I love Indonesian pasties or pastel goreng as they are sometimes called. If you want more info or pics search for “Pastel Goreng”. They are deep fried pastries with meat filling. For the recipe I followed a Dutch website. As these weren’t exactly perfect I wont post a complete recipe. I also had way too much filling for the amount of dough I made.

I stuffed these with ground beef, rice noodles, garlic, onion, cube of beef stock, carrot, chopped boiled eggs and salt and pepper to taste.

The dough was a bit too firm, the recipe didn’t give out the amount of water needed. I think next time I’ll use more water next time. All in all, it wasn’t a bad attempt and we still enjoyed eating them. It’s a bit of a shame that you have to make big batches of these, mostly it’s just the BF and I.

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A couple of days ago I made a chicken leg stew with 4 chicken legs, which is a bit much for only 2 people. But if I’m going to be cooking/stewing for a couple of hours I always make more than needed. I intended to use the remainer of the chicken legs to make pasty or “Indonesian Risolles”. Instead I made these chicken ragout Bitterballen.

Bitterballen are a round version of the Dutch Kroket (croquettes). Often a meaty ragout shapped into balls and rolled in toasted breadcrumbs for a crunchy layer.
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I wanted to try to make my own fried chicken. Plan was to fry the chicken pieces twice to make them extra crispy. As this was somewhat of an experiment I can’t give you exact measurements.

For the batter I used approximately 2:1 plain flour to corn starch to which I added cold water bit by bit to create a paste that would hold on to my chicken, but wasn’t too thick either. The flour mixture was seasoned with paprika powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. My first try was a bit too wet so while coating the chicken I added a bit of extra flour. For the chicken I used boneless chicken thighs, thigh meat it much more succulent than chicken breast.

In a frying pan I added about an inch of oil. The amount at which my chicken would be nicely fried on one side. I don’t have a thermometer, but the oil was hot enough for the battered chicken to fry nice and slowly. I cooked 3 pieced together in my pan at a time. My theory is not to turn the chicken too often or too much oil will be absorbed by the batter. Remove from the oil when the crust has been cooked and slightly colored and put onto kitchen towel. The chicken (if not too thick) will have been cooked enough by now.

In the same oil I fried of some parboiled jacket potatoes cut into wedged. As a side dish I deseeded a cucumber cut it into thin slices and put those in a vinegar, sugar and water mixture.

Time for the 2nd frying. The oil can be slightly hotter now. The pieces of chicken have probably gone a bit soft after the first frying. Frying them the second time with fry off excess moisture and will turn the chicken pieces lovely and crispy. Fry until nicely golden brown.

This was so lovely and I think better than KFC or any of those places. I had some left over and the batter was still a bit crispy the next day.

Related: Chicken, experiment

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