Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Lemongrass Chicken

This is an easy and fast recipe that I used frequently for BBQ or grilling besides the usual satays for potlucks or gatherings. What I like about this recipe is that I can grill it in the oven even though it's more traditional to grill it on open charcoal burner. Living in apartment is not that easy so, oven is the only option but sometimes I tend to overdo it until the whole kitchen turned smoky just to get that chargrill effects :-D

You can serve sliced cucumber and satay sauce with this recipe if you want. Coleslaw tastes great too - kind of giving you crunchy, sweet and sour tastes with extra lemongrass flavour. It's also delicious with plain rice, coconut rice, Bryani Rice, fried rice and stir-fried noodles. It's one of those easy accompaniment recipes that won't go wrong and the usage of lemongrass sticks as pincers to hold the juicy chicken meats added extra topic to talk about in your gatherings :-)


*This is how the halved lemongrass looked like with the cooked meat in between.

Lemongrass Chicken
Serves 2-4

500 g Chicken breast meats
3 Tbl Honey
2 Tbl Light Soya Sauce
1 tsp Fresh Turmeric - grind/pound finely
Salt to taste
Enough Lemongrass for grilling chicken meat

Method:
1. Washed the chicken meat thoroughly and cut each piece into 2-3 portions. Pat the meat dry with kitchen paper. Set aside in a bowl.
2. In another small bowl, mix well the honey, light soya sauce and grounded fresh turmeric.
3. Pour the marinate into the prepared chicken meat and let the meat marinate for 1 hour.
4. Preparing the lemongrass sticks for grilling: Wash the lemongrass sticks. Split the lemongrass sticks into half about 1 inch from the root end (white part) but not all the way through the tip (green part). This is to make sure you have a space in the center of the lemongrass to hold (to pinch) pieces of meat and the other end to hold and turn the meat when grilling.
Note: If the lemongrass is larger and longer, you can add in extra meat instead of 1 piece per lemongrass stick.
5. Insert the marinated a piece meat (or more) between the halved lemongrass sticks.
6. Grill the meat until it's cooked. You can use the BBQ set to grill or in the oven at 200 ºC for 15-20 minutes or until it's cooked to your preference. Don't forget to turn on both sides (that's where the uncut portion of the lemongrass comes in handy).

Tip:
Sometimes, I don't use so much of lemongrass to hold pieces of meat for grilling. It could be expensive to buy and it may not be easily available in certain areas. What I did was cut 2-3 lemongrass sticks into halves all the way through and lightly crushed them. Mixed together with the chicken meat and marinate. If you want intense lemongrass flavour, marinate longer than 1 hour (I usually prepared it a day ahead) then you grill as usual. You can leave the crushed lemongrass sticks to grill together with the meat or use bamboo skewers to skew the pieces of meat before grilling.

If you have only dried lemongrass, I suggest that you mix into the marinate first. Let the dried lemongrass soak up some moisture before marinate the chicken meat. The flavour is less pronounce than fresh lemongrass, of course. If you can find fresh lemongrass, try to grow left overs in a pot. Let them grow some roots first in some clean water. Change the water every couple of days until they developed strong roots before planting them into ground or pots. Just beware that when lemongrass finds favourable condition to grow, they may outgrown other plants.

Enjoy!

25 comments:

  1. I've never had lemon grass before although I've seen it often in recipes. I google searched it to find out more and I realized that I have it in my cupboard as a dried herb (Hierba Luisa). In Greece we just call it Luisa and it is usually used as a tea which helps loosing weight. I can imagine that your chicken must have a lovely taste.

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  2. Thanks for visiting! Nice to find another Malaysian here.. you mentioned you 'used to live in Msia', where are you now??

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  3. Hi Pixen,

    Your note was a joy to me, and was so precious.

    I wrote a post to you.

    Best,
    Banu

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  4. The way you wrapped the lemongrass around the chicken is so creative and beautiful. I have never seen it done like that and it opens my brain to new possibilities1 Thanks so much. This is a great blog. GREG

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  5. Thank you for visiting my site. I came to return the favor but was struck by what a lovely blog you have. I'll be back often.

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  6. I love the addition of lemongrass in poultry dishes :D

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  7. Your recipe has reminded me of the 2 lemongrass sticks in my fridge. Your food presentation is awesome!

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  8. Ola kala Ivy!

