Balinese Stuffed Grilled Chicken (Ayam Betutu)

Who has never heard about Bali? Someone asked me before, when I said I am from Indonesia.."Where is Indonesia? Is it close to Bali?"..Oh my..I was speechless for a moment, trying to find a nice way to explain without insulting. Well I am not gonna explain where and what about Indonesia, I think that explain much of how famous Bali is, the paradise island. Beside its richness of beautiful scenery, Bali is rich of culture, including food. I am lucky to be able to try and enjoy Balinese culinary. One of them is this grilled chicken. I made this for our thanksgiving family dinner, since we are not that keen into turkey.

The original recipe is here, but a little modification was made.

Ingredients:
- 1 whole chicken, cleaned
- 1 pack of ground cassava leaves (app. 200g)
- vegetable oil for sauteeing
- banana leaves for wrapping

Spices to ground:
- 7 big red chilli and 5 chili paddy, adjusted into your preference (I used about 25 chili paddy)
- 8 roasted candle nuts
- 10 cloves of shallot
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 2 tsp fermented shrimp paste
- 1 Tbsp ground coriander
- 2 stalk of lemongrass, chopped
- 1 tsp ground white pepper
- 4cm of galangal, cut
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 5 kaffir lime leaves
- 4cm of ginger, cut
- 1 Tbsp ground kencur
- salt and sugar to taste

Directions:

Grind all of the spices in a blender, and then sautee with a little bit of vegetable oil until fragrant. Cool it off and divide into 2 parts. Mix one part with ground cassava leaves. Stuff it into the chicken cavity. Close the opening with tooth picks. Cover the whole body with the rest of ground spices and stuff it under the skin too. Wrap the chicken with banana leaves. Broil in a preheated oven at 180C for 2-3hours. It may be steamed for 45min prior to broiling to cut off the broiling time into just an hour. Cut and serve with steamed rice.

I would like to share it with my fellow Indonesian foodie for the monthly event masbar.

Steamed-Ground Shrimp Stuffed Tofu - Putting My Palate-Memory into Real

To be frank, not many good Chinese restaurants in Edmonton (or I might not explore much, I would say). One which we often come for a lunch or dinner is Wok King, the one in China town. It is family oriented restaurant, it is not big, only have 6-4 seater tables and 2 or 3 round bigger tables. It ain't fancy either. But what we love about this restaurant is the taste of the foods they serve mostly are close to what we have back home. One of the foods we regularly ordering is this steamed ground shrimp stuffed tofu.

When we were there I tried to memorize the taste and think of what seasoning they put on, and one of these days I had a chance to try to make it at home. And this is what I want to share with you.

Ingredients:
- 3 blocks tofu, cut into rectangular shape (as shown on the pictures)
- 2 green onion

Stuffing:
- 200g shrimp, peeled (I added some ground chicken too)
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 clove of shallot
- 2 tsp of oyster sauce
- 1 tsp of ground white pepper
- 1Tbsp corn starch

Sauce:
- 6Tbsp soy sauce
- 1Tbsp rice wine
- 1Tbsp sesame oil
- 1Tbsp fine granulated sugar

Directions:
In a food processor, process all of the ingredients for stuffing, except corn starch until smooth. Transfer it into a bowl and add the corn starch and mix it well. Scoop out some of the center part of tofu to place the stuffing. Place the stuffing at the center of tofu, then steam it for 45minutes.
While waiting, prepare the sauce by mixing all of the ingredients for sauce. Warm it up in a microwave for 40seconds to allow the sugar to be easily dissolved.
To serve, place the steamed tofu on a serving plate, pour the sauce over and sprinkle some freshly cut green onion.

And score!