Comfort food: Ayam masak merah

Saturday night, my aunt was like, your uncle requested for ayam masak merah.
And I was like, really? I didn't hear anything.
And my auntie was like, he said it yesterday.
And me thought to myself, I must had lost in the middle of the conversation when we were in the car. And here, taaa-daaaaaa!!!
Owh, did I use many ANDs? Again? in this post? Just bear it.

Ok. First dish, ayam masak merah (sweet and spicy chicken). Ok, to be honest I just don't know other name for this. We just called it ayam masak merah. And the way of cooking, the ingredients would be varied from city to city, from state to state. This one I learnt from my auntie. But yesterday, I modified and substituted the ingredients (according to my general knowledge) a bit since certain ingredients were missing. Hehehe. When I say modified and substituted, I just did it according to whatever I feel like. My brain is truly functioned and dependable when it comes to cooking.
Trust me. 😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

For this dish, you will need chicken.
Cut them into small pieces, not too small, not too big.
Agak-agak lerrr. Clean and wash them but not too long. Otherwise you wash off the sweetness of the chicken meat.
I mixed the chicken cuts with two tablespoon of turmeric powder (it helps to get rid of the chicken smell), one tablespoon of salt and half tablespoon of Ajinomoto. am sure you know what is Ajinomoto.
Mixed them well and let rest for about 15 minutes.
Then deep fried the chicken and leave it partially cook. Just like the photo below. Then set aside.

Move on to the next stage.

Preparing the ingredients. Here comes the part where I modified and substituted certain ingredients.
Look at the photo below. I'll make my best explaining the original ingredients, what to modify/substitute and what to do.

Mind you that this recipe will be varied from one place to another.
The original recipe I did before this, we actually can buy the paste for this dish. Go to the wet market and find someone who sell curry and spices. Tell them, I want a paste for ayam masak merah. And wala, you can just cook using the paste and just add few ingredients.

And the one I cooked yesterday, here are the ingredients you need:
1. Ginger (cut into small dices)
2. Lengkuas (I have to Google its name in English. it showed something like this Alpinia Galanga) We used the rhizome part. You must have this. It is a must ingredient. If you substitute this part, it doesn't taste good. Cut into dices.
3. Garlic and red onions (cut into dices)
4. Dried chili (the amount depends on how spicy you want the dish to be. Cut the chili and soaked into warm water to get rid of the spicy smell)
5. Lemongrass (just smashed it)

Ingredients number 1-4, blend them together. You will get something like in the blue container of the photo above. Ingredient number 5 just leave it. It will be used later on.

I know, that Sunquick. Why Sunquick? Another two ingredients would be chili sauce and tomato sauce. I was running out of tomato sauce. So I substituted the tomato sauce with Sunquick Orange. For this I just added three tablespoons of Sunquick. Owh, original recipe, we used evaporated milk to make the gravy tasty. But here Sunquick did the all the job. It replaced the tomato sauce and also the evaporated milk. And around 8-10 tablespoons of chili sauce. This one you have to measure yourself the thickness of the gravy and the taste. Agak-agak.
Aaaaa, for this dish, you don't have to use any salt or Ajinomoto. The flavor will come from the fried chicken and the sauces. One more thing, add two tablespoons of sugar.

Next stage: Get ready your kuali. Remember the cooking oil I used for frying the chicken? I used it to get the chicken flavor.
Then once the oil heated, pour all the blended ingredients. Once you can smell the aroma of the blended mixtures, you add the lemongrass.
Then add on the chili and Sunquick. Then add sugar.
Stir them well until you get the thickness of gravy that you want. For me, I didn't let it got too thick since my fried chicken were partially cooked. So I left it a bit watery. Then add on the fried chicken. Mix them well and left to cook and until the gravy turn thick.
Some people they add potato cubes. If you add potato cubes, make sure to deep fried the potato. It taste good that way rather than you add raw potato cubes. Potato cubes help to thicken the gravy too.

And there you are my ayam masak merah. Done! The good thing about replacing tomato sauce and evaporated milk with Sunquick was the aroma smells good. It had this zest smell there.

Ok. There you have it. I don't mind sharing the recipe. I believe the way you cook and the feeling you pour into your cooking will make the taste different. Same ingredients, same methods, same stages of cooking, still resulting in different tastes. It still depends on how you feel during the whole process.

Now the next dish. This was requested by my auntie.
You only need 4 things: Bean sprouts, tofu, crushed garlic and oyster sauce. Nahhh, you don't have to salt or Ajinomoto. Just oyster sauce will do the job. It will taste better if you add on/scatter (I couldn't find word for this) crush peanuts on top of the dish. I didn't do it since no peanuts could be found. Some people they add crushed dried prawns (we called it udang kering tumbuk ) and chili (if you want it to be spicy).

Fried the crushed garlic first, then add on the oyster sauce. Not too much. Just two tablespoons enough. Then tofu, stir well. Then add bean sprouts. You have to do it fast so that the bean sprouts not overcooked.

That were for lunch yesterday. Sunday.