: : Bamboo Chicken : :
There’s been a lot of interest over the past months about bamboo chicken and how it’s cooked. Well, you’re in luck! My cousin Garnet happened to be making it while I was over at her house. So, get ready for a delicious step-by-step look at how bamboo chicken is cooked in an urban environment.
First of all, let’s meet the chef. This is Garnet, my cousin, in her house in Kuching. She’s in the midst of preparing the sumptious meal.
In the bowl, she’s chopped up 2 free-range chicken @ kampung ayam. The free-range chicken are chicken left to run around in a compound, giving the chicken time to burn off the fat and leaving the tender, juicy meat. If you notice the chicken feet in the picture, the skin is black. Chicken feet is a delicacy here and everyone one living in that house loves eating it. Note that the claws are to be cut off – dirtiest part of the feet, urgh.
The chicken is chopped into small bits and mixed with chopped coconut palm shoots, lemon grass @ serai and some water. A little bit of salt is added in but not much. The entire mess is than mixed by hand so that the flavour is evenly mixed.
Here are the bamboos all ready to be stuffed with the chicken mixed. It is young bamboo that has been rinsed a few times. Garnet uses young bamboo so that the bamboo flavour gets into the chicken well.
Now, here’s how to stuff the chicken mix in. Make sure that there’s some water added in as well but not too much. Fill the bamboo until it’s near the top. Don’t fill it up completely as it needs to be capped.
The top part of the bamboo needs to be capped with wild tapioca leaves. This is to ensure that the water doesn’t evaporate completely, leaving the chicken dry. Also, it helps to ensure that there’s a slight steaming effect in the bamboo as well as some taste in the bamboo chicken.
The bottom of the bamboo is wrapped in aluminium foil so that it doesn’t become black and a hole if burnt at the bamboo. If there’s a hole in the bamboo, all the lovely soup + chicken will run out! The bamboo is position like so over the stove so that the flame + heat is at the bottom of the bamboo.
Usually, the bamboo is cook over a slow fire in the same position. A slow fire that is prepared outside, that is. A small stand is made to prop the bamboo shafts in the exact position that you see above. The fire is also position at the bottom of the bamboo shaft so that the heat will rise upwards, completely cooking the chicken.
The fire is put up and the bamboo removed when there is a bubbling sound coming out of the bamboo. That is the trigger to say that the bamboo chicken is cook and ready to be eaten.
Unfortunately, I had to send my Dad off to the airport so didn’t managed to take a picture of the finished meal. Anyways, here is an old picture from last year showing how it’ll look like once it’s done. Only thing missing is the coconut shoots. Yummy yummy yummy.
Hopefully, in the next few days, I’ll be able to post up some more jungle food pictures. Definitely something different, no?
