SINGAPORE (THE NEW PAPER) - Love to cook but hate to clean up?
This is a dish so irresistibly aromatic, it is worth the ordeal of deep-frying and the work of cleaning up the stove and kitchen floor afterwards.
The recipe is straightforward, and you can tweak it to suit your personal preference.
I prefer keeping the skin on the chicken for deep-frying as it keeps the meat juicy and tender.
You can always remove the skin before eating.
For the marinade, there is no fixed quantity of coriander to use and you can use turmeric powder if you do not have the fresh root on hand.
The chicken is fairly tasty with the marinade, even without the pandan leaf wrapping.
But the pandan leaves take the chicken to a new level of tastiness.
Try to select pandan leaves that are unbroken and fairly wide.
It will make the wrapping process much easier.
The toothpicks help to keep the leaf in place during frying, just remember to remove the wooden sticks for a prettier display when you serve it.
Pandan leaf chicken
INGREDIENTS
For marinade
15g of fresh turmeric root
2 stalks of lemongrass (use only 5cm of the white root), sliced
20g coriander leaves
3 to 4 garlic cloves
6 to 8 shallots
6 deboned whole chicken legs, cut into six pieces each
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp black pepper
2 to 3 Tbs fish sauce
1 Tbs sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
200ml coconut cream
36 pandan leaves
36 toothpicks
METHOD
1. Grind the fresh turmeric root, lemongrass, coriander leaves, garlic and shallots into a paste.
2. Place chicken in a large bowl and add the ground paste, white pepper and black pepper.
3. Add fish sauce, sesame oil, sugar and coconut cream. Mix until the chicken pieces are well coated with the marinade.
4. Leave in fridge to chill for an hour.
5. Wash and dry the pandan leaves.
6. To wrap, place a piece of chicken on the middle of the pandan leaf and follow the steps show in the images below.
7. Deep-fry the chicken parcels until the pandan leaf turns dark and brownish.
Serves eight to 10.
