Indonesian Style Chicken (But why?)

I’m always a bit suspicious when something is a ‘style’ of something. Indonesian ‘style’ chicken? Why isn’t it just ‘Indonesian chicken’?

Maybe because I was cooking it and didn’t have half the ingredients and – as usual - didn’t actually follow the recipe. But still, the questions stands.

When is something a ‘real’ thing, and when is it just ‘in the style of…’

 

This is what it's meant to look like (courtesy Jason Thomas)

 

We had been invited to my in-laws house to celebrate a birthday. So while my husband did two gym classes and a swimming lesson, I marinated and cooked a kilo and half of chicken and baked and decorated a chocolate mousse birthday cake. With a baby and a three year old trying to ‘help’.

Hardly seems fair, does it. But that’s really a story for another blog….

Indonesian style chicken involves marinating chicken pieces in garlic, buttermilk, soy sauce and sambal oelek. Except I didn’t use the sambal oelek because the kids would freak out. First gong.

 

On no planet does this buttermilk and soy marinade look delicious

 

Then I read that you were meant to take the skin off the chicken pieces. I hate skinning chicken, partly because I love eating chicken skin, so taking it off before it’s roasted just seems cruel and unusual. Also because skinning chicken is messy and disgusting. So I ignored that part. Second gong.

The 3 year old was very proud of her cake decorating skills

After three hours (during which I made a layer cake and chocolate mousse) I mixed together self-raising flour, lemon pepper and chicken salt in a bowl.

I was meant to be mixing plain flour, cayenne pepper, lemon pepper and celery salt. Third gong.

Would someone explain what celery salt is?

 

Too early for wine unfortunately...

 

Then the wet soggy chicken goes into the flour making a huge mess on your hands just at the exact time the baby starts eating power cords. At this point, KFC was looking very appealing but I persisted.

The recipe told me to put the chicken on a wire rack and bake for 30-40 minutes. So for some reason I did this, but I put the wire rack over a water bath. The recipe didn’t tell me to, and I’m not sure why I would want nice crispy roast chicken to be steamed over hot water. Let’s just say, it took a bit longer than 40 minutes to cook, but gee it was moist inside.

Mine didn't turn out as orange-looking, must be the absence of chilli

 

And the three year ate two drumsticks before I dragged her away protesting.

My thoughts

The cookbook says this is a great alternative to fast food and is perfect cold for picnics. I don’t doubt this for a second, but there is also a reason why they call KFC ‘fast’ food.

Just saying…

They were finally done around half past twelve