Penang sizzling chicken: tender chicken flavored with belacan, served hot on the platter
I love sizzling platters because they give the meat a hearty grilled flavor and ensure that the food is quite hot. Also, the aesthetics of a bubbling sauce excites me. (Kind of like how I still enjoy those volcano shows made from onion mounds at the teppanyaki restaurants.) Anyway, the sauce is key to this dish. It’s actually not a proper Penang curry, which is spicy with ginger and cumin undertones. Instead, this dish offers the traditional creamy coconut consistency with a lot of belacan (a very common spice in Malaysia) flavor. Belacan is made from fermented ground shrimp and provides a heavy seafood taste. I enjoyed this mild dish, but next time I’m all for adding in the chilis.
Fun fact: Penang is the birthplace of Jimmy Choo (shoes, all you non-fashion people).
[…] sizzling away. That’s part of the allure of these particular dishes. (I blogged about sizzling chicken […]