Indonesian Fire Chicken (Ayam Belado)
This glowing Indonesian recipe fires up any leftover cooked chicken or turkey in a snap.
‘Ayam Belado’ means ‘chicken cooked in chilli sauce’ and it might be the best way to dispense with any leftover cooked chicken or turkey after a feast. A simple blender job of fresh tomato, chillies and aromatics creates the bare bones of a rich, sweet and fiery tomato-chilli sauce which only needs a 5-minute simmer. This is a popular sauce with many Indonesian home cooks and can be combined with vegetables like green beans, hard-boiled eggs or meat and forms a complete plate with a heap of rice or mopped up with roti. The leftover chicken or turkey is given a flash-fry to revive it before ultimately meeting the sauce. It’s a great dish to make after a feast: Christmas, Eid, Thanksgiving and the like. A bowl of Indonesian fire is yours for the taking - if you choose to add the chillies, that is. Let’s go!
INGREDIENTS (serves 1-2x)
250g cooked, roughly-shredded chicken or turkey
1-2 tablespoons cooking oil for frying
2x medium tomatoes
1-3x red birds eye chillies
1x banana shallot
3x cloves garlic
1/2 tsp fine salt
1 tsp sugar
2 lime leaves
Juice of 1/2 lime
2 tsps kecup manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) [BEST BUY] (or use 1 tsp dark soy sauce and 1 tsp honey]
To serve: jasmine rice, noodles, roti/flatbreads
WALKTHROUGH
Let’s make the belado sauce. Into a small blender, add the 2x tomatoes, 1x shallot, 3x cloves of garlic and 1-3 birds eye chilli. Blend until you form a semi-smooth, loose paste. Set this aside.
Let’s reheat and crisp the meat. Place a wok onto medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil. Once hot, add the 250g roughly-shredded chicken/turkey. Fry it on medium-high heat for 1-2 minutes until lightly crisp in places. Remove the meat it from the pan and set it aside.
Now we’ll cook the belado sauce. Keeping the heat on medium-high, add the blended belado sauce. Bring the sauce to a boil then add the 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsps sugar, juice of 1/2 lime and 2x lime leaves. Allow the sauce to cook for 5 minutes on medium-high heat until it’s reduced, thickened and darkened in colour. You should be able to draw a line through the pan with a spoon given its thickness. Taste for seasoning, and to finish, add 2 tsps of kecup manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) [BEST BUY]. This adds umami, sweetness and a deepened, tomato flavour
Once simmered and rich, add the cooked chicken/turkey. Give the meat a toss through the sauce for about 30-60 seconds until warmed and clinging to the sauce, then turn off the heat.
Serve the ayam belado with jasmine rice, sticky rice or noodles and enjoy.
