Paprik Ayam Mudah/ Chicken Paprik Recipe
Presenting another favorite chicken menu from both of us - Chicken Paprik, or Paprik Ayam.
For those who're not familiar with the word "paprik," it is a chicken dish cooked with chili paste combined with three different types of sauce to make the gravy - chili, ketchup and oyster sauce.
It is added with Kaffir lime leaves and bruised lemongrass to gives blissful aroma to the dish.
The gravy is tangy, sweet and spicy, especially when you add bird's eye chilies into it.
Paprik can be seasoned not only with chicken as the main ingredient.
You may also cook your paprik with seafood like shrimp and squid, beef or if you're a vegan, just fill the paprik gravy with colorful vegetables.
This is absolutely one of Mr Hubby's favorite dish for his lunch box.
It is easy to cook and stay impressive when its gone cold.
One thing I like about the dish is, it is a all-in-one.
Meat, seafood and vegetables are cook in one dish.
A number of vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli, long beans, carrots and baby corns are good options for your paprik dish.
The addition of vegetables gives it a different twist and variety of texture.
Preparing lunch box can sometimes be a frenzy task, especially when cooking is done without proper planning.
Honestly, I can't function without first planning my schedule of the day.
But my way of planning is a bit fascinating, like how my hubby's describe - it's all mapped in my head, with absolutely no paper and pen.
He once said, my head is like a hard disk and having a lot of antennas, everything is carefully recorded, mapped, observed and planned.
All the "why," "how," "what," are there in my head. 😆
One can lost his way when entering my head, unlike his head, it's a ample and only straight ways.
But, too much planning doesn't brings any good, you'll become indecisive when you have a lot of alternatives in front of you.
This happens to me frequently, even when it's just preparing a breakfast.
A lot of times, I struggle to make decision on what to prepare when I have more than three dish choices that pop into my head.
And my hubby usually will gives me a non-helpful response- " just prepare anything." Hmm..
So, paprik becomes my final option, after spending the whole night before to decide on his lunch box's menu.
Some people prefer to add more chili sauce and ketchup in their paprik, but I prefer to add more chili paste, with moderate amount of the sauces.
You may add fish or cuttlefish sauce and soy sauce to your paprik for more flavor and to darken the paprik gravy.
For the chicken, you can use chicken breasts, cubed or chicken parts with dark meat like drumstick and thigh.
The deliciousness of this chicken paprik lies in the brand of the sauces you're using.
Different brand has a distinct taste.
I've been using Life brand for both my chili sauce and ketchup.
It's thicker in concentration with rich in taste especially the ketchup in my opinion.
The good news about the dish is, you can make ahead the chicken paprik to be kept frozen until ready to be consumed.
Leave behind all the veges if you intent to meal prep your chicken paprik, and only add them when your reheat the paprik.
PAPRIK AYAM MUDAH
CHICKEN PAPRIK RECIPE
Cuisine : Malay, Thai
Serve: 5-6
Ingredients:
1/3 chicken or 4 pieces of chicken
1/4 cauliflower head - cut into bite-sized florets
1/2 carrot - cut into thick sticks
1/2 packet (5 pieces of baby corn) - cut into two or four
A handful of long beans - cut into 2 inch long pieces (I omitted to include this)
1 Holland onion - sliced
1 cup of water
5 tablespoons of chili sauce
4 tablespoons of ketchup
1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
4 Kaffir lime leaves
1 lemongrass - bruised
5 bird's eye chilies - crushed
4 tablespoons of dried chili paste
3 cloves of garlic - chopped
Sat to taste
Sugar to taste
3 tablespoons of cooking oil
Methods:
Prepare the chicken first by cutting into smaller pieces. Set aside.
Heat oil in a wok. Stir fry chopped garlic with lemon grass until fragrant. Then, add in the dried chili paste and cook until the oil is separating and the color turned dark red.
Add in chicken pieces, ketchup, chili sauce, oyster sauce, Kaffir lime leaves and water. Season with sugar and salt. Cover and cook until the chicken is cooked over medium heat, about 10 minutes.
Add in the vegetables, crushed bird's eye chilies and sliced onion and cook for another few minutes, until tender and crisp. Do not overcook as the vegetables will get mushy. At this point, taste your paprik gravy, add more salt and sugar if needed.
Serve hot with warm rice.
#NOTES#
Dried chili paste can be self made. Wash the dried chilies and cut into two to three pieces, remove the seeds to reduce it's spiciness and boil the dried chilies vigorously until the pungent spicy smell from the chilies is emitted. Strain the cooked chilies in a colander into a blender. Add a dash of salt and water, enough to help the blender pureed the chilies and blend until smooth textured. Transfer the dried chili paste in an air tight container and refrigerated until ready to use.
If you prefer dry version of chicken paprik, do not add too much water into the paprik gravy. Alternatively, you may stir frying the chicken pieces first until charred, set aside and then followed by preparing the gravy, once the gravy is thickened, add in the stir fried chicken pieces, along with the vegetables and stir fry for another few minutes until the chicken and the vegetables are tender.
