Ayam pop (literally means “popular chicken”) is a signature dish of many well known Padang Restaurants. The chain restaurant “Simpang Raya”, for instance, dubbed themselves “Istana Ayam Pop”? (“The Ayam Pop Palace”) and claim to have the most delicious ayam pop in town. While every restaurant has their own well-guarded secret recipe to producing their unique ayam pop, we can guess from the end product what ingredients and cooking method used to prepare them. Cooking a delicious ayam pop? is not a rocket science, isn’t it? Ayam pop is unique because it is fried chicken but doesn’t look like one. It’s silver-colored, not brown. And it’s just heavenly yummy, too!

Below is the generic recipe for ayam pop. If it’s difficult to avail the coconut juice, replace it with water.

Ingredients

• 1 medium sized organic whole chicken. Cut into quarters, skin removed
• 2 ltr coconut juice (the water inside the coconut, NOT coconut milk)
• 1 tsp white ground pepper
• 6 cloves garlic, ground
• 2 cm ginger, bruised
• 2 tbs margarine
• vegetable oil for deep frying
• salt to taste

Directions:

• Melt margarine in a wok on medium heat. Stir fry garlic until fragrant, add white ground pepper, coconut juice, ginger and salt. Bring to the boil.
• Add chicken. Let it simmer for around 30-45 minutes until the liquid evaporates and the chicken is tender.
• Remove the chicken and drain.
• Preheat vegetable oil in a frying pan on low temperature. Deep fry the chicken slowly for 10 minutes.
• Remove and serve.