Ayam Betutu (Balinese spiced chicken wrapped in banana leaves)

One of our most favourite Balinese dishes, Ayam Betutu, or Spiced chicken wrapped in banana leaves for the unfamiliar ears, is definitely not your typical student dinner. The delicate recipe took me an hour to prepare, 24 hours to marinade, an hour in the steamer, and a final hour in the oven! But, prepared with so much passion and... dare I say perseverence(?) this dish surely will take your taste buds on a roller-coaster ride, and probably make your momma proud too.

(One thing for sure, it was a heavy-weight challenge for my poor, cheap Haden mini food chopper - it didn't survive the marathon).

Ingredients: (taken liberally from here)

1 whole chicken, cut into small pieces (16 or so)
2 lime
2 banana leaves and aluminium foil to wrap


Spices: (process the following spices in a food processor, or if you prefer... the old n trusted mortar n pestle)
4 lemongrasses, finely angle cut
16 kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced (whole lime leaves are "double ended", so each of them counts as 2)
2 tsp sugar
30 shallots
1 1/2 garlic buds NOT cloves
20 bird's eye chillies (this will be relatively hot, for milder taste use 15)
2 cm ginger, finely sliced
4 tsp ground turmeric
2 cm galangal
4 tbsp ground coriander
2 tsp dried shrimp paste/belacan/terasi
4 tbsp olive oil, add slowly to the mixture
salt as desired

Directions:
1. Wash chicken throughly, pat dry, then drizzle with lime all over and rub with salt. Let it stand for 30 minutes.
2. Grind all spices in a food processor until smooth, careful not to overwork the processor or else you'll have to get a new one like me :(
3. Rub chicken with ground spices.
4. Break each banana leaf into 2, you'll be needing about 3 pieces (= 1 1/2 banana leaves).
5. Place chicken pieces in banana leaves and wrap them up, then wrap the leaves in foil. Marinade overnight.
6. Steam for an hour and then bake for a further hour at 160C.

Selamat makan!!!

Ale's Thai Green Curry

Yep, it's done!!! And it was so lovely me and Arthur almost forgot to take pics of it!!!

I couldn't blend the galangal with the rest of the paste (chillies, coriander leaves, basil leaves, etc.) so I just added them later after the coconut milk!

I used 22 green bird eye chillies, and it's just nice, a bit spicy, but not too much it'll make you sweat =)





Recipe here.

Thai Green Curry

Will try cooking this tomorrow, and will definitely update afterwards - my first attempt of making curries (different curries) from scratch! (Cooked "Kari Kapitan" the other day, will upload the pics later)

Pic above is taken from Delia and the recipe is compiled from various sites, notably this

The Paste:
20 whole green bird eye chillies (cabe rawit)
20 white peppercorns, ground finely (3 tsp of ground white pepper?)
1 stalk of lemon grass, chop and use only the bottom third, soaked for 30 mins with 2 tbsp of lime juice (mine actually comes from a jar, so I use 3, since it's less pungent)
7 thin slices of dried galangal or 1 tbsp chopped fresh galangal (I hope my food processor can survive the dried galangal)
2 tbsp chopped basil leaves
1 tsp chopped coriander leaves
1/2 tsp roasted ground coriander seeds
1/2 tsp roasted ground cumin seeds
1 tsp coarse sea salt
4 shallots, roughly chopped (doesn't really matter since everything will go into the food processor)
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 tsp young ginger, chopped
2 tsp shrimp paste (terasi bakar or belacan)

Put everything into a food processor, and the paste should be a bit coarse. If you want, you can smoothen it out by using mortar and pestle (but that's the whole point we're using food processor isn't it? To AVOID mortar n pestle).

This can be prepared ahead of time and stored in the fridge.

Now is the rest of the recipe.

Ingredients
600 ml coconut milk (from 2 cans)
280-300 g chicken breast, cut into large cubes
1 large aubergine, cut into wedges
1 courgette, cut into wedges
200 g green beans, cut into strips
2 red onions, cut into slices
3 tbsp green curry paste (more or less, to taste)
7 kaffir lime leaves
25 g basil leaves
lime juice to taste (about the juice of 1/2 lime)
4 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp palm sugar (I'm going to substitute this with demerara sugar)
1 red chilli, cut diagonally into strips, for garnish

Method
+ Coconut milk: put the tins upside down on a work surface, open. Separate the milky bit and the creamy bit.
+ Heat the wok on high, when it's hot pour 3/4 of the cream, stir until it's curdled.
+ Add curry paste to it, followed by the rest of the coconut milk and the kaffir lime leaves. Keep stirring so the coconut milk doesn't stick.
+ Reduce the heat to low, add fish sauce (for saltiness), sugar (for sweetness), and lime juice (for sourness).
+ Add vegetables and chicken, simmer for 20mins.
+ Add chopped red onions, cook for a couple of minutes, then add basil leaves and sliced red chillies. These are for garnish.

Done! Served with Thai jasmine rice, hmmmmmpph!