Week 41 - Nasi Goreng with lime and sugar-barbecued chicken.

Now i know its only a couple of days since i posted the last recipe but as ive been missing for a few weeks we need to catch up. Officially we should be posting week 46 tomorrow but dont worry as while I was absent from the net I was cooking up a storm and we will be back on track soon.

Please dont feel there is any hurry to do these recipes at break neck speed - they will always be on my blog, I would just rather finish the whole year on week 52 than be missing some recipes - you can always catch up later! :)

Recipe taken from Sainsburys Magazine (photos by moi!) :)

For the barbecued chicken...

500g boneless chicken thighs each cut into 3 strips
3 cloves of garlic crushed
1 tsp crushed white peppercorns
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tbsp Thai fish sauce
juice of 1 lime

For the Nasi Goreng Spice paste...

2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 large cloves of garlic chopped
50g shallots chopped
25g roasted salted peanuts
6 red chillies, deseeded and chopped
1 tsp belachan (shrimp paste)

For the Nasi Goreng...

300g long grain rice
sunflower oil for frying
6 large shallots thinly sliced
2 large eggs
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp sweet dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
5cm piece cucumber, quartered lengthways and sliced
8 spring onions trimmed and thinly sliced

**TO SAVE TIME - Marinate the chicken, make the spice paste, cook the shallots and make the cooked egg strips a day ahead - I have done this and it saves lots of mess and fuss on the day of serving**

1. Put the chicken strips in a bowl with the garlic, crushed white peppercorns, sugar, fish sauce and lime juice and mix well. Leave overnight.2. Soak 8 long bamboo skewers in cold water for 1 hour. Thread the chicken on to parallel pairs of soaked skewers (this helps stop the chicken spinning when you need to turn them) and set aside in the fridge until needed. (see pic in step 9)

3. For the nasi goreng spice paste, put all the ingredients into a blender with 1 teaspoon of salt and grind together to a smooth paste.4. Cook the rice in boiling salted water for 15 minutes, or until just tender. Drain and rinse well with boiling water from the kettle, drain once more. Spread out on a large board and leave to go cold (but do not refridgerate).5. Heat 1cm of sunflower oil in a large deep frying pan, add the sliced shallots and shallow fry, stirring now and then, until crisp and richly golden. Remove with a slotted spoon on to plenty of kitchen paper, sprinkle lightly with salt and leave until cold an crisp - reserve the oil to use later.6. Beat the eggs with some salt and pepper. Heat a little sunflower oil in a small frying pan over a medium-high heat, pour in one third of the beaten egg and cook until the egg has set on top. Flip it over, cook for a few more seconds then turn out, roll up tightly and leave to go cold. Repeat twice more with remaining egg. Thinly slice across into strips.

7. Preheat your grill to high. Cook the chicken pieces for 6-7 minutes, turning regularly, until caramelised on the outside and cooked through.

8. Heat a wok over a high heat until smoking hot. Add 2 tbsp of the oil (from frying the shallots) and the nasi goreng spice paste; stir-fry for 1-2 minutes. Add the tomato puree and dark soy sauce, cook for a few seconds then add the rice and stir-fry over a high heat for 2 minutes until heated through.9. Add the strips of egg and stir-fry for 1 minutes. Add the light soy sauce, crisp fried shallots, cucumber and most of the spring onions and toss well together. Spoon onto warmed plates, scatter over the remaining spring onions and serve with the barbecued chicken.We have had this a couple of times now and have taken out some of the red chillies (6 was too many for the boys so we tried with 3 and it was spicy but not too hot) :)

Enjoy
xxx