Ayam Bakar (Indonesian Grilled Chicken) | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with I am par. That's right. There are hundreds of different versions of this Indonesian char grilled chicken. And the one I'm going to show you isn't any of those. Right. My take is a very simple version using only easy to find ingredients. But despite that, this is still going to be incredible. And I believe the soul of the dish is intact. So, with that, let's go ahead and get started by prepping our chicken. And I'm going to be using these bone in skin on chicken thighs, which are perfect for brazing and grilling. And since we're doing both of those things, it's the ideal cut. And once we figure out exactly where the bone is, we'll take a sharp knife and cut right in the center all the way down to the bone at a 90° angle. And then we'll make two more cuts on either side about a/ inch away. And that will allow for our thighs to cook faster and for that flavor to penetrate deeper. So I did that to six thighs total. And once those are set, we can move on to the grinding of the aromatics. And for this, we'll use a whole bunch of sliced shallots, although any other onion will work. But if you can, shallots are best. And then we'll also want to include some garlic as well as some lemongrass. And we're only going to slice up the lighter, more tender parts. And then we're also going to want to use a generous amount of fresh ginger, as well as something called kefir lime leaves, which I don't have, but I do have a Mexican lime tree. So, I pulled off a few of the smallest, tenderest leaves, and I'm going to try to use those. And if you don't have either, they say we can use a little bit of lime zest. But anyway, what we'll do is toss all that in a food processor or a blender, and we will grind that into a very fine puree. And of course, you're going to want to stop a few times and scrape down the sides with a spatula, which I didn't show, but I did. And then what we'll do is transfer that mixture into a skillet set over mediumigh heat in which we have a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil. And we'll go ahead and spread that out and let it start to caramelize. And while it does, we'll toss in the next set of ingredients. And those will include some ground coriander, some ground cumin, a touch of turmeric, followed by some ground pepper, and I'm going to use white pepper since that seems to be a common choice. And then we'll finish up with some salt. And then what we'll do is cook this stirring for like three or four minutes until those shallots and veggies start to soften up and everything, including our spices, start to toast onto the bottom of the pan. And if someone walks into your kitchen while this is happening, they're going to say something like, "Wow, that smells incredible." And you'll say, "Yes, wait until you taste it." And once we finish chatting and our mixture is looking something like this, we will stop and we'll toss in the rest of the ingredients, including a nice big spoon of sambal, which is basically a ground chili paste. And yes, you can, if you want, instead use fresh red chilies. And then we'll also need some brown sugar in this, followed by some soy sauce. And those two things are replacing a sweet, thick Indonesian style soy sauce, which you might have trouble finding, but this works beautifully. And then we'll finish up with a couple bay leaves as well as a couple cups of chicken broth or water if times are tough. And we'll go ahead and stir all that together. And by the way, some recipes call for coconut water. And then there's others that use coconut milk, but like I said, there's many, many different versions of this. And since I find this to be kind of a rich dish, I think the broth is just fine. And what we'll do is wait for this to start to boil and we'll give it one more stir with our spatula to make sure the bottom is in fact delazed and we don't have anything sticking. At which point we're going to transfer our cut chicken in skin side down. And we'll reduce our heat to low or somewhere between low and medium low. And then before we cover this and let it simmer, I'm going to go ahead and base these with a spoon, which is probably not necessary since we're going to turn these over. But it does feel right. And I find cooking is all about trusting your feelings. All right, if you're not going to trust your feelings, what are you going to trust? And that's it. Once basted, we'll cover this and let it simmer gently for 15 minutes, at which point we'll uncover and flip them over. And then we'll let it simmer for another 15 minutes or so. Although this time and for the rest of the cooking process, I'm going to leave the cover off so we can see exactly what's going on. And while this continues to cook, we can once again baste it with a spoon or simply flip the pieces back and forth and coat them with the sauce like that. And also, if you really like to play with your food, and you know I do, we can always rearrange those if we want, so that the pieces are rotated into different spots and turned into different positions. And once both sides have gotten about 15 minutes each, I like to turn them back with the skin side down and let them go for about five minutes like that before turning them back over and continuing on the other side. And as far as our overall game plan here, what we're hoping to have happen is that our chicken cooks through at about the same time that our sauce reduces down to where we want it, which by the way could be completely reduced down to a thick sticky glaze. Or as I prefer, where things get thick but still stay a little bit saucy. And if I feel like the chicken's getting close, but the sauce looks like it still has a ways to go, I'll just simply raise the heat up to medium so it reduces a little faster. So, don't forget you can always adjust the heat. All right, that is just you cooking. Oh, and since we are going to finish this by charing it on the grill, we do not want this falling off the bone tender. Okay, tender is fine, but falling off the bone is not. And once we think our chicken's done, we will remove that to a plate and let it rest while we let the sauce reduce for a few more minutes or until it's exactly how we want. And once we are happy with how that's looking and feeling, we can reduce our heat to low and place our chicken back in. And that's it. At this point, no one would blame you if you just put this over rice and started eating. I mean, it really would be fantastic. But what we're supposed to do is turn off the heat and take that chicken out to the grill and char it fairly severely over some nice hot coals. And this is only going to take a few minutes, so do not walk away. Oh, you'll see. Things are going to be happening very quickly. And what we'll do is put that skin side down for about 60 seconds or so before we give it a flip so we can see what's happening. And at this point, we're going to be able to see where the hot spots are and which pieces have been nicely charred and which ones still need a little bit of color. Oh, and because of the high sugar content and the fat in the skin, you are definitely going to see some flames and have some flare-ups. So, you really got to stay on top of things and move things to a safe space. And with that in mind, we will move things around and give a few of those pieces a little more time on the skin side. Since, according to my most reliable sources, these pieces must, they have to have a decent amount of charring on them. In fact, one of the recipes I read literally said, "Make sure the pieces of chicken are black but not burnt." And even though that kind of seems impossible, I knew what they were saying. So again, pay attention and move quickly. I mean, you are after all the next Food Network star of how much to char your I am bear. And then if possible, if you want to brush on a little bit of the sauce and your chicken's not going to overchar, you might want to try to do that like I did here. And if you didn't have any flame ups before, you will definitely have them if you do this. Which is why as soon as that was applied, I pulled these off the grill and I headed back inside to place those on our sauce. And while this might not satisfy some of my Indonesian friends, I am totally happy with how much charring I got. All right, a lot of folks do go almost all black. But for me, this is just about perfect. And while, like I said, you can just eat this and not head out to the grill to char it, that smoky, bitter sweetness it adds really is what makes the dish. And that's it. I'm going to garnish very simply with some sliced Fresno chilis as well as a little scattering of cilantro leaves. And that's it. My take on ayam bakar is ready to enjoy. So I'm gonna go ahead and serve some up on some rice and top it with a few spoons of the sauce, which we could if we want pass through a strainer, but I don't think it's necessary. Okay, I've done it before, but I think I prefer the rustic approach. And after adding a little more sambal to the top, I grabbed a fork and knife and dug in. And that, my friends, is a piece of grilled chicken that you really, really do want to be eating, right? The term flavor bomb is overused, but completely appropriate here. And while this is normally done with a whole cutup chicken, I think using all thighs is much more user friendly, and we don't really have to worry about those drying out like we would if we decide to use some breasts. But no matter what you use, I think this is a recipe that has to go into the regular grilled chicken rotation, which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And as always, enjoy.