Two Souls One Spoon: Roasted chicken in banana leaf recipe

This week on Two Souls One Spoon we are reliving our Indonesian adventure, with a Balinese Roasted Chicken in Banana Leaf and Vegetable Salad recipe.

Serves 4

Country: Indonesia

Brine your chicken before starting this recipe by submerging in 2700ml of water and 150g of table salt and refrigerating for 12 hours.

Ingredients

Spice paste for chicken

175g shallots, peeled and finely chopped

50g garlic, peeled and finely chopped

3 birdseye chillies, sliced

80g galangal, peeled and finely chopped

15g palm sugar

50ml sunflower oil

12g skinless peanuts, crushed

50g fresh turmeric, peeled and finely chopped

2 kaffir lime leavers

2 stalks lemongrass, bashed

190ml water

1/2tbsp salt

Chicken

1.5kg whole chicken, brined for 12 hours

250g spice paste

200g spinach, blanched

Salt & pepper

100ml coconut oil, melted

To serve

75g rice per person

Indonesian Vegetable Salad with Peanut Dressing

Method:

1. To make the spice paste combine the shallots, garlic, Birdseye chillies, galangal, palm sugar, salt, peanuts and fresh turmeric in a food processor and grind into a fine paste.
2. Heat the sunflower oil in a saucepan and when hot, add spice mixture along with the bashed lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves.
3. After a few minutes, add the water and put a lid on until it starts to simmer. Then take the lid off and cook on a low heat for 20 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 90° fan.
5. Next, remove your chicken from the brine, rinse thoroughly and pat dry.
6. To make the stuffing, combine 150g of spice paste in a bowl with the blanched spinach, season and mix well.
7. Gently loosen skin from the chicken breasts without breaking and use half of the stuffing between the skin and the breast. Use the rest of the stuffing inside the cavity. Close any openings with a skewer.
8. Wrap chicken in banana leaves and steam for 2 hours at 90° fan (by putting a tray of water on the bottom shelf of the oven, and your chicken on the rack above). After 2 hours is up, turn your oven up to 180° fan and leave the chicken in for a further 30 minutes or until core temperature measures 65°. If cooking in foil, cook for 3 hours at 90° fan before basting and returning to a max heat oven for 20 minutes.
9. When the chicken has been in for 2 hours 30 minutes and has reached a core temperature of 65°, take out of the oven and increase the oven temperature to as high as it will go (we used 220° fan).
10. Remove the banana leaves from the chicken, put in a metal tray and cover with foil, leaving to rest until the oven has fully heated.
11. Meanwhile, combine 100g of the leftover spice paste with 100ml of melted coconut oil to use as a baste.
12. When the oven has heated, baste the chicken and return to the oven for 15 minutes. Now might be a good time to start cooking the rice.
13. After 15 minutes, remove the chicken from the oven, cut into pieces, and plate up with the rice and Indonesian Vegetable Salad with Peanut Dressing.

Watch us cooking:

Pin it