Ayam Rica Rica

What crosses your mind the first time you look at the picture above? Yummy spicy chicken? Chicken with volcanic sauce made in hell?… hihihihi.. Don't you just love of how red the sauce is?! 

Today's recipe called Ayam Rica Rica, originally from Manado, North Sulawesi. Rica Rica itself means hot and spicy. So as you can imagine, this dish does have a kick of hotness.

A lovely friend of mine was inviting us for a gathering in her place and she said that she missed this particular dish. So I braved myself to make one for her. At first I was worried the dish will be too spicy but at the end of the day, everyone survived and no victim down from burning belly. What a relief!! hahahaha… In fact, everyone loved how tasty the chicken was and the level of spiciness was just perfect for them. So for those of you folks that love spicy food, this recipe is a must-try one!

There is nothing special on cooking technic side, but I must admit, the recipe does ask for lots of aromatic leaves tons of red chillies. That's the hardest part of the recipe, I mean if you live in north America in winter, like myself at the moment. I make a big batch of the dish since I had to bring it to a potluck with more than 10 people. Just cut the recipe as you like, adjusting to the amount of chicken you are using. 

Lets get started!!

Ingredients:

16 chicken drumsticks (1 1/5 kg)

4 lemongrass, bruised

2 Tbsp powdered chicken broth

5 shallots, (18 if you use Indonesian shallots/bawang merah) thinly sliced

3 pandan leaves

2 cm fresh turmeric root

10 kaffir lime leaves, torn on each sides

750 ml water

salt

sugar

2 limes

2 stalks of fresh basil, (a stalk consist of around 5-7 leaves)

Ingredients to paste:

300 gr of sweet chillies (perhaps you can substitute it with red bell pepper), seeded

12 Thai chillies

15 garlic cloves

3 shallots (9 if you use Indonesian shallots/bawang merah)

2 cm fresh ginger

Cooking steps: 

1. With a bit of oil, cook the chicken on a big wok until it changes color/half done, put aside,

2. With the oil from cooking the chicken, sauté the lemongrass, shallots, pandan leaves, fresh turmeric and kaffir lime leaves until fragrance and the shallots is translucent,

3. Add the paste ingredients, continue cooking on medium heat until the paste ingredients is cooked and the colour become a lot darker,

4. Add chicken and water, cover the wok with a lid and continue cooking,

5. Once the sauce is boiling and the chicken is cooked, add salt and sugar to taste,

6. Continue cooking on low heat with the lid open, let the liquid evaporates and the sauce thicken,

7. Once the sauce thick enough to your taste, turn off the heat and put the wok aside,

8. Squeeze limes and add the basil leaves, stir gently and set aside,

9. Once the basil leaves got darkened from the heat of the sauce, take it out.

10. Et voila, your dish is ready to serve with a bowl of white rice and slices of fresh cucumber. 

Happy cooking!!

PS: if you are using Daun Kemangi instead of basil, you can leave it in the dish, but basil makes the sauce bitter and the strong smell of it will overpower the taste of the sauce.