    Yes, Lemongrass is known as Hierba Luisa, Indian Verbena or Yerba Luisa (Peruvian). Hierba sounds like Spanish for Herb/Herbal I think. Indeed it's used as tisane. I like it as tisane as well. I usually smashed few sticks and boiled with rock sugar or honey. It's great for digestion as well. The smell of lemongrass is refreshing around the house :-D I hope you can try to find some fresh ones in Asian stores - I think best bet in Indian or Thai shops.

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  9. I love the flavor of lemongrass and I think you're right, it is great with chicken. Love your recipe.

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  10. HI Tigerfish - Lemongrass adds a refreshing taste not only to poultry but meat and seafood as well. Sometimes, I wonder how such herb made huge difference of taste in our daily cuisine. It's amazing!

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  11. Hi Mary - thank you so much for visiting my blog. I'm looking forward to see you try out some of the recipes and feedbacks.

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  12. Hi Greg @ SipitySoup - Thank you for visiting me :-) You know what? I'm going to try out your recipe for homemade mustard! Problem is to find the Yellow ones but will try!

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  13. FoodForTots! Great to see you again. I just use 2 small sticks left from my recipe. I made hot Lemongrass tea with honey for cold and rainy weather.

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  14. Salut Laura,

    Lemongrass is a versatile plant. It's used not only in culinary world but also as traditional medicine. Try fresh lemongrass on seafood, it not only create different dimension to the taste but also get rid of unwanted fishy smell :-) I used frequently with meat like sanglier. Lemongrass is incredible with Satay too. I made Sanglier Satay before... with Peanut Sauce and Mango Chutney :-D

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  15. This sounds like a really good recipe. I love your food presentation too. Tks for visiting me, glad to find your food blog :)

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  16. Oh gosh, I love, love, love lemongrass. It works great in everything!

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  17. Thank you so much for your beautiful & encouraging words. It means a whole lot to me...my blog in only a few months old, & I take inspirations from all around. This is the first time i saw your blog & you yourself have some amazing recipes there!!Everyone of them are different & Unique!! I have subscribed to your feed. With 2 little kids I do not always get time to leave comments, but I do read the feeds i have subscribed at my own time..


    To make shrikhand all you actually need is Plain Yogurt & Sweetener, sugar being most commonly used. The saffron & cardamom are the traditional flavoring used, but any fruit (mango, strawberry, etc), any kind of flavoring,even vanilla may be used, even tho it might not that exotic.
    Again thank you so much for visiting me & sorry to take up so much of your comment space.

    hugs to you

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  18. Thanks for visiting, Pixen.
    You've got a good thing going here too - Chicken looks amazing; anything lemony always does!

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  19. Yum. Lemon grass and turmeric is quite nice on chicken. The fragrance of fresh lemongrass is so enticing.

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  20. this reminded me of a shop i used to buy my lemongrass chicken in. it closed down acouple years a go and i miss it. now im going to make this according to this recipe

    thanks

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  21. Hi Soma ~ Thank you for the tips! I agreed that vanilla in Shrikhand is a bit queer but I spare it for emergency use! How about Kewra?

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  22. Hi gkbloodsugar - thank you for visiting too... Yep, lemony or citrusy tastes always welcome in any types of ingredients. I always pounced on them when there's a good price and really cheap sales for citruses; mostly Limes and Kaffir Limes.

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  23. Hi Jude - yep, the combination gave a 'golden' tinge to the chicken and the lemongrass creates appetite... for me that is LOL.

    Hello Recipe Man - thank you for visiting... don't forget to plant some leftover lemongrass. They sure grow fast in right condition.

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  24. Thanks for your comment on my Blog! And for all the lovely savoury dish recipes you are sharing, I will be back to get some ideas since I don't invent many of my own savoury dishes, only sugar filled ones ;o)

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  25. Hi PeasePudding... I love your sugar laden blog LOL I wished I could bake as good as you :-)

    I still do nursery rhymes about Peasepudding to my 3 year old :-)

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I really appreciate foodies who took their precious time visiting my blog, leaving encouraging comments and suggestions to help me not only improving my blog but also my skills. Thank you very, very, very much from my heart for your kind attention. Whether you're a professional chefs, enthusiasts, foodies or novice like me, please do leave a comment or two even if you don't speak or write English, I can use translator right? I don't earn any income from comments but I do earned lots of new friends :-D You're welcome anytime to my humble lab :-P

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