Proust's "episode of the madeleine" is often mentioned when people talk about food memories: the dish, meal or smell that takes us straight back in time and makes us pine with nostalgia. While the experience Proust describes is near-universal, I'd argue that we also have one chicken dish that always reminds us of home. For many in the UK, that will be the classic roast chicken, but my own chicken epiphany – or "episode of the bird" – took place a long way from the Sunday lunch table, in a hawker centre in Penang, Malaysia. It was asimple dish of Hainanese chicken rice, in which the bird is poached with ginger and spring onion, yet it's the one against which I've since compared all chicken dishes.
As with many memories, details have a habit of getting exaggerated, and the list of Asian ingredients I now use with chicken has been similarly embellished: palm sugar, garlic, chilli, lemongrass, tamarind, kaffir lime leaves, Chinese five spice and star anise all now vie for a place with my bird. But the background notes of ginger and spring onion are always there, too, and take me right back to that stall in Penang.
Twice-cooked chicken with choisum
Choi sum is now sold in many supermarkets, but you can use broccolini instead – if so, before adding it to the wok, blanch for two minutes, refresh in cold water and pat dry. It is essential to marinate the chicken at least overnight, or you won't get the full impact of the soy and spices. Serves four.
1½ tbsp Chinese five spice
2 tbsp soy sauce
1½ tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp maple syrup
Shaved skin of ½ orange
Salt
8 chicken thighs, skin-on and on the bone
600ml vegetable oil
3.5cm piece ginger, peeled and julienned
1 large chilli, deseeded and julienned
2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
6 kaffir lime leaves, finely chopped
400g choi sum, stems cut in half lengthways, leaves cut on an angle into6cm pieces
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 lime, quartered, to serve
Mix the first five ingredients in abowl with half a teaspoon of salt. Add the chicken, mix with your hands to coat, cover and marinate in the fridge for one to two nights.
Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Spread the chicken thighs out in a large, high-sided baking tray, adding all the marinade. Cover with foil and roast for 30-35 minutes, until just cooked. Remove, leave to cool slightly, then strain all the cooking liquid through a sieve into a small saucepan – you should have 150-200ml – and place on ahigh heat. Bring the liquid to a boil and simmer for five to six minutes, until only 75ml remains. Set aside until ready to serve.
Put a medium, high-sided saucepan on a high heat with all but a tablespoon of the oil – it should come about 4cm up the sides of the pan. Once hot, add half the chicken thighs and fry for three minutes, turning halfway through so they go golden brown on both sides. Lift out with a slotted spoon on to a plate lined with kitchen paper, and repeat with the remaining chicken. Keep warm until ready to serve.
Put a wok (or large saucepan) on amedium-high heat. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil and, once hot, the ginger, chilli and garlic. Cook for two minutes, stirring constantly, until the garlic is golden brown. Add the kaffir lime leaves, choi sum, oyster sauce and aquarter-teaspoon of salt, and cook for two minutes, stirring once or twice. Remove from the heat and divide between the plates. Pour over the reduction and lay two chicken thighs and a wedge of lime on top of each portion. Serve at once.
Roast chicken with plums, prunes and potatoes
Lovely with lots of crusty white bread to mop up the juices. Serves three to six, depending on how hungry you are.
670g Charlotte potatoes, peeled and cut into 3cmchunks
20g thyme sprigs
7cm piece ginger, peeled and grated
18 dried prunes, pitted
2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
75ml soy sauce
3 tbsp muscovado sugar
7 whole star anise
6 chicken legs (thigh and drumstick attached), skin lightly scored
6 large plums, pitted and quartered
Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil, add the potatoes and cook for 10 minutes, until almost done. Drain, refresh under cold water and shake dry, then transfer to abowl and add all the remaining ingredients apart from the plums. Mix with your hands, massaging thesauce into the chicken, then cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for at least four hours, though preferably overnight.
Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. In a high-sided baking tray, spread out the chicken pieces skin side up, and add all the marinade, vegetables, prunes and herbs. Cover tightly with tin foil and roast for 30 minutes. Remove, discard the foil and stir in the plums, basting the chicken as you do so; roast for afurther 40-45 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has reduced to about 200ml. Leave to rest and cool for five minutes before serving.
Satay chicken
This will give you more satay sauce than you need, butit keeps well in the fridge. Use on raw shredded vegetable salads – white cabbage, carrots and iceberg lettuce all love it – or on white meat,tofu or grilled oily fish. With thanks to Helen Goh, for the peanut butter-less sauce. Makes eight skewers, to serve four.
4 garlic cloves, peeled
30g coriander stalks, roughly chopped, plus 10g leaves
7cm piece galangal (or ginger), peeled and roughly chopped
3 sticks lemongrass, tough outer leaves removed and discarded, finely chopped
3 medium shallots, peeled and chopped
3½ tbsp sambal oelek
100ml vegetable oil
8 skinless and boneless chicken thighs, cut in half lengthways
3 tbsp soy sauce
60g palm sugar (finely grated if taken from a block)
Salt
8 skewers (if wooden, soaked in water for an hour)
170g unsalted peanuts
40g piece tamarind from a block (or 6tbsp ready-made tamarind paste)
¾ tsp paprika
150ml coconut milk
1½ tsp lime juice
2 limes, quartered, to serve
Put the garlic, coriander stalks, galangal, lemongrass, shallots and two and a half tablespoons of sambal oelek in a food processor. Add a tablespoon of oil and blitz to a smooth, aromatic paste. Transfer aquarter of the paste to a bowl and add the chicken, a tablespoon of soy sauce, the remaining sambal oelek, ateaspoon of palm sugar and half a teaspoon of salt. Mix to combine, cover and refrigerate for at least four hours, ideally overnight. Put the remaining paste in a separate container, cover and set aside.
Heat the oven to 140C/285F/gas mark 1. Spread the peanuts on amedium baking tray and roast for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. Leave to cool a little, then tip intoafood processor and blitz a few times – you want the texture to beslightly rougher than that of ground almonds. Transfer to a smallsaucepan, add 250ml of water and bring to a boil. Turnthe heat to medium-low, then simmer gently for15 minutes, stirring often, until it has the consistency of thick porridge. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Put the block of tamarind in a bowl with 100ml of boiling water and set aside to soak. Once cool enough to handle, squeeze the pulp into the water, so it forms athick paste. Strain, discard the seeds and set aside.
Put a medium saucepan on amedium-low heat with 75ml of oil and the reserved spice paste. Fry very gently for 40-45 minutes, stirring a few times, until cooked through and aromatic. Add the peanut mix, tamarind paste, paprika, coconut milk, lime juice, the remaining soy and palm sugar, and a teaspoon of salt. Stir to combine, then set aside.
Put two pieces of chicken on to each skewer and turn the grill to its highest setting. Wrap the ends of the skewers with tin foil (to stop them burning), brush the meat with the remaining oil and place on a wire rack on top of a foil-lined tray. Grill for 18 minutes, turning once halfway through, until the chicken is cooked through, golden brown and caramelised. Put two skewers on each plate and sprinkle with the coriander leaves. Serve at once, with the warm sauce alongside and a wedge of lime to squeeze on top.
Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.
His new book, Plenty More, is published by Ebury at £27. To order a copy for £17, go to theguardian.com/bookshop.
Follow Yotam on Twitter.
