Resto-Style Fried Chicken

Like what I have said in my last blog post, I will be sharing the first dish I have tried from the Yummy Magazine September 2010 issue. I was actually hoping to cook a different dish, but the buko vendor didn't pass our neighborhood, so I decided to go for this one, as the chicken has been thawed and that it was getting late and I was starting to get hungry.




Resto-Style Fried Chicken
{Serves 4}

Ingredients:

• 2 whole spring chicken (800 grams each), neck and giblets removed
• 1/4 cup rock salt
• 20 pandan leaves
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• oil for deep-frying
• banana ketchup and achara to serve (optional)

Directions:

• Wash chicken thoroughly. Rub cavity and flesh with rock salt. Wash to remove salt and drain. Stuff cavity of each chicken with 10 pandan leaves.
• Arrange chicken in a preheated steamer and steam for 20 minutes. Remove chicken from the steamer and let cool.
• Rub each chicken with 1 tablespoon fish sauce and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Let stand for 15 minutes in the refrigerator.
• Heat oil in a large wok or deep fryer. Deep-fry chicken for 4 - 5 minutes per side, until skin is golden brown. For extra crispy chicken, chill the chicken in the refrigerator after frying. When ready to serve, re-fry for 2 - 3 minutes per side. Serve with banana ketchup and achara, if desired.

Quite a tedious dish to make as you need to steam it and let it sit for a while, but it really worked for me because while steaming the chicken, I did my late morning exercise, and while letting it sit in the fridge, I freshened myself up. As you may have noticed whenever I share chicken dishes that I cooked, it's always the drumstick that I am using. Yes, the drumstick is my favorite part (but when eating out, I don't like drumstick). This recipe called for two spring chickens, and because I only had two drumsticks, I just adjusted the recipe to suit what I had.

I wrapped the legs with the pandan leaves while steaming, and used 1/4 teaspoon of patis on each leg before I showered it with ground pepper. This wasn't deep fried (I am kuripot), hence the uneven colors. :)

When it comes to the taste, the chicken itself wasn't really salty. I was actually a bit tasteless, maybe because the chicken wasn't able to absorb all the patis. It still has taste of course, it was just that compared to the usual fried chicken I have cooked (with all the flavored coating and batter), this wasn't that tasty. The magic lies on the condiment. I was lucky that brother bought some achara a few days prior to this, so I got to serve it with ketchup and achara. It tasted great with the ketchup (very classic flavor), but I loved it more with achara. The not so seasoned taste of the chicken with the tangy, sweet achara was really a perfect pair. It said in the magazine that the trick was the steaming, and I can attest that steaming before frying it did give the crunch I wanted in a fried chicken.

*** Jenn ***

ps - My mom and I ate at a Chinese restaurant yesterday (11 Sep) and we ordered the crispy fried chicken. Interestingly, the chicken we had at the restaurant and this one tasted the same. Now that I know the secret to good restaurant style fried chicken, I guess no need for the family to order it at a restaurant. We will just cook it and eat awesome fried chicken at the comforts of our own home.