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’).

EVERYBODY LOVES PUMPKIN

When I was a kid, our house was located near a busy street. Since early morning the street hawkers who sold Ready-to-Eat (RTE) foods were already busy. They sold many different types of foods like bubur ayam (chicken rice porridge), fried rice noodle, nasi uduk (mixed rice) and some sweet treats like mung bean porridge, dark sweet risotto (black rice pudding) and sweet pumpkin treat (kolak).

My mom was the kind of a mother who never give her children pocket money and she did not allow me and my sisters to buy food from the street hawkers. She knew that as kids, we love food from street hawkers better than our home-made meal. So to compensate what we missed, everyday she cooked me and my sisters different types of snack-foods like those sold by the street hawkers. And one of my favorites is the Sweet Pumpkin Treat.

Let’s cook the Pumpkin

When choosing a pumpkin, we have to know exactly how are we going to cook the pumpkin. To serve pumpkin as a tureen, the size of the pumpkin must fit into your oven and you must be able to lift it out comfortably and safety after it is filled with hot soup. In addition, the pumpkin must have a flat base so that it stands upright firmly and of course it must be free of cracks that could cause leaks.

So far I have seen only 3 types of pumpkin available in supermarkets in Jakarta, where I live: butter-nut pumpkin, sugar pumpkin and the large deep-orange pumpkin (in Bahasa we call Labu Parang). I love the taste of butter-nut pumpkin but certainly not the price. Many people like the sugar pumpkin coz it’s smaller in size and tastes sweeter. My favorite is the large-orange pumpkin. The flesh is thick and I love its starchy taste.

 
It’s a bit tricky to buy pumpkin as a whole coz I don’t have any idea how to judge whether the level of ripeness is just right. Fortunately, in most supermarkets in Jakarta pumpkins are available by piece (in half / one-quarter etc) and it is charged based on the weight. This way it’s easier to judge whether the level of ripeness is in line with our expectation or not.
 
Cooking Sweet Pumpkin Treat

My favorite Sweet Pumpkin Treat is a kind versatile food. It can be served both warm or chilled depending on the occasion. Serve warm for breakfast alternative or serve chilled as a dessert after lunch or dinner. It can also be cooked as pumpkin stew (kolak) or pumpkin soup.

This is the original recipe of Indonesian Sweet Pumpkin Treat (kolak labu kuning):

Ingredients

• 250 gram pumpkin meat, cut in cubes
• 500 ml water
• 50 gram palm sugar, shaved
• 200 ml thick coconut milk
• Pinch of salt
• 1 pandan leaf, tied into a knot

Method

• Put water in a saucepan, bring to a boil
• Slow cook the pumpkin cubes in the water on low heat until tender but still in the form of cubes.
• Add the coconut milk
• Add the salt
• Simmer uncovered until the liquid thickened
• Remove from heat
• Serve warm or chilled.

The Sweet Pumkin Stew (kolak) will look like this:

 
How to prepare the coconut milk:

To make traditional fresh coconut milk, put 2 cups of freshly grated ripe coconut into a bowl and add 2 cups of lukewarm water. Squeeze and knead the coconut thoroughly for 1 minute, then strain through cheesecloth into a bowl to obtain thick coconut milk.

Repeat the process with another 1 cup of water to obtain thin coconut milk. Combine both for the coconut milk. Coconut milk can be frozen; thaw and stir thoroughly before use. The substitute for fresh coconut milk is instant coconut powder. Combine this with warm water as directed on the packet.

My version of Sweet Pumpkin Treats

To cook my version of Sweet Pumpkin Treat, I prefer to use dairy milk instead of coconut milk:

• Cook 350 gram of pumpkin cubes in 500 ml of water until tender but still firm. Then remove the cooked pumpkin from the water and put aside.
• Mix 250 ml water + 250 ml liquid full cream milk + 100 gram Sweetened Condensed Milk in a sauce pan until mix well.
• Boil the milk on medium heat and stir occasionally.
• Add the cooked pumpkin cubes into the milk.
• Add 1 drop of Vanilla essence
• If needed, add shaved palm sugar (the quantity depends on desired sweetness level)
• Simmer uncovered for around 10 minutes until the pumpkin cubes are really soft and tender and the liquid is thickened.
• To make it into soup type, cook longer, stir and mash the pumpkin. Remove from heat.
• Serve in a bowl either warm or chilled

This is my version of Sweet Pumpkin Stew (Kolak)

Sticky and Sweet

I couldn't agree more with Devi Asmarani (one of my favorite writers) who wrote in one of her articles in Weekender (one of my favorite magazines) that ‘Food, like music, has a way of staying firmly in our memory, linking tastebuds and emotions’.

When I was still in elemetary school, there was a sticky and sweet snack I loved as a child. It is made of sweet potato mixed with sago flour (or tapioca) boiled in water and palm sugar and then served with coconut milk called ‘biji salak’ which literally means ‘the seed of snakeskin fruit’.

I have no idea why this snack is named ‘biji salak’ because it has nothing to do with the seed of snakeskin fruit whatsoever. Probably because the size and shape of the sweet potato ball looks like the seed of snakeskin fruit.

The sweet memory of my childhood favorite snack still sticks in my mind up to now. I remember when my Mom was making ’biji salak’, I used to help shaped the sweet potato into a small ball. It was really fun, because I got my palms all sticky after that. And imagining what it would be like after it is done really make it even more fun and exciting.

This sticky and sweet memory of my chidlhood snack has driven me to browse to internet looking for recipe of ’biji salak’. After going through some recipes, I found the following recipe by Yasa Boga which I think closest to what my Mom used to make.

Ingredients

750 g sweet potatoes, steamed, peeled, and divided into 4 parts
125 g tapioca/sago flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 liter water
200 g brown sugar/palm sugar
3 pandan leaves tied into a knot
1 tablespoon tapioca/sago flour diluted with a little water

For the coconut milk sauce

350 ml thick coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pandan leaf

Method:

Take 3/4 part of sweet potatoes, mix with tapioca flour and salt, knead until even and form into small balls.
Boil water, and palm sugar and pandan leaves
Put in the small balls and cook until they float.
Add the remaining 1/4 part mashed sweet potatoes and tapioca flour and stir
Remove from heat and put into a bowl

To make the coconut milk sauce:

Put the raw coconut milk in a saucepan
Add the pandan leaf
Cook on low heat and stir lightly until boiled

Then pour in the coconut milk into the ‘Sticky and Sweet Snakefruit Seed’.