Rendang Chicken 传统仁当鸡

This is the rendang chicken I made the other day to go with turmeric rice. Unlike beef rendang or any other red meat rendang, the colour of rendang chicken and gravy turns out less brownish. Other reason is I added in palm sugar instead of nisan sugar where nisan is darker in colour. It will helps the gravy transform into darker colour when cooking it. Don't worry if you don't have both sugar just replace it with brown sugar, the colour turns out as gorgeous ever !

Ingredients :
3 whole chicken thigh, cut small
3 stalks  lemongrass, take & smashed only the bottom
3 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
1 cinnamon stick
3 star anise
5 cardamon seed
5 cloves
1 packet  kerisik kelapa (toasted coconut)
2-1/2 cup  thick coconut milk
60gm  palm sugar or nisan sugar

Blended paste :
5 shallots
5 garlic cloves
1"  ginger
1"  galangal or blue ginger
3  stalk lemongrass, take only the white portion
15 dried chilies, soaked to soften
(put everything into food processor and blend into paste)

Here's how store bought kerisik kelapa looks. It smells sweet and terribly fragrant.

Method :
(1)  preheat wok with 1 cup cooking oil, stir in lemongrass, cinnamon stick, star anise, cardamon, cloves & blended paste and saute till fragrant and cooking oil became red hot colour.
(2) next, add in chicken meat and continue cooking over high heat till the meat almost cooked. As picture shown below.

(3) add in coconut milk and let to simmer over medium heat till coconut milk became thick & paste like. This will takes a while.
(4) when ready switch to low heat then add in salt, sugar, granules and kerisik kelapa; continue cooking for another 5 minutes then off the heat and stir in sliced kaffir lime leaf.

Finally, its all ready to serve with turmeric rice and vegetables acar. This is such an addictive and irresistible dish. I love the leftover gravy especially with the toasted coconut.  It tasted really good, sweet & a little spicy  Hope you guys will love it too. Enjoy !