Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Steamed chicken served with garlic sauce

If you ever chance upon a young fleshy kampong (village) chicken, the best way to cook the bird would be to steam (not boil) it with a few slivers of ginseng (or dang gui) and season with rock salt.
Cut the chicken lengthwise through its back and press down on the breast to flatten.
Place on a stainless steel steaming plate, rub with rock salt and add the herb.
Steam at high heat for 20 minutes or until juice runs clear when inserting a skewer into the thickest part of thigh.
Chop into 4-6 pieces and serve with the best garlic sauce.

This is our family all-time favourite sauce for steamed chicken.

1 bulb garlic, chopped
1 sprig spring onion, chopped
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce (the thick one used for bah kut teh)
1 tablespoon oil

Place garlic, onion and soy sauce in a heatproof dish. Set aside.
In a small saucepan heat the oil to just smoking and pour immediately onto the garlic/soy sauce mixture. It will sizzles. Give it a stir and there you are, the perfect sauce to accompany the steamed chicken.
No spring onions shown in the above picture because I ran out of the green stuff. Didn't realise the recent heavy downpours had totally damaged my garden supply.

For my dipping sauce, I added some chopped birds' eye chili for that buzz...

Jo

3 comments:

Heather said...

yummmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!

THAT ONE I WANT!!!!!!!!

i can taste the garlic sauce!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

the sauce sounds fantastic. must try to make the next time I ta-pau chicken rice.

I was at the coffeeshop this morning and at the chicken rice staff, the girl was saute-ing a bunch of finely grated/chopped garlic and ginger in oil/rendered chicken fat in the big rice pot thats used to make the rice. The smell was quite amazing.

It would go really well with the chicken you steamed :-)

a feast, everyday said...

Be patient, will have the chicken waiting 4 u and the brown rice too!

Frank, it is so easy and soo good.
I used to cook c.rice with the chicken fat too but not anymore... but i can still remember d heavenly aroma when d fat is frying...