Ayam Percik/Malay Style BBQ Chicken Recipes

This is such an exotic Malay style BBQ chicken. It has the full flavor of spices and sweet fragrant smell of coconut. This dish is originated from Kelantan, a beautiful state in the Northern East Coast of Malaysian. You can find this dish at every food bazaar during Ramadan month in Malaysia. The Ramadan market will not be complete without the sweet smell of the vendors grilling this special Ayam Percik.

The most important part of this dish is the blended paste. Like many other Malaysian dishes we uses a lot of fresh herbs and spices like Chilies, Lemongrass, ginger, shallots, buah keras and garlic all blended together with some tamarind paste and cinnamon. It gives this dish such a rich and aromatic flavor. The sauce is perfectly sweet, sour, salty and spicy. Traditionally cooked over hot charcoal fire but because of the cold weather here I just baked it in the oven.

Ingredients:

4 whole chicken legs with thigh attached
1 tsp tamarind paste (Asam Jawa)
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 cup of coconut milk
1/4 cup of water
1 tbsp of brown sugar
Salt to Taste

Spice (Blended to paste)

4 candlenuts/buah keras (or macadamia nuts)
6 Cloves Garlic
2 tbsp of chili paste (I used sambal Oelek)
1” ginger
4 shallots
2 lemongrass – sliced thinly

1. Clean the chicken, removed all the skin and fat. Make some light cuts on the surface of the meat. Pat the chicken dry with paper towel.
2. Mix the paste with the rest of the ingredients together in a Ziploc bag. Marinate the chicken for at least 3 – 4 hours. Make sure the chicken is well coated with the marinate.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degree F. Put the chicken in a deep dish together with all marinates. Cover it with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for half an hour. Remove the foil and then continue to bake until chicken cooked and golden brown. Make sure you turn the chicken occasionally and basting it with the gravy.

Note: If you are using tamarind pulp, just mix the pulp with the ¼ cup of water from the recipe.