Merryn’s Ayam Pongteh

Pounder

I am currently experimenting with different recipes to make my meal prep taste better and I have found a winner. This is the reigning champion – my current favorite! Ayam pongteh is a Nyonya dish made with taucu (fermented soy beans). It has a very distinctive taste that I like. I used the base recipe from Merryn and modified it according to my taste buds. This is for 8 portions:

  • 2.5 kg chicken legs
  • 0.5 kg chicken breast
  • 6 shallots
  • 10 garlic cloves
  • 1 cup taucu
  • 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 4 tbsp palm sugar
  • Potatoes
  • 6 cups water

Fry Garlic

I had to get a pounder for this. You need to slice the garlic and shallots into manageable pieces and pound it to extract the flavor and increase the surface area of the aromatics. You also need a medium to fry them in.

Taucu

I used the chicken skin from the breast meat – you can get a small amount of grease from it. The original recipe has oil but I’m cutting down on excess calories so mine just uses a minimal amount which is skimmed out of the gravy later. You need some agent to fry the minced garlic and shallots.

Pongteh Paste

Next you add in the taucu, light + dark soy, and palm sugar. You might need to break it up into smaller pieces first if it comes in block form. You fry this entire mixture for 30 seconds or so until it forms a sticky paste. You can literally see it bind and bubble up when that happens.

Chicken Arrange

Next I arrange the chicken legs into my rice cooker (you can use a pot, I just don’t have one big enough) with the potatoes on top and pour in the mixture. Add in 6 cups of water and you’re set!

Chicken Pongteh

I didn’t put in the breast meat coz I don’t want to overcook them. I wait until the chicken leg is done cooking (up to your standards when that happens) and take them out before dunking in the breast part into the gravy. I don’t cook my chicken breast long since it goes through a reheating process which dries it up if overcooked. I usually just leave it in for a minute or two and finish up in the microwave when I eat it.

Ayam Pongteh

This is really delicious! I’m a huge fan of it and I can’t wait to prepare it again coz I was the happiest guy eating this compared to other meal preps. My next prep will be chicken curry, let’s see if that can topple this one as my favorite meal! I suspect not coz I like sweet gravy in my meals. I made a lot for this but stored it separately, to add to the containers when I heat it up.

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4 thoughts on “Merryn’s Ayam Pongteh”

  1. Haha, I thought you gonna give up halfway as it does require quite a lot of preparation to cook this dish. Well done Huai Bin. Now you can try to impress any Nyonya ladies out there 😀

    Reply
    • I enjoy cooking! Haha! I’m trying to expand my repertoire coz I eat my own cooking every day in the form of meal prep. I recently did a curry which I really enjoyed too. I’m going to try chicken tikka masala next but I’m not sure if it can keep very long. Thanks Merryn!

      Reply
    • Haha! Ya, it’s a really cheap one I got from Mr DIY. My favorite new store. They only have one size though, which is a little inconvenient.

      Reply

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