Ayam Pelalah @ Balinese Shredded Chicken - AFF Indonesia #1

I have been to Bali once, and that's for my honeymoon in 2005
Indonesia is the only country that I have ever traveled to, besides Singapore.

I love the friendliness of the people in Bali and most of all, I love the local cuisine.
There's a whiff of similarities as there's chilli, lemongrass, shrimp paste, galangal, shallots and garlic in the things that I eat..but, there is always this different smell in all their sambals. I couldn't figure out what was that special unfamiliar smell, until I got to know it's the lesser galangal, known as kencur in Indonesia, cekur in Malaysia and 沙姜 in Chinese. It is a type of ginger that we usually use for confinement purposes because of it's health properties.

I actually tried making bebek betutu once, but I couldn't quite get it right, like the way I ate it Kunyit Bali restaurant. So, in the end, I better stick to easier dishes, hahaha! The itch to try making babi guling is skin deep.. gosh!!! But I just can't find the time for it. The dishes featured this week were prepared months ago, when I had more time.

Back to this chicken, I never had it in Bali before, but it does look delicious! So I decided to try cooking it. Personally I think the amount of sambal can dress up to 500gm of chicken. So, probably you might want to reduce the sambal dressing, or increase the chicken. Because this dish goes very very well with rice, my husband and I can't finish this dish and I used the leftovers to fry rice the next day.

Ayam Pelalah
Source: V-recipes
With some reference to Cooking Tackle 

300gm chicken breast (estimate more if you have the bone on)
2 clove of garlic, finely minced
¾ tsp salt

2 kaffir lime leaf,torn
2 Indonesian Bay leaf , torn (daun salam)
1 tsp sugar or more
Salt to taste (I added another 3/4tsp)
2 Tbsp lime juice or to taste

Grind to a paste (cleaned weight)
100gm shallots
30gm garlic
10gm galangal
10gm turmeric
10gm lesser galangal (cekur@kencur)
50gm red chilli + some birds eye chilli if you like
5gm shrimp paste (use more of your shrimp paste is lighter in colour)
4 candle nuts


1. Marinate chicken with garlic and salt for 1 hour.
2. Meanwhile grind the spice paste, starting with the candlenuts, galangal, turmeric and lesser galangal. When these 4 ingredients are all ground, then only add the rest of the softer ingredients. Grind it to a fine paste.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C and bake the chicken for 20-30 mins until the surface looks a bit golden. Let it cool down. Coarsely shred it when it cooled down.
4. Put in 1/4 cup of oil into the wok and sauté the spice paste until it starts to release oil (pecah minyak). Add in salt and sugar give it a taste and adjust accordingly. It should be slightly oversalted.
5. Put in torn kaffir lime leaf and Indonesian bay leaf and then cook until they wilt. Add in shredded chicken and lime juice, and cook it for a short while until it looks dry enough according to your preference.

Actual amount of ingredients.
My chilli is very long, so, if your chillis are the regular ones, use as per the weight in the recipe.

I am submitting this to Asian Food Fest Indonesia Month, 

hosted by Alice of I Love. I Cook. I Bake.