Kampong Chicken

What is Kampong chicken?

Literally, kampong means village in Malay Language. In Singapore or Malaysia, Kampong Chicken refers to free-range or cage free chickens, which are allowed to run around in a kampong (village). But, nowadays, it’s not easy to find the Kampong chicken in Singapore because the government banned free range chicken raising after the 2006 bird flu. So, I am happy to have it once a while when I was in Malaysia.

I believe that kampong chicken is a happier and healthier bird. The birds are bred freely and doing more ‘exercise’. I have seen factory farming before, the birds are kept in tiny cages and have been forced fed to fatten them up, and even worse, injected growth hormone.

My mum-in-law has cooked it in a healthy way, steam. This is the best way to maintain the original flavour and taste of the chicken.

You can see from the picture, the chicken is not so fleshy and oily compare to normal chicken. The flesh is firmer and not yellowish because it has less fat. Its meat has a better texture, less fat and is much chewy. And by the way, don’t forget the gravy, it has all the essence of the goodness.

I would like to share the recipe here with you.

Steamed Kampong chicken

Recipes:
Served for 4-6 persons
Ingredients:
1 Kampong chicken 1.5kg
2 tbp Salt
1 L boiled water

Directions:
Clean the chicken’s inner part. Rub chicken inside and out with salt, then rinse.
Put the chicken in a deep bowl, and steam it with boiled water.
Steam it for 20 minutes if it is fresh from wet market (steam for 40minutes if it is defrost)

Well, don’t forget prepare the chilli sauce for it.

Chilli sauce
Ingredients:
20 fresh chilli
1 lemon
1tbp soya sauce


Directions:
Rinse the fresh chilli, cut to half and remove the seeds.
Make sure the chilli is dry before you grind it.
You can store it in a bottle and fridge it.
Take the quantity you need to serve, squeeze a lemon, and add soya sauce in it.

Variation:
Besides lemon, you can also mix the chilli sauce with grind ginger