Monday, January 17, 2011

Rendang Ayam


Rendang Ayam or Chicken Rendang is one of the speciality and must-have dish during Eid , better known as Hari Raya in Malaysia. When I was growing up, they were only available then, when mom would cook chicken and beef rendang by the kilos (sometimes up to 20!!) to serve family and friends. Refrigerated, they keep well for days too.

Rendang is now available most of the time, not just during Eid. Being the sentimental that I am, I had resisted the idea of eating rendang outside of the festive season!! However in recent years, I have given up resistance LOL. I think part of it is because my children loves them so much. Their grandmother often make rendang for us and we'd always have frozen rations in the refrigerator.


I love my mom's rendang, but have recently discovered another way of preparing it from a colleague, Fatimah. While mom's rendang uses dried red chillies which gives it a deep brown color, this recipe only uses green cili padi. I love this even more (shhhhh...don't tell mom!!).


Here's the recipe!!

Rendang Ayam

1 whole chicken, cut into 10 pieces (about 1 kg)

(To blend in food processor)
8 stalks lemongrass
10 shallots
6 cloves of garlic
2" ginger
2" galangal or blue ginger
1" turmeric
20-30 cili padi (the more, the hotter!!)
3/4 - 1 cup water

40 gm kerisik
300 ml coconut milk (I used packed, low-fat)

1 large turmeric leaf (sliced thin)
6 kaffir lime leaves
Salt and sugar to taste
4 tablespoons cooking oil


Clockwise, from top centre: lemongrass, shallots, garlic, turmeric leaf (under shallots and garlic), cili padi, galangal, ginger, tumeric, kaffir lime leaves.

Below: turmeric leaf sliced thinly. Mom would disapprove of this - she'd cut hers much thinner!


Below: pre-packed kerisik. To make your own, go here.


In a large wok or wide pot, pour processed ingredients, chicken and coconut milk and cook over medium heat. Stir occasionally and bring it to a boil. When the spice and coconut milk mixture turns into a  thick, liquid gravy; add kerisik, salt and sugar to taste, kaffir lime leaves and sliced turmeric leaf. Keep on stirring occasionally to avoid gravy from sticking to the wok. As the chicken begins to dry up, add cooking oil and stir for 2 minutes. Turn off heat. Traditionally served with nasi impit during the festive season, rendang is also eaten with warm rice. I love to just have the thick gravy with bread!

This is my second Muhibbah Malaysian Monday post and I can't wait to see the other Malaysian dishes cooked up by participating bloggers during the round-up early next month! Thanks to Shaz of Test with a Skewer and Suresh of 3 Hungry Tummies!!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for taking part again Tina!I love rendang, wonder if I can find that packet kerisik here in Australia. And that's funny you mention your mum would have wanted the leaves cut thinner, my mum does that too! Always tells me when I dice bawang etc that it's not fine enough :)

    Looking forward to more mouthwatering treats from you, I'll definitely try this rendang. Pssst, btw, I like serunding, any chance of serunding? :)

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  2. This is seriously sooo delicious:-)
    I wanna dig in rite away:-)
    I jus replied to u and thought would leave it here as well.
    Ahh, another thing , the new pluggin does take awhile sometimes , if my network is slow:-((((

    Hii TIna , am so glad i came here and saw u note:-)
    the polka dots are actually the body , which is supposed to show only at the border , but i have noticed at slower network the wall paper doesnt clear , to the white background :-( sorry u had trouble:-(
    I have recently added new pluggins for the commenting system below each post:-)
    Wish i could do something to help and sorry for the hassle

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  3. Hi Shaz!! the pleasure is mine to participate!! your mom is the same? there is a running joke about my perfectionist mom amongs family members - that she uses a ruler to cut her vegetables!!!

    serunding...would have to check mom's recipe!! yeah...that sounds interesting! thanks for the suggestion!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Mia...thanks for dropping a note!!

    I guess I must've been impatient when I went over to your blog..will do so again and wait for everything to load this time!! :)

    ReplyDelete