Eurasian Recipes: Tomato Ketchup Chicken

Last year, one of my parents' friends published a Sarawakian Eurasians recipe book, and have asked our family to contribute some of our recipes for the next edition. HMMPH. What are we, chopped liver?! LOL I'm just joking, of course I'd love to send it a few recipes... but it also gave me an idea of my own: I'll publish our family recipes on here and one day, hopefully, will get the chance to publish my own recipe book! 

The first recipe I'm going to share is a personal favourite, everyone loves it except my teenage brother. Who doesn't like flavours. WEIRDO. It's also hella easy, which is the case with most Eurasian recipes, I'm starting to find... 

Mum thinks this is a great idea too, as our housekeeper/cook is leaving next month (her contract's up, and after 14 years, I think she's had enough of the family) so I can start cataloguing our favourite recipes to whip up whenever.

First up is the tomato ketchup chicken! It's so easy, and I chose this one for ease of adaptation by my friends in other countries (some recipes use more local ingredients). This is great for weekday dinners, or lazy weekends, as it will literally take you about 20 minutes or less to put together.

Tomato Ketchup Chicken 

• 1 whole chicken, chopped into 16 pieces (or 12, as preferred)
• 5 medium sized potatoes, peeled and chopped into wedges
• 1 large yellow/red onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 1/2 inches fresh ginger root
• 4 cloves
• 1/2 cinnamon stick
• 2 cardamoms
• 250g ketchup
• 1 tbsp chilli sauce (optional*)
• 100-150 ml water

First peel and cut your potatoes, prep and clean your chicken pieces, and set aside.

Peel the onions (I used 2 medium-small yellow onions instead of a large one), garlic and ginger root, then blend until smooth.

What I like to do is take a tbsp or two of the onion mixture and rub it into my chicken pieces before popping them in the oil.

First deep-fry (omigosh so unhealthy, whatever!) the potatoes (as pictured in the POH-TAY-TOE collage above), then the chicken (do it in two batches, so it cooks faster), until they achieve a mouthwatering golden brown.

Next, empty your wok of oil, leaving roughly 2 tbsp with which you will stir-fry the onion mixture and the spices (cloves, cinnamon, cardamom). Check out the picture above, eh? Set your stove on medium to high heat, and constantly stir (it is called a stir-fry, after all) the mixture until it turns soft and brown and the fragrance of cooked onions rises.

Once the onions are done, pour in the ketchup and chilli sauce*, swirl the water in the empty ketchup bottle/container/vessel that you used to keep it before pouring, then add that as well. Stir the mixture until just combined, then add the chicken. Cover the chicken in the gravy. Cover the wok, and lower the heat to a small flame. Allow this to simmer for 15 minutes.

Around the 15 minute mark, add the potatoes (am I the only one who always says potatoes in the Sam Gamgee voice?) and combine with the rest of the ingredients. Leave the wok for another 5 minutes or so.

And you're done!

Serve with white rice and some greens of your choice (pictured here is a mixed vegetable stir-fry with oyster sauce and chopped garlic), be sure to pour the gravy on your rice. I didn't for the purpose of taking this picture.

Notice how there was no salt needed in this recipe? That's because the ketchup already contains enough to allow the taste to seep into the chicken. However, I recommend that you taste once the chicken and potatoes are in, if you feel that salt is needed, then go for it.

Hope this was easy to follow, I apologize for the image heavy post, got a little bit too excited at my first stir-fry recipe!

Cheers,
Nabs