How to cook Assam Pedas Ayam (Assam Chicken) in 30 minutes

Asam Pedas or sour and spicy tamarind stew dish. Popular in Indonesia and Malaysia, this gravy can be added onto fish, prawns or chicken and can be a very satisfying one pot dish with just plain rice. Any left-over gravy can be heated up with squid or spread over pan fried fish.

Assam "anything" is one of the current favourites within the Thermomix community. Everyone is cooking assam something and even customers having Thermomix cook together sessions are requesting to cook assam. Since I only have chicken in the fridge, I had to cook an all chicken dinner (鸡鸡大餐) tonight. Dinner is herbal chicken soup, assam pedas ayam (a.k.a assam chicken) and stir fried vegetables with black fungus. With the Thermomix , it is really easy to manage 3 dishes within 1 hour to feed the hungry folks who keep coming into the kitchen asking when dinner will be ready. 

I made my assam paste, then added the chicken in the simmering basket to cook it the same time as the assam gravy. After my assam chicken is done, I did a quick Thermomix 8-minute stir-fry because my kids only eat veggies stir-fried by the Thermomix nowadays. So pampered right.

Ingredients

• 300-500g meat (could be seafood, chicken) I used boneless chicken thigh cut into cubes
• 1 whole tomato, quartered
• A few lady's fingers cut diagonally
• 50g tamarind mixed with 100g water (remove the seeds)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar 

Paste ingredients

• 100g shallots
• 30g garlic
• 20g lemongrass white part
• 10g fresh tumeric
• 10g belachan paste
• 20 dried chilli soaked (or fewer if you prefer it less spicy) (optional to de-seed)
• 50g oil
• 30g water 

Directions for Thermomix cooking

1. Chop the paste ingredients <10 sec, speed 10, MC cup on>
2. Saute the paste ingredients with the chicken cut into pieces and place into the simmering basket to cook <15min, varoma, speed 1, MC cup on>
3. Remove the simmering basket and the chicken
4. Fix the butterfly (for more tender meat cuts like my chicken thigh), add the chicken, tomato and lady's fingers and the tamarind juice, salt and sugar to cook <5min, varoma, reverse, speed stir>
5. Remove the vegetables and place onto a dish
6. Continue to cook for another 5-10 minutes depending on the quantity of meat <5-10min, varoma, reverse, speed stir>
7. Serve hot with plain rice 

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