Ayam Goreng

Ayam Goreng is the Indonesian-Malaysian version of the popular fried chicken that we get from KFC. The difference is that small village, free-roaming chooks were used to cook because they are tastier than their bigger commercial chicken counterparts.

The chicken pieces are soaked and marinated in spice mixture for some time prior to frying, in order for the chicken to absorb the spices. The spice mixture, which may vary among regions, consists of a combination of ground shallot, garlic, Indian bay leaves, turmeric, lemongrass, tamarind juice, candlenut, galangal, salt and sugar.

The chicken is then deep fried in hot coconut oil. It is then served with steamed rice, sambal terasi (chili with shrimp paste) or sambal kecap (sliced chili and shallot in sweet soy sauce) as a dipping sauce or condiment and slices of cucumber and tomato for garnish. Fried tempeh and tofu might be added as side dishes.

There are many variations of this dish and among the popular ones are ayam goreng lengkuas (galangal fried chicken), Padang-style ayam goreng, Sundanese hayam goreng, Jakarta-style ayam goreng, Javanese ayam goreng kalasan, ayam goreng kremes.

The East Javanese pecel ayam is actually an ayam goreng served with sambal. Another Javanese variant is ayam goreng penyet, penyet is Javanese word for "squeezed" since the fried chicken is served in earthenware mortar upon sambal and squeezed with pestle to mix it with sambal. In Indonesia and Malaysia various style of foreign fried chicken is often also called as ayam goreng. Common Southern United States fried chicken is often called ayam goreng tepung or flour-battered or breaded fried chicken.