ayam isi dibulu

This is one of my favorite homemade food… And finally i asked my mom the recipes during her last stay. Even though it uses a lot of spices, it’s very easy to cook. I need a better picture, though.  It taste better than it looks in this picture…

Ayam Isi Dibulu is a Manadonese dish. Usually, instead of cooking it in a pot, they put all the ingredients inside a hollow of a bamboo and cook it in an open fire (hence, the name of the dish… bulu means bamboo in Manadonese). Even though it taste better when it’s cooked inside a bamboo, it’s much easier using pot and stove…

Ingredients

• 1 whole free-range chicken, cut into medium sized pieces
• 3 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 1 tsp salt
• 10 shallots, ground
• 5 cloves garlic, ground
• 10 red chili, ground — if you want it to be less spicy, take out the seed before grinding
• 1 piece ginger, bruised
• 1 lemon grass, bruised
• 2 lime leaves, finely chopped
• 1 scallion, finely chopped
• 4 basil leaves, finely chopped
• 2 large tomatoes, chopped to large cubes
• 3 tbsp cooking oil

Put the pieces of chicken in a pot. Add salt and lime juice. Marinate for about half an hour to an hour. Then put the rest of the ingredients into the pot (shallots, garlic, red chili, ginger, lemon grass, lime leaves, scallion, basil, tomatoes and the cooking oil). Mix them together.

Cook with medium heat to boil, then simmer in low heat until the chicken is fully cooked. Turn the heat off. Salt to taste.

Serve with hot, plain rice.