by Lidya Sin

Created on: September 12, 2009

Chicken is perhaps the most versatile and economical meat, and widely available. There are many ways to cook a chicken and roasting it is one of the most practical and delicious ways to serve it.

Roast chicken doesn't need to be boring if you know how to combine spices and seasonings. Make your own marinate instead of buy the instant or premade one and you can serve a roast chicken with unique flavor.

Here is the recipe for my favorite chicken roast, Indonesian style. I've tweaked the recipe so that the ingredients are more familiar, complete with the replacement if you can't found it, but of course, it will not taste the same. Replacing the ingredients with lose its South East Asian flavor and make it more Oriental, but it's still delicious in its own way.

Sweet and Sour Tropical Chicken Roast

Ingredients:

- 1 chicken

- 4 tbsp of butter/ margarine, melted

- 3 tbsp soy sauce (It'll be better to use sweet soy sauce if you can find any. Omit the sugar if you use sweet soy sauce)

- 2 French shallots (replace with spring onions if you can't find any. However it is strongly recommended that you don't replace it.)

- 1 clove of garlic

- 2 red chilies, seeded. (or to your taste, reduce if you don't like spicy food)

- 1 tsp peppercorns

- 1 tbsp palm sugar/ muscovado sugar. (replace with brown sugar if you can't found any)

- 1 tsp salt

- 2 tsp tamarind paste, dissolve with 30 ml of water (replace with 50 ml of pineapple juice if you cant find any.)

- 1 tsp shrimp paste (optional, some people doesn't like the smell. There is really no replacement for shrimp paste. Just omit it all together.)

- 1 tsp lime juice.

How to:

1. Cut the chicken into 4 or 6 pieces.

2. Process the remaining ingredients except melted butter and soy sauce in blender or food processor until smooth.

3. Mixed the paste with the melted butter and soy sauce.

4. Coat the chicken with the seasonings well, and marinate for a minimum of 3 hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.

5. Heat the oven. Put the chicken to the overproof dish and cover with aluminum foil.

6. Roast the chicken for 60 to 90 minutes. Every two minutes, turn over the chicken and coat with the marinate. For the last 10 minutes, open the foil to dry the chicken and make the skin crispier. If you want softer, juicier chicken you can keep the foil closed.

7. Sprinkle with chopped parsley for decoration and serve with hot rice.

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