No Rattans, Roots Will Do

‘No rattans, roots will do’ is a literal translation of an authentic Indonesian proverb ‘Tak Ada Rotan, Akar pun jadi’. The meaning is more or less like this: ‘when you don’t have the originals at hand, go for the substitutes’.

We often try to find substitutes for everything in life, although somewhere in the back of our minds, we know that’s not really possible. Substituting everything in life is impossible!

When it comes to cooking, there are substitutes for almost every cooking ingredient. But, there is one thing that cannot be substituted for, it’s the taste. Why do similar recipes made by different people have different tastes? It is because the taste of a recipe does not depend only on its ingredients and method of preparation. It also depends on who cooks it. There can be substitutes for ingredients but there’s no substitute for the taste.

Why recipe substitutions?

In cooking, particularly when you enjoy free style cooking like I do, we need to practice the essense of this old Indonesian proverb when certain ingredients are unavailable at home or in the market. When we forget to buy the stuff we need, that is when we need to get hold of something that is handy. Using margarine as a substitute for butter and vice versa is a common example of the use of substitutes in cooking.

It’s common sense to use ingredients of similar flavor as alternatives for one another. Obviously, you won’t like the substitutes to bring about a radical change to how your recipe tastes. Or you will find yourself finding a substitute for what you have cooked!

Well, let’s park for a while the Roots (read substitutes) ……...…and focus on the ‘rattan’(read: original) intention I wrote this blog which is to share one of the authentic Indonesian Chicken Satay recipes named Sate Madura.

Why Sate Madura?

Indonesia has so many types of chicken satay but Sate Madura is the prima donna of all chicken satay in our country. And some of the ingredients of Sate Madura may not be available in countries outside Indonesia or Asia thus some of you may have to find substitutes for them.

The ‘Rattan’ (read: original) Ingredients

• 3 shallots
• 3 candle nuts
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 kg boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, cut into cubes
• 100 ml water
• Cooking Oil
• Pinch of Salt
• 100 ml Indonesian sweet soy sauce
• 2 red finger-length chilies
• 3 bird-eye chili (optional)
• 500 roasted peanuts (ground to a paste)
• 10 ml Lime juice
• Bamboo skewers (as needed)

And here is the list of the ’Roots’ (read: substitute) Ingredients:

• shallots (for the spice-mix) can be subsituted with onion
• candle nut can be substituted by almond
• ground the roasted peanut into a paste can be substituted with ready-made peanut butter
• the Indonesian sweet soy sauce is the authentic ingredient for Sate Madura. As a substitute, you may try adding palm sugar or brown sugar into Kikoman soy sauce until the soy sauce becomes sweet and a bit thicker.

Cooking Method

• Ground shallot, garlic, candle nut, red chilies, and bird-eye chilies to a fine paste.
• Heat oil in a saucepan then sauté the paste until fragrant.
• Add the ground peanuts or peanut butter, 50 ml of sweet soy sauce, salt and water.
• Mix well and slowly bring to a boil.
• Remove saucepan from heat and add lime juice.
• Cool to room temperature.
• Impale the chicken cubes on the bamboo skewers until 3/4 full.

Before grilling, marinate the chicken satay for at least 1 hours with a quarter of the sauce and the rest of the sweet soy sauce.

After half-cooked, dip again in the marinade and then grill again until completely cooked.

By dipping in the marinade repeatedly, the taste of the ingredients really permeate through the chicken meat.

Serve satay with peanut sauce mix and condiments (sliced onions or shallots, carrots, cucumber, chilies, limes). It goes well with rice or lontong (Indonesian rice cake wrapped in banana leaves).

To add flavor, garnish the chicken satay with fried shallots

More on ’Roots’

• The original grilling method, the charcoal grill, can be substituted with gas or electrical grill.
• Home-made fried shallots can be substituted with ready-made which you can buy in some supermarkets.

Notes and Tips:

• The shallots used for fried shallots cannot be substituted by onions coz when deep-fried, the taste is different.
• Soak bamboo skewers in water for at least 1/2 hour so they don’t burn.
• Use chicken thighs for best flavor and texture.

Oprah's Suffocated Chicken

When I started my cooking journey, I began with cooking my mom’s authentic recipe of Bumbu Rujak Chicken Barbeque (see My First Post).


Why chicken?

