Red, Hot, and Cool
Spicy food is something that I personally enjoy eating. It adds life to a lot of dishes, and it speeds up the metabolism. With the growing trend of super-hot spicy noodle challenge or atomic hot sauce, people tend to misunderstand the meaning of spicy. I enjoy heat, but I still want to be able to taste my food. So the recipe I made is a grilled chicken with sambal. It’s a perfect blend of smoky grilled meat, with a layer of spice. The other trick that I like to do when I grill chicken is brining it. It’s a safety net so you don’t overcook the chicken and it doesn’t make the meat dry. You can always adjust the amount of chili and sugar that you put on the sambal, so please feel free to play with it. It’s best paired with a cooling, quick cucumber pickle and white rice.

Spicy Chicken Sambal with Cucumber Salad
Ingredients:
- 500g chicken thigh fillet (skin on)
- 30g canola oil
Brine:
- 1kg water
- 20g salt
- 20g sugar
- 10g chopped garlic
Sambal:
- 30g garlic, peeled
- 30g onion
- 10g ginger
- 100g chili labuyo
- 20g chili powder
- 10g galangal
- 10g lime juice
- 30g canola oil
- 10g shrimp paste
- 10g palm sugar
- white rice
- cucumber pickle
- 20 pcs bamboo skewers (soaked in water)
Cucumber Pickle:
- 200g cucumber (peeled and seeds removed), cut into 1-inch dice
- 50g red onion, sliced
- 5g garlic, chopped
- 1 pc chili labuyo, sliced
- 50g distilled white vinegar
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 10g sugar (optional)
Procedure:
- Cut chicken into 2-inch cubes, make sure to leave the skin on.
- To make the brine, dissolve salt and sugar then add the garlic into the water. Once salt and sugar are dissolved, soak the chicken for 3 hours (place this inside the chiller).
- To make the sambal, place all ingredients in a food processor except for the lime juice and canola oil. blend into a roughly chopped consistency.
- In a sauté pan, add oil and the chili mixture. Sauté over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the oil turns red. Turn off heat and stir in the lime juice. Let completely cool before using.
- For the cucumber pickle, mix everything together and let it sit in the chiller for 30 minutes before serving.
- To cook the brined chicken, preheat your grill to a medium high heat. While preheating, remove chicken from brine solution, rinse with cold water and pat dry to remove moisture. Skewer the chicken and brush it with canola oil.
- Place the skewered chicken on the grill and cook it for 5 minutes per side. Brush it with sambal then char over high heat for 1 minute or less.
- Serve straight away with pickled cucumbers and hot rice.
Let me know how you made your version of this recipe and hit me up or follow me on Facebook (Chef Bruce Lim) and Instagram (@chef_bruce_lim). Enjoy!
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