♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, one of the great culinary destinations in the world most of us have never been to is Malaysia, south of Thailand.

It has really big flavors-- it has sweet and sour.

It has a lot of fresh flavors, as well.

So the first recipe we worked on, it's a coconut curry, but we made a fresh curry paste here at Milk Street using a food processor.

It makes absolutely all the difference.

And then the second recipe is essentially a Malaysian fried chicken.

It's a turmeric twice-cooked chicken.

We think it's even better than the classic fried chicken we enjoy here in the States.

So, please stay tuned as we look into and bring you the big, wonderful flavors of Malaysia.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - Past the roast pork dealer, past the crates of produce, we meet Pearly Kee, an ambassador of Malaysia's Nyonya cuisine.

- I'm a fifth-generation Nyonya.

We are the early Chinese who were immigrants, poor.

In the old days, the Chinese had not eaten anything so sour, so they were trying to mix and match the flavors.

It's a discovery and a fusion of all food.

- So goes Malaysian cooking.

You can see Indian and Chinese influences virtually everywhere.

Street vendors offer up buffets of curry.

They fry Chinese noodles with potatoes that came with Indian migrants.

And many dishes are cooked in woks, but feature local Malay ingredients like lemongrass, shallots, and tamarind, the base of a popular shrimp stir fry.

(sizzling) - All right!

The Nyonya chicken curry uses the authentic Malay way of cooking.

The early Chinese, my forefathers, when they come here, they don't know how to eat curry, because in China, there's no curry.

Yeah?

And they-- they learn it from their neighbors.

♪ ♪ Just cut them fine like that.

So that the blender haves easy job.

- Making a fresh curry paste was something we saw again and again.

We're talking several cups of blended aromatics.

♪ ♪ - So, the crux of making your food delicious is here.

Making it mature.

Mature your paste, then you mature the taste.

♪ ♪ - Outside Kuala Lumpur, we learned about another curry that uses this technique.

- (speaking Malay): - Besides the protein, there's usually some kind of crisp vegetable and something sour to balance the sweetness of the coconut.

And as with Pearly's curry, it all goes back to that paste.

♪ ♪ So, why do we travel?

It's not just to find recipes.

It's to learn something new about how to cook and how to think about cooking.

So, not too long ago, we were in Malaysia, and on the southwest coast, they make a coconut curry-- this has chicken and potatoes and green beans in it-- which is called masak lemak.

And there's a takeaway here that's really interesting.

It's not just how to make this recipe.

It's, how do you make a curry paste?

Because if you buy a curry paste in a jar, for example, it just isn't that great.

So, this is a lesson in how to make a basic paste, curry paste.

And by the way, you could use this as a base for many, many, many recipes, not just curry.

So we're gonna start with shallots, and we're gonna take one of the shallots, and we're gonna pickle it in some lime juice, a little salt.

And by the way, you can quick-pickle onions, shallots, et cetera, in about 15 minutes at home.

So it doesn't take all day, doesn't take hours.

Lemongrass is one of the main ingredients you find all over Malaysia, and... ...as you can see, it is very tough.

So we're gonna just trim it off here.

And you also want to get rid of the outer skin.

This is one of the cases where having a really sharp knife is important.

As I've said on the show many times, I know that most of you never, ever sharpen your kitchen knives.

Not a good idea for this, because you're not going to get through it.

And if you have a dull knife edge, when it hits something tough, like lemongrass, it can move.

Now, to make the curry paste.

It won't work very well if you use a, let's say, a stone mortar and pestle.

We tried a blender.

That didn't really work very well.

So a food processor does it.

We did find, by using only a little bit of oil, that we actually like the paste a lot better than drowning it in oil.

Okay.

(food processor whirring) So this did a really nice job.

And it's so sharp, which is really great for the lemongrass in particular, right?

It's also nice to have a smaller-volume, smaller-bowl food processor.

It's great when you have a smaller number of ingredients, so all the ingredients don't just hide under the blade.

So, we're gonna start by sautéing this for just three minutes or so.

It's very fragrant, and my eyes are watering now, because... (chuckling): ...two chilies.

You know, it's interesting, in, in a lot of places in the world, that chilies obviously have heat, but-- especially in Mexico, as well-- they're there for the fruitiness, for flavor.

Every chili has a flavor profile.

Although I have to say, the hottest thing I've ever had in my life was in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

I had green papaya salad.

It's made in a huge wooden mortar and pestle.

It was, it was inedible for me.

(chuckling): I started crying at the table.

I got through two bites-- I just couldn't do it.

But this is obviously not that.

We have chicken, two pounds, boneless, skinless thighs into two-inch pieces go in.

12 ounces of Yukons or yellow potatoes in half-inch dice.

Coconut milk.

And coconut cream.

So, there's coconut milk, there's coconut cream, there's cream of coconut.

