Deep fried chicken legs with savoury sticky rice
Normally for female chefs it’s very hard to get promotion and near impossible in my home country but no matter how hard you work men always seem to get the promotions first. So after I left college I worked as a chef for a period of time but couldn’t go anywhere with it and gave it up for a few years. Then I moved to the UK in 2007 and found I could get a job as a chef fairly easily and have gone on from since then.
During my time in the UK I have worked in two really top quality restaurants and a number of lesser quality restaurants but as some may now getting promoted as a chef takes time. So, I joined the Witchery in March of this year and after six months I have a promotion. When I was told I have it I nearly danced across the kitchen and almost cried my eyes out but I was afraid he would think I’m a lunatic.
So, it’s now time for me to share a new recipe with you. I saw this “Deep fried chicken leg with savoury sticky rice” dish a long time ago but I’ve always wanted to try to make this dish and now it’s the time for it.
Even though the cooking method for this dish is deep fry it’s not entirely deep-fried. The chicken legs must steam first to make sure the whole shape has set but then you can deep fry it to make the skin turn crispy. I hope you can try it and give me some feedback.
Ingredients for savoury sticky rice:
2 cups sticky rice, soak with 3 cups of water for 1 hour
300g of pork belly. Remove the skin and cut it into rectangle shape as per the procedure photo.
4 dried shitake mushrooms, soak in warm water to soften it and thin slice it after.
2 tablespoons dried shrimp, soak in warm water to soften it and chop roughly after.
2 slices ginger, chop roughly
2 cloves garlic, chop roughly
1 spring onion, chop roughly
Seasonings for savoury sticky rice:
½ tablespoon rock sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cut soy sauce
1 ½ cup water
1 tablespoon rice wine
Procedures for savoury sticky rice:
- Cook the sticky rice in the steamer or rice cooker. The water and rice percentage should be 0.9: 1. So, if it’s 100g of sticky rice and you should pour 90g of water in the rice to cook with. I, personally use a rice cooker to cook my rice so I put my sticky rice and water in a big bowl and pour a cup of water outside of the bowl to cook. It will take around 45 minutes to cook the rice.
- Heat a wok with 2 tablespoons oil and stir-fry the garlic, ginger, spring onion. Add the rock sugar after the aroma starts to come out of the wok.
- Add pork to stir-fry it until the pork is cooked on the outside.
- Then add shitake mushroom and dried shrimp, mix evenly.
- Add all the seasoning and water. Boil it first then simmer it to reduce down the sauce.
- Mix everything together with cooked sticky rice and pour ¼ teaspoon of sesame oil. This is the savoury sticky rice done.
Ingredients for Deep fry chicken legs with savoury sticky rice:
2 chicken legs, including thighs. De-bone them but we keep the skin.
Some sticky rice
Seasonings for Deep fry chicken legs with savoury sticky rice:
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper powder
½ teaspoon rice wine
Some corn flour
Procedures:
- Marinade the chicken legs with salt, black pepper powder and rice.
- Wrap some sticky rice within the chicken legs and wrap up with cling film. Steam for around 15 minutes.
- After the chicken legs have cooked. Cool it down before you remove the cling film and coat them with corn flour and deep-fry it in 180-degree oil until the ouside is a nice golden colour.
- Cut it into 1.5 cm ~ 2 cm slice to serve with some sweet chilli sauce or ketchup.
* Chicken legs must cool down first before removing the cling film or they will easily break up and cause a problem when deep-frying them.
Credits: Preparation photos were taken by myself but final photos were taken by Chris at: http://www.chrisradleyphotography.com
