Cooking Class

Having lived in Indonesia before there are curtain food dishes I really like. This time I thought I would like to learn to cook them so with out wasting any time I arranged with a friends housekeeper, Marnie to teach myself and my house keeper, Isah how to cook Indonesian Chicken Curry.

I have tasted Marie's chicken curry before and really liked it so what better way to spend a morning then learning how to make some Indonesian food.

I think the best part of the morning was eating what we had made for lunch.

Picture: Isah and Marnie

Picture: Marnie picking some ingredients from the garden

Picture: Isah & Marnie cutting up the ingredients

Picture: Combining some ingredients in the mortar and pestle

Picture: Frying the curry mixture

Picture: Chicken curry cooking

Indonesian Chicken Curry

1kg chicken drumsticks or fillets, 1 onion medium diced, 3 salam leaves, 4 candle nuts, 4cm piece of ginger, 4cm piece of galangal, 2cm piece of turmeric, 4 large kaffir lime leaves, 3 garlic cloves, 5 lemongrass Stalks, half tsp black peppercorns, quarter tsp coriander seeds, quarter tsp brown sugar, 200ml coconut milk, 4 tbls light olive oil, 2 carrots sliced, 2 potatoes cubed and a handful of green beans.

Start by pounding the peppercorns in a mortar and pestle, in sequence adding the following to each layer, candle nuts, garlic, galangal, ginger and turmeric.

Trim and bruise the lemongrass stalks.

Heat oil in frying pan and add the onion and fry for 2 minutes, reduce the heat, then add the curry paste and keep frying until all the aromas are released.

To this add the lemongrass and salam and kaffir lime leaves 1 tsp of salt, gently stir for a few minutes, then add quarter cup of water and the chicken.

Stir the chicken to coat all the flavours of curry paste on the pieces, then almost cover the chicken half way with water and put on the lid and simmer for 45 minutes after this add the carrots and potatoes and cook a further 15minutes then add the green beans and cook a further 15minutes stirring occasionally.

When the vegetables are cooked stir the coconut milk through and service with rice.