Cream of coconut is sweet.

And it's used mostly by bartenders.

Coconut milk and coconut cream are the same thing.

It's shredded coconut with warm water, and you squeeze it, and you end up with coconut milk or coconut cream.

Coconut cream just has more fat.

So we wanted to balance it out so we had coconut flavor, but it, not overwhelmingly so.

So this is now just about at a simmer.

Gonna add the beans.

Okay, we're gonna cover that, and we'll cook that until the potatoes are cooked and the chicken is, obviously, cooked.

So now we're gonna take those shallots that have been sitting here for a bit and we're gonna add those.

You know, sometimes when I'm cooking-- and I do follow recipes, by the way, sometimes.

Some people refuse to follow recipes because they think they're not being artistic enough.

But the thing that's interesting about this is, when you look at the ingredient list, it's fairly long, right?

So you're gonna go, like, "Oh, this is gonna be a two-hour project."

You can actually make this in under an hour.

It does have a few ingredients, but most of them just go in a food processor and the rest just go into the pot.

So, it sounds complicated, you know, doing this great curry, but it's actually not hard.

The other thing I like about this is, you know, I don't want an overwhelming coconut flavor.

I want it to be part of the mix.

Cilantro, yes.

You can also put shredded cabbage on top, if you like.

And lime juice.

So there we have it.

Under an hour, really complex flavors.

Lemongrass, shallots, garlic, chilies.

♪ ♪ Mm.

So, what's so interesting about this is, you learn to make a very fresh base, you know, a curry paste, which again, could be used in hundreds of other recipes.

So this is the kind of cooking we love here at Milk Street.

Fresh, bright, not difficult, not too time-consuming.

And it really opens the door to thinking about a whole different way of cooking and combining flavors.

♪ ♪ - Nasi lemak, or Malaysian coconut rice, is often served with slices of fresh cucumber and salty, crunchy peanuts, and salted and fried dried anchovies in a punchy sambal and fresh herbs.

Proving that comfort food does not need to be boring.

But if you take away all of those accompaniments and you just have that fragrant coconut rice, you have a side dish that is perfect for either of the chicken dishes in this episode.

It starts with what my friend, Malaysian cooking teacher Linda Tay Esposito, calls the Malaysian mirepoix, or part of it.

And that's ginger, lemongrass, and shallots.

We're going to start by taking coconut oil and heating it until it's almost smoking-- pretty hot.

We like to use unrefined coconut oil because it has more of a coconut flavor, really doubling down on the coconut profile of the dish, because we'll also use coconut milk later.

But if you only have refined coconut oil or even neutral oil, that's fine.

Lemongrass is an essential flavor of Malaysia.

And as soon as you start peeling back these outside layers, you can smell it.

It's like you're transported there.

We're not chopping this, so you don't have to peel too far down, like you would if you are chopping.

We're just going to smash it.

The role of the lemongrass is purely for fragrance.

Let's add our shallots.

So this is thinly sliced shallots.

(sizzling softly) And we're gonna cook these down until they're just getting brown.

We do want to develop a little bit of a nutty caramel backbone to this rice dish, but we don't want them over-caramelized.

Coconut milk's already sweet, so we want to keep some of the natural pungency that onions have.

So we're also gonna have our ginger.

Again, this is going to be infusing the rice.

We're not eating it.

So it makes for very simple prep.

We want about an inch.

I like a hefty inch, 'cause I really like ginger.

And then you want to peel it.

You can peel it a couple of ways.

You can either use a sharp knife or a spoon, like I am, to peel your ginger.

To make sure we infuse even more ginger flavor, we're gonna cut it into about three pieces.

Each piece, then, can be in a separate part of the dish, really getting its flavor in there.

And again, just like the lemongrass, we're gonna use the side of our knife, and we're gonna smash.

Once your ginger's peeled, you give your shallots a little stir.

Oh, the mixture of that coconut and shallot already, this smells delicious.

This is no ordinary pot of rice.

Another important step in this dish is to make sure you rinse your rice.

That will ensure that we get fluffy grains of rice at the end.

But because we're using coconut milk, if we don't rinse our rice, the mixture of starch and the fat from the coconut milk will make a sort of a gluey side dish, which is not what we're looking for.

So while this comes up to a simmer, I want to say something about this recipe.

It's really a template.

So you could use a French mirepoix, or Louisiana Holy Trinity, and use all water instead of coconut milk.

The result is the same in that you take a pantry staple and you elevate it into something elegant.

But we're gonna go back to the Malaysian version, which was our inspiration, and get this up to a simmer, and then cover it for 15 or 20 minutes until all the liquid's been absorbed and the rice is fluffy.

Just gonna peek down the corner, and we are in great shape.

This is beautiful.

All right, let me find our ginger and lemongrass.

