Paper Palate

Test Recipe: Ayam Tempra (Spicy-sour Stir-fried Chicken) from Terry Tan and Christopher Tan’s Shiok!. Serves 2-3.

Ingredients list: 4 large chicken thighs or breasts, deboned; 1/2 teaspoon shrimp paste; 1 tablespoon palm sugar, finely chopped; 1 tablespoon water; 2 tablespoons ketjap manis, or dark soy sauce; 2 tablespoons oil; 1 onion, halved and sliced thickly; 2 red chilies, sliced diagonally; 3 cloves garlic, sliced; 1 stalk lemongrass, sliced thinly on the diagonal; 3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lime juice; 1/3 teaspoon salt, or to taste.

Directions: “1. Cut chicken into large bite-sized chunks. Mash shrimp paste with palm sugar, water, and ketjap manis until smooth, and mix with the chicken. Let marinate 15 minutes at room temperature.

“2. Heat oil in a wok over high heat. Add onion, chilies, garlic, and lemongrass and stir-fry vigorously until softened and fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Add chicken and fry until it is just cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes more, then add lime juice and salt and mix well. Serve hot with rice.”

This turned out to be a tasty stir-fry, quick and easy to assemble. The instructions didn’t specify whether the marinade should be added to the pan along with the meat. I did add it and it created a delicious sauce; it also slowed the cooking time down somewhat. The lemongrass added a floral taste to the earthier flavors of the chicken thighs and ketjap manis-based sauce, but I should have peeled a few more of the tough outer layers off before cooking; the lemongrass was crunchy and tough. I should also have used more lime juice; the sour taste alluded to in the recipe’s title was subtle at best. The heat was limited to occasions when I bit down on the chiles. The stir-fry turned out to be a bit milder-tasting than I expected, but still delicious.

Rating: 8 out of 10.