Maritime Southeast Asia · Volume 49, The Monopoly, the Monsoon Line and a Border Still Drawn
Ayam taliwang dengan plecing kangkung
Lombok
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Lombok. Charred, spiced grilled chicken and its water-spinach sambal, born of a peace settlement between two kingdoms and popularised by one market trader in the 1960s.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. Marinate 1 hour, grill 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, spatchcocked
- 10 shallots, charred
- 5 cloves garlic, charred
- 4 large red chillies, charred
- 6 curly red chillies, charred
- 5 candlenuts, toasted
- 1 tsp shrimp paste, charred
- 1 tbsp palm sugar, 1 tsp salt palm sugar, salt
- 300 g water spinach (kangkung)
- 1 tomato, 1 tsp extra shrimp paste, 5 chillies, 1 lime tomato, extra shrimp paste, chilli and lime, for the plecing sambal
Method
- Char the shallot, garlic, large and curly chillies and shrimp paste hard, direct over flame or in a very hot dry pan, until genuinely blackened in patches, not merely coloured.
- Grind the charred aromatics with the toasted candlenut, palm sugar and salt to a paste.
- Rub the chicken with the paste, reserving some for basting, and marinate at least 1 hour.
- Grill over coals, basting repeatedly with the reserved paste, until browned and cooked through. Judge doneness visually, as the tradition does, rather than by a stated time.
- For the plecing sambal: steam or boil chilli and tomato until wilted, then grind with garlic, shrimp paste, salt and a little palm sugar.
- Soak the kangkung in salted water at least 30 minutes, boil briefly, then shock in iced water and drain. Dress with the sambal and a squeeze of lime.
What a modern chef changes
Char and heat, controlled rather than left to the fire.
Rung 1.
Method
- Cook the chicken sous vide first, low and precise, then finish hard and fast on a Big Green Egg run direct, separating “cooked through” from “charred outside” into two controlled stages rather than one compromise over open coals.
- Char the plecing sambal's chilli and tomato over open flame rather than steaming them, applying Rung 1's discipline to the sambal as well as the chicken's own paste.
- Blanch the kangkung in the high-power blender's steam attachment or a very fast boil, timed to the second, so its bite survives the iced shock rather than softening before it gets there.