My mom ever mentioned that every beginner in cooking should start with chicken. She did not explain why, it’s simply like an unwritten golden rule in the world of cooking.

One Sunday, after church, I went to a book store and found a cook book written by the famous writer and poet Maya Angelou titled ‘Hallelujah! The Welcome Table’.

What an amazing book written by an amazing woman! This is the kind of book I wish I could write one day.


I love all the stories and recipes she wrote in that cook book but one particular chicken recipe named ‘Smothered Chicken’ caught my special attention where she wrote a very interesting story about Oprah Winfrey, another amazing lady whom I admired.

Maya Angelou’s smothered chicken is delicious and quite easy to cook. It tastes yummy and creamy yet it’s sinless because the ingredients used are healthy stuffs. I give the full recipe here, and then add how I adapted it when I cooked for my family.

Smothered Chicken by Maya Angelou


Oprah calls this suffocated chicken!

Serves 8

Ingredients:

• 2 (3-pound) fryer chickens
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 medium onions , sliced
• 1 pound button mushrooms , sliced
• 1 clove garlic , minced
• 2 cups chicken broth

Preparations:


Wash and pat dry the chicken. Cut each chicken into pieces and place the pieces in a bowl with lemon juice and water to cover. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Wash the lemon water off the chicken and season it with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken pieces in 3/4 cup of the flour.

In a large skillet, heat the butter and 1/4 cup of the vegetable oil over high heat. Add the chicken pieces and fry until dark brown. Remove them from the skillet.

Add the remaining 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup vegetable oil to the skillet. Cook the flour until it’s brown.

Add the onions, mushrooms and garlic, stirring constantly.

Put the chicken back into the skillet. Add the chicken broth and water to cover. Turn the heat to medium and cook for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

 
My version of ‘Oprah’s Suffocated Chicken’


I used 400 – 500 grams of boneless, skinless chicken breast instead of cut up from whole chicken because I usually stock up boneless chicken breasts in my freezer. I chopped the breast into small cubes and cooked it up per the directions, but with a little less time since the smaller chopped pieces would cook faster that a cut up chicken.

I substitute the chicken broth with chicken cubes diluted in water (it’s what I had) and reduced the amounts for the other remaining ingredients in half.

Maya Angelou suggests to serve the smothered chicken with Buttermilk Biscuits but I, as Indonesian, served it with rice. And the result was yummy saucy gravy…….

In Indonesia, we have hundreds if not thousands of chicken dishes but nothing tastes like Maya Angelou’s Smothered Chicken. The closest which I can relate is our famous “Opor Ayam” (Braised Chicken in Coconut Milk) or we can call it:

Indonesian Smothered Chicken

Ingredients:

Makes 6 servings, with other dishes

• One whole 3½-pound chicken
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ¼ cup thin-sliced onion
• 1 clove garlic, sliced thin
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 candle-nuts, crushed
• ¼ teaspoon pepper
• 2 cups coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon peanut or corn oil
• 1 teaspoon tamarind, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 piece (aboud 2 cm) of galangal
• 1 piece or 1 square inch of lemon peel
• 2 pieces of salam leaves

Preparations:


Cut the whole chicken into eight pieces, discard the loose skin and fat and rub the pieces with the lemon juice. Broil for five minutes, turn the pieces over and broil for five minutes more. The chicken will be partially cooked and firm.

In a blender, prepare a smooth sauce-mix of the onion, garlic, coriander, cumin, candle-nuts, pepper and ½ cup of the coconut milk.

Heat the oil in a saucepan or wok, and pour the sauce-mix. Stir fry for two minutes; then add the remaining coconut milk, the tamarind juice, salt, sugar, salam leaves, galangal and lemon peel. Add the pieces of precooked chicken, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook for five minutes, basting frequently; then continue to cook for thirty minutes more. The liquid will have to reduce to a rather thick sauce, and the chicken will be tender but still firm.

The taste of ‘the Indonesian Smothered Chicken’ is also yummy and creamy but it has different creaminess from Maya Angelou’s as it has different source of  gravy sauce  – coconut milk Vs butter.

Usually people in Indonesia eat ’Opor Ayam’ with other dishes such as ’Gudeg’ and ‘Sambal Goreng Krecek’ (see my post ‘Hit the Road Jack Fruit’).