Kam Heong Chicken (Stir-fried chicken in dried prawn and curry leaf sauce)

As promised for the last two weeks, Kam Heong Chicken for the home chef! I do not know how to translate it per se but the description would be Stir-fried chicken in a dried prawn and curry leaf sauce. Anyway, I was enchanted by the taste of it all from home and from the once famous Special Zone 1997 restaurant in London that now has phased out the ever famous dish that us Malaysians order when we head there. So researching for the perfect recipe was quite daunting as not many do know what goes into it. But I found one and loosely based on the recipe, I came up with my own version:

Ingredients:

The sauce:

200gms dried prawns - soaked in warm water

8 small shallots or 3 medium sized ones - skin removed

8 cloves of garlic - skin removed

1/2 bowl of curry leaves

6 bird's eye chillies - stems removed

3 tbsp oil

2 heaping tbsp curry powder

The chicken marinade:

2 tbsp oyster sauce

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp cornflour

Method:

1. Firstly marinade the chicken and set aside for 30 minutes. The longer the better.
2. In a blender or a mini chopper, place the pre-soaked dried prawns with some water, shallots, garlic and chillies and blend into a rough a paste. That means not to a pulp but you can still see rough pieces of prawn, shallots, garlic and chillies.
3. Next heat up a small frying pan with the oil before adding the paste for frying. Add in the curry leaves and curry powder and continue stir-frying until oil comes out from the mixture and becomes fragrant. Switch off the fire and set aside.
4. Prepare some oil to deep fry the chicken. There won't be any crust of course when deep frying. Just enough to make sure the chicken is covered and can be cooked through.
5. Place on a kitchen towel to absorb excess oil and then slice into bite size pieces.
6. On a separate pan, heat up some of the sauce with oil and toss in the chicken. Stir until finely coated and combined.
7. Serve with piping hot rice and vegetables on the side.

This is how the sauce would look like!

Easy as can be! Next on the chopping board, Sausage Rolls ala Innovative Baker!

The Innovative Baker