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Prep time
4 hours 20 minutes
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Cook time
30 minutes
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Serves
2
Author Notes
Malaysia has an obsession with fried chicken. It is the most common side that comes with our national dish of nasi lemak; it is ever present in multicultural meals like Hainanese chicken chops and Indian masala chicken. Heck, our love for crunchy poultry is so deep that even the McDonald's and Burger Kings over here have fried chicken (sans sandwich) on their menu. (For the record, McDonald’s fried chicken is much better than KFC’s, at least in Malaysia.)
So, as an homage to my motherland’s fondness for fried chicken, I made a cross-cultural fried chicken, one that bridges Malaysia’s love for the batter-rich, buttermilk-fried chicken popularized by fast food chains, and our natural proclivity towards the spice-rich variants popular throughout much of Malaysian cuisine. To make it, I took the base technique of a good buttermilk chicken brine—soaking the chicken in a fatty, acidic liquid to tenderize the meat—but changed it up with traditional rendang ingredients. So instead of dairy milk, I used coconut milk (the key ingredient that gives rendang its sweet, caramelized flavor) and in place of tanginess of the lactic acid in buttermilk, I added tamarind to act as a tenderizer. From there, I followed the tenets of any good buttermilk fried chicken: letting it sit in the marinade for hours, before dredging it in a flavored flour mix, then deep-frying it in hot oil, with an optional double-fry for doubly crispy skin.
To go along with the chicken, I whipped up a rendang sauce, made using a potent potpourri of alliums and spices including lemongrass, cassia bark, and galangal, thickened with the leftover coconut milk marinade, before reducing the whole thing over a low heat to turn it into a thick paste—just like how a traditional rendang is made. I then dolloped the rendang sauce over the fried chicken and topped it with slivers of makrut lime leaves for a punchy, tangy fragrance.
The result is a winner of a fried chicken, crunchier than any Malaysian fried chicken, but packed with just as much flavor, making it richer and punchier than any buttermilk-fried chicken out there. —Jun
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Ingredients
- For the chicken (marinade & breading):
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1 cup
coconut milk
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2 teaspoons
kosher salt, divided
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1 tablespoon
plus ½ teaspoon ground cumin, divided
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1 tablespoon
tamarind paste
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4
boneless chicken thighs
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1 1/2 cups
all-purpose flour
- For the rendang sauce & garnish:
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5
shallots, peeled
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5
garlic cloves, peeled
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1
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled
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1
1-inch piece of galangal, skin removed (optional)
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1
stalk lemongrass, roughly chopped
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2
fresh Thai red chiles, deseeded
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5
dried Thai red chiles, deseeded
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2 tablespoons
vegetable oil, or another neutral oil
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2 tablespoons
dark brown sugar
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1
cinnamon stick
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2
star anise
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2
cardamom pods
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2 to 3
makrut lime leaves, thinly sliced, to garnish
Directions
- For the chicken (marinade & breading):
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Make the marinade: Whisk together the coconut milk, 1 cup water, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon ground cumin, and tamarind paste in a bowl until well-combined. Put the pieces of chicken in the marinade, then transfer into an airtight container to keep in the fridge to marinate for at least 4 hours, up to 24 hours.
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Combine all-purpose flour, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and remaining ½ teaspoon ground cumin in a large bowl. Take the marinated chicken out of the fridge, remove them from the marinade (reserving the marinade for the sauce), and dredge the chicken in the flour mix, one piece at a time, making sure to get flour into all the nooks and crannies of the chicken. Then, place the chicken on a wire rack, ready to deep fry.
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Pour vegetable oil (or any other neutral oil) into a large, deep pot until at least 2 inches deep, and heat it up to 360°F. Then, deep-fry each chicken piece for 5 minutes, before flipping it and deep-frying for 5 more minutes. (Unless you have a massive fry pot, cook the chicken one or two pieces at a time so as not to overcrowd the pot.) When done, remove the chicken from the oil, and let them rest for at least 5 minutes, after which you can return the chicken to the oil again for a second fry for 2 minutes, for extra crispiness.
- For the rendang sauce & garnish:
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Blend the shallots, garlic, ginger, galangal, lemongrass, fresh chiles, dried chiles, and vegetable oil in a food processor for 20 to 30 seconds, until it turns into a lumpy paste. Then, transfer the paste into a medium frying pan set over medium heat, and sauté for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
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When the paste has sautéed sufficiently (you’ll see bits of oil start to split from the paste), pour the reserved marinade into the pan and add the dark brown sugar, cinnamon, star anise, and cardamom to the pan too. Turn the heat to low, and let it simmer slowly for 30 minutes, until the sauce turns thick and caramelized. (It’s normal for rendang sauces to split and leak some reddish oil. If desired, you can scoop out some of the oil with a spoon and discard it.)
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To serve, place the chicken pieces on a plate, put large dollops of rendang sauce on top of each piece of chicken, then sprinkle slivers of makrut lime leaves on top.
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