We don't want to eat those-- although my mother would eat a cube of ginger like this, no problem.

And I'm going to sort of fluff while I look, 'cause you want to fluff the rice at this stage, and I can't wait to taste it, so I'm going to taste it right now.

See how the grains are still separated?

♪ ♪ Rice never had it so good.

This is delicious.

It's not overwhelmingly coconutty, but it has that richness and that nuttiness.

And then the ginger and the lemongrass are like pure perfume.

I've been transported to Malaysia, and I've been cooking here at Milk Street.

Let's put this in a serving plate, so it looks wonderful for all of you.

And I'll try not to eat the whole bowl.

♪ ♪ So if you have some sliced cucumbers, a nice spicy sambal, and some crunchy peanuts at home, this is dinner.

If not, you can make the other two recipes in this episode and serve this as an elegant side dish.

♪ ♪ (whirring) - So we have the chilies, the garlic, and the ginger, as well, and then the lemongrass.

So, we pound it, and then we stir until the, the pounded ingredient is fragrant.

(sizzling) And we add on the soy sauce.

And then become caramelized, and then we fry the chicken.

With turmeric, salt.

Then we just mix well.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This classic Malaysian dish, called ayam masak kecap, translates to "chicken cooked in soy."

Now, you might also find another name for this dish, called bachelor chicken, and there's a reason for that.

It's a very, very simple dish you can put together very quickly, and it has big, bold flavor.

So, it is a great new chicken dish to get into your rotation during a weeknight.

This is a twice-cooked chicken.

So we want to very gently fry our chicken thighs, basically cook them all the way through, and then we will assemble the sauce and the vegetables that go with it.

Now, it may sound heavy, describing it as a twice-cooked chicken, but it's actually really light.

And we achieve that by using cornstarch in our seasoning dredge.

So we start out with turmeric, white pepper, and salt.

White pepper is a little more mellow and goes great with these flavors.

If you don't have white pepper, you can use black.

And then cornstarch.

The cornstarch, what that will do is, it will adhere the spice mix to the surface of the chicken, and that will crisp up.

So chicken thighs, boneless, skinless.

We cut them in about one-inch strips.

Now we'll just coat this chicken really, really well, get it really pressed into the cornstarch and turmeric mixture.

That cornstarch also, when it hits the hot oil, will kind of seal the moisture in as it crisps.

So, now I'm using a wok.

You can absolutely make this in a skillet if you like.

I love using a wok for this for a couple of reasons.

One, it keeps hotter as you cook, but also I love the curvature of the pan, because when you're cooking something like this, that's bubbly, and we're adding a lot of ingredients later that really splash and bubble, this keeps your stove top a little cleaner.

So I'm heating up some neutral oil.

In this case, it's a sunflower oil.

You can use grapeseed.

And we're not going to dump the whole thing all at once.

I'm going to do these in a couple of batches, so that there's plenty of hot oil to surround each piece of chicken and each piece gets nice and crisp.

(sizzling) If you do this in a skillet, pick a 12-inch skillet.

You should be able to do this in two batches.

But in the wok, you have a little bit of a shallower cooking surface.

So we'll do this in three batches.

First batch is nice and golden brown.

I'm going to take those pieces out, put them on a paper towel-lined plate to drain, getting that excess oil out of there, and keep frying.

So, my chicken is cooked.

Before we move on to finish the dish, let's talk about a couple of these ingredients.

First is the sauce, the kecap manis.

This is an Indonesian and Malaysian condiment that you find all over Southeast Asia.

And it has a beautiful, sweet, molasses-y flavor.

It's made with soy-- fermented soy sauce, of course-- and palm sugar, which is cooked down until it's got a real thick, molasses-y sort of consistency.

Of course, it's sweet and also salty.

So it's sort of the perfect sauce.

Now, you can find it in most supermarkets if you look in the Asian foods aisle.

But if you can't find it, we have a great substitute for you-- it's very close.

We just take molasses, add a little brown sugar to it-- in this case, it's dark brown sugar-- and soy sauce.

And that makes a surprisingly accurate substitute for kecap manis.

But since I've got the real deal here, I'm going to go all the way through this recipe using it.

This dish is everything you want.

It's sweet, spicy, earthy, and a good kecap manis is what you need to make this properly.

So, if you can't find it in the store, make our version-- you'll be happy.

Now, the other very important ingredient to this dish is lemongrass.

Of course, lemongrass in many, many dishes across Southeast Asia and in Malaysia.

When you scratch a piece of lemongrass... (sniffs) ...and give it a sniff, oh, it smells such... It's lemony, and lime, and it's, it's really a beautiful aromatic.

The trick about lemongrass, though, is, it's very fibrous.

Rarely do you eat it, so if you cut it down really fine, you can make a beautiful curry paste, as Chris did earlier, and that's palatable when you cook it.

