Recipe Description
Joyce Siow’s Tumeric chicken recipe, an Asian delight full with spices and aroma.
This recipe by Joyce Siow is one of four recipes published on Star2.com.
Recipe Ingredient
- 1 whole chicken (chopped into pieces)
- [For pounding / blending together]:
- 200g fresh turmeric
- 150g shallots
- 2 stalks lemongrass
- 1 tbsp white peppercorn
- 1 piece cili padi (optional)
- [For marinating]:
- 1 tbsp soya sauce
- 1 tbsp salt
- [For cooking]:
- 3 tbsp cooking oil
- 3-4 pandan (screwpine) leaves (cut into 4 peices)
- ½ cup water
Instructions
- In a pestle and mortar or blender, blend all the ingredients for blending/pounding together until it forms a paste.
- Marinate the chicken with soya sauce and salt.
- In a large wok, heat up the oil and stir-fry the blended paste until it smells aromatic. Add the marinated chicken and pandan leaves and stir well. Add water, cover with a lid and cook on low heat until the chicken is cooked. You can add more water if you want the dish to have more gravy.
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Thanks, I’m so glad to find this recipe, will definitely make it next week. Yummy!
have you tried the recipe Jackie M? how was it? am also interested to have a try. hehe
I am interested in trying out this recipe but we do not get fresh turmeric here in Sydney. Can I substitute with turmeric powder? If so how many tea spooons of turmeric should I use?
John Isaacs
My dad cooks this all the time with turmeric powder. Not sure about the amount, it was “agak agak” all the time, but obviously there should be enough to coat the chicken & to make the sauce orange. 🙂
You can get fresh tumeric at China town
Any Asian shop which sells screwpine leaves and lemongrass will have it. U can also add tumeric leaves sliced finely ….
Enjoy the dish.
Dry turmeric powder is better than fresh turmeric. Fresh Turmeric may have very strong smell and it may spoil the curry taste. Dry turmeric powder is better.
Most of the dry tumeric powder that you get is a blend of tumeric and something else. As someone whos been making this dish over the years with both dry and fresh tumeric, fresh tumeric wins hands down every single time. There is such a stark difference between using powder and fresh tumeric. Tumeric powder produces an uninteresting flat flavor while fresh tumeric gives the dish more depth and robustness that tumeric powder can NEVER achieve.
You can get the fresh tumeric from Asian stores and then plant them like how you plant ginger. Plant them in late winter or early Spring and harvest early fall.
John, fresh tumeric is easily available in most Asian grocers in Sydney together with most Asian herbs like Thai basil, lemongrass and pandan. I’ve also seen it at IGAs. Good luck with your search. Fresh herbs will open up a new world of flavours that dried herbs just can’t duplicate.
You can get fresh tumeric from fresh fruits and vegie shop in Sydney.
I believe this dish should be tagged under Malay cuisine. The ingredients are endemic to Malay Indonesian Cooking.
Is it not enough that it was tagged under “MALAYSIAN” cuisine? What difference does it make?
lol. burnnnn. if it makes no difference and it fills the tummy right, hence let’s just enjoy this recipe without having to scrutinize the labels.. hey this isnt a form you have to fill up to check what state or country we are all in. anyhoo… do i need to fry it first to get the crispy skin… oh you know like… crispy rendang? (still cant get over that….)
Tumeric, lemongrass, shallot, peppercorn, screwpine leaf are used widely in asian cuusine like Thailand, Vietnam , Cambodia, Indonesia and more. Its not Malay.cuisine but a Nyonya cuisine transcends from two culture, Chinese and Malay. Its a simple dish Penang folks cook often for the family.
True. Nyonya dish which my melaka nyonya mum cooked often when I was young. I love the dish.
This is so delicious and I have been cooking this dish EVERYDAY now. Well, that’s the perk of living alone.
I made this last weekend and it was pretty good.
Just wondering… the picture shows two types of leaves, but there is only one in the recipe (pandan). Is the other one bits of the lemongrass? Lime leaves?
I put in some oyster sauce as well to give it better flavoring .
Will try it this weekend
I just cooked this, it smells very good of pandan. I used my homemade turmeric powder, made from all 100% turmeric from my garden 🙂 I agree the turmeric powder from stores do not taste good and mostly added wtih fillers. This is not a Malay dish, it’s nyonya and so are many of the ‘kuih-muih’. They are all Nyonya kuih, I ‘m not a Nyonya but don’t like when others claim what’s not theirs lol !