didn't do too *ehem* dandy on geography when i was in school, you can always read about perak here.

my cooking mojo is still lost somewhere out there, but, i still need to cook for the roomate, so i decided to try a recipe from perak, taken from this book.

the dish is called ayam bercili masak ketumbar...losely translated as spicy chicken with coriander? yes? anyone out there can help me with this? yes? no? yes?? thanks. :-)



here's what you need to prepare this dish.

ingredients:

½kg chicken

some turmeric powder

6 shallots, pounded finely

3 cloves garlic, also pounded to a pulp

some ginger, pound

4 tsp* coriander seed, i didn't have that much chicken so i used only 2 tsp

1 tsp fennel seed, you can grind these two together

4 tbs** blended chilli

2 tamarind peel

salt and sugar to taste

cooking oil

the how to:

1)  coat the chicken with some turmeric powder and salt, fry till golden brown. set aside.

2)  take away most of the oil from the wok but leave some so that it can be used to saute the pounded items.

3)  next in goes the blended chilli. fry till done - when the oil reappears in the wok, it is done.

4)  you can now add in the ground coriander and fennel seeds. if the mixture looks a bit thick, you can add in water. (please use middle to low heat)

5)  put in the tamarind peel, some salt and sugar.

6)  in goes the chicken and mix them evenly.

7)  once that is done, the dish is ready to be served!

~ i had to add in some tamarind juice to the mixture because i feel that it lacked the 'kick'.

taste wise, i think normal sambal chicken would taste better, but in the name of experimenting, i prepared this dish. so, that's one recipe yang tak berapa 'jadi' for the Perak book. but then again, who knows, maybe some people like their chicken to be cooked this way, right? oh well...

*(the recipe book did not indicate whether it's tsp or tbs, so i decided to use tsp instead)

** (once again, no indication as to a tbs or a tsp is required, so i made the decision to use tbs instead.)

if you guys do decide to try this, lemme know how it turns out for you, okay?

luckluck!