Pandan Chicken, a must order food whenever we visit a Thai restaurant. Juicy pieces of chicken meat individually wrapped with a pandan leaves, secured with a toothpick to seal it in. Make it small bite size, good for party finger food. Kids will definitely loves this too as the chicken meat will have a strong fragrant pandan leaves smell.
I prefer to make smaller bite size for easier to cook.
Ingredients (served 2-3): about 14-16pcs
1 piece boneless chicken breast (cut into smaller pieces about 3cm length. OR
1 whole chicken leg - debone & cut into pieces
Marinade :
1 tsp tumeric powder
2 shallots (finely minced)
1 small piece of ginger about 3cm x 2cm (finely minced) 1 stalk lemongrass -white part only (finely minced)
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp soy sauce
dash of pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fish sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp coconut milk
Enough pandan (screwpine) leaves for wrapping the chicken meat. 1 piece meat : 1 leave
some toothpicks
Step By Step:
1. Marinate cut chicken meat with marinade ingredients. Mix thoroughly with a spoon. (Tumeric powder will leave a yellow colour stain on your fingernails & fingers)
2. Set aside & keep in the fridge. Leave it overnight. (If really short of time, at least marinate for 4 hrs in the fridge)
3. Then, time to wrap the chicken. Wash & clean the pandan leaves.
4. Put a piece of chicken onto the pandan leave end & roll it tighly to the other end. (Here you will use about 1/2 piece of pandan leave) Hold tight & secure the end with a toothpick.
5. Another way of wrapping the chicken - use whole piece of pandan leave, tie a knot, before you pull hard to form a knot, push in the chicken meat into the hole of the knot, once the chicken is inside, then pull hard. Cut off excess pandan leaves on both sides. (This way will use more pandan leaves)
6. I'm not using a lot oil to fry it here as I don't want to keep so much of leftover oil here. Pandan leaves & tumeric will leave the oil with a bit of yellow colouring after frying. Therefore I need to flip the chicken & make sure its fully cooked. Fried until chicken turn golden colour. Do not overfry it, or else the meat will turn out dry & hard.
7. Once chicken is cooked, put cooked chicken on kitchen towel to absorb any excess oil.
8. Serve it hot.
(updated 14/4/2020) Alternatively you can use air fryer to cook.
1. Brush some oil on the pandan leaves surface just before airfrying.
2. Set 175c for 6 mins.
3. Flip to another sides. Brush oil as well on the other sides.
4. Another 175c for 6 mins. It’s done.
Hope you like this recipe. Try it today. Happy Cooking.