But the bigger pieces-- it's not like an onion.

It doesn't soften as it cooks.

It just flavors what you're cooking, but then you need to remove it.

Now, lemongrass you can find in all sorts of ways.

We did a deep dive on lemongrass, too.

You can find all versions of this.

You can find freeze-dried stalks.

They remind me of hay in the hay field when I was a kid.

It's, like, there's just dust everywhere.

These are aromatic, and honestly, I would only make tea with these.

I would never cook with them.

You also find it dried, sort of minced up.

Looks a little bit like dried rosemary.

Also, this is a little dusty and dry and chalky-tasting.

We weren't that crazy about it.

The other thing you can find is powder.

Now, this is very strong, but again, it does not have the depth of that citrusy flavor that a fresh stalk of lemongrass might have.

And you can find the pastes.

The jarred lemongrass paste many times has citric acid added to it in order to keep it shelf-stable.

So it's not my favorite, but it would work in a pinch.

I would look for fresh lemongrass.

Now you think, where do you find it?

It's, it's sometimes not out with everything.

It's not with the onions, it's not with the garlic, not with the ginger.

Look where the herbs are.

This is how you can commonly find it sold in a grocery store, in the little plastic clamshells hanging with the marjoram, the oregano, and the thyme.

So, most grocery stores carry this now.

So, try and find it and cook with it.

You'll love the flavor.

♪ ♪ So now I'm ready to put this dish together.

Chicken's fried, vegetables are waiting, let's get it done.

First thing I want to do, though, is pour off a little of the excess oil.

And, as with any stir fry, you want to have everything chopped and ready to go, because it happens fast.

This comes together in less than ten minutes at this point.

First up is our lemongrass.

This has been smashed down.

All those oils are going to come out in the heat and into the oil.

So we're going to throw those into the wok.

And then I've got shallots here.

I want to save some shallots till the end and cook a little now.

So we'll have two textures of shallot in there.

A little fresh pop of shallot at the end is really great in this.

(sizzling) So the shallots are getting nice and brown around the edges.

In go the minced garlic and ginger.

You just want to toss this around for about 30 seconds, until you get a big waft of it in your face.

Then our peppers.

Thinly sliced jalapeños and bell peppers.

(sizzling) And finally, the star of the show here, the kecap manis.

Just going to pour that in around the outer bit of the wok.

(sizzling) Also add a little bit of water to this, just to thin it out a bit, so it will cook the vegetables, and it will make a nice kind of coating sauce for our chicken.

(sizzling) You want to watch the surface.

When you see big bubbles popping up everywhere, it's telling us that the sauce is concentrated and we can finish up the dish.

I can see that the bubbles are getting very big here.

The boiling is slowing down, which tells me the sauce is thickened.

(sizzling) In with the chicken.

They are fully cooked at this point, so we're just reheating them in the sauce and getting them nice and coated.

I'm also going to add a plum tomato that is cut into wedges.

This is the very end.

This pop of bright, fresh tomato flavor and the juice from the tomato will help loosen up the sauce and help it coat beautifully.

(sizzling) And we're there.

(snaps) That was fast, right?

Gonna turn off the heat.

I want to fish out those little pieces of lemongrass.

We don't want to bite into one of those.

That's done its job, thank you very much.

And then the rest of the fresh shallots we'll sprinkle in and toss around.

That will give it a nice, bright, fresh onion crunch when we bite into the chicken.

So that's a very easy dish.

Comes together in about 15 minutes.

Terrific with a little steamed white rice on the side, and of course, a little bit of fresh lime squeezed over the top.

Mm.

I think what I love about this is, the chicken is fully cooked, basically, when it goes in the sauce, and it retains some crispness.

It's not battered and deep- fried or anything like that.

It's just a nice little snap.

That turmeric flavor comes through.

And then with a little bit of fresh shallot on the end.

And not spicy.

We put those jalapeños in there, we took the seeds and the ribs out, and just treated it like a bell pepper.

It has a nice bit of heat, but it's not blowing my top off.

So, this is so good.

Our twice-cooked turmeric chicken with lemongrass and soy.

It's a great recipe to rotate into your chicken weeknight meals.

All you need is some kecap manis and some lemongrass.

So look for it in the grocery store-- you will not be sorry.

You can find this recipe and all of the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

♪ ♪ - (speaking Malay): ♪ ♪ Step by step.

♪ ♪ - Recipes and episodes from this season of Milk Street are available at MilkStreetTV.com, along with shopping lists, printer-ready recipes, and step-by-step videos.

Access our content anytime to change the way you cook.

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From Vietnamese chicken salad and tiramisu to easy-stretch pizza dough and Austrian apple strudel, the new Milk Street Cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street Cookbook for $29.95, 40% less than the cover price.

Call 855-MILK-177 or order online.

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