Ayam bakar is an Indonesian and Malaysian dish, consisting of

charcoal Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ...

- grilled

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

. ''Ayam bakar'' literally means "grilled chicken" in Indonesian and Malay.

Marination and spices

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

, the chicken is usually marinated with the mixture of '' kecap manis'' (sweet soy sauce) and

coconut oil frameless , right , alt = A cracked coconut and a bottle of coconut oil Coconut oil (or coconut butter) is an edible oil derived from the wick, meat, and milk of the coconut palm fruit. Coconut oil is a white solid fat; in warmer climates du ...

, applied with a brush during grilling. The '' bumbu'' spice mixture may vary among regions, but usually it consists of combination of ground

