Vietnamese Style Baked Chicken

This is truly a finger-licking good chicken dish. Vietnamese Style Baked Chicken using Sambal Oelek, fish sauce and chopped cilantro as marinade . What a great combo of ingredients for this marinade. First I have to make the Sambal Oelek and I googled for this Indonesian style sambal. Love the aroma of this flavor packed sambal as I was cooking it. After cooking it, I proceeded to make the marinade for this delicious baked chicken , adding chopped cilantro and fish sauce , after which I marinated the chicken thighs and drumsticks for 3 hours .  Seared the marinated chicken meat on a cast iron skillet for 10 mins, 5 mins on each side, on high heat then put the cast iron pan with the seared meat into the oven and baked for 35 mins at 200C.    This is an easy to prepare dish and will have your family loving it.  You can prepare the sambal oelek a day before and store in jar .  This sambal oelek is great for marinade as well as for cooking anchovies for Coconut Milk Rice ( Nasi Lemak )  

This delicious Vietnamese Style Baked Chicken is a keeper no doubt. If you don't have a cast iron pan , you can bake it straight on a baking pan. Baking time will take extra 10 mins meaning 45 mins instead of 35 mins.  For this recipe , I used the chicken legs cut into 2 portions.

love cooking in cast iron pan,

simply because it can take high heat

great for cooking meat

you can serve on the cast iron pan if you

like :)

marinade consists of sambal oelek, chopped cilantro and

fish sauce, marinate it for at least 30 mins to 3 hours

the most important ingredient ...the Sambal Oelek

Sambal Oelek recipe
(A)
10 pieces fresh red chillies
5 pieces bird's eye chillies
2 stalk of lemongrass(white part)
1 head garlic
1 thumb sized ginger
(B)
2 tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
1 tsp Lime zest
3 tbsp vinegar or lime juice
salt to taste

5 tbsp of cooking oil

Method:
Blend (A) together into paste
Heat up oil and saute (A) paste till fragrant, add in (B) and continue cooking till all ingredients are combined. Off heat and let cool. 


Marinade Sauce for 2 chicken legs
(A) - mix all the ingredients together till well blended



1 tbsp of sambal oelek
2 tbsp of chopped cilantro
2 tbsp of fish sauce
1 tsp of lime juice
1 tsp of finely grated lime zest
2 cloves of grated garlic
1 tsp of palm sugar

Method:
Marinate the chicken meat with the marinating sauce for at least 30 mins or 3 hours.
Seared the marinated chicken meat on a cast iron skillet for 10 mins, 5 mins on each side, on high heat then put the cast iron pan with the seared meat into the oven and baked for 35 mins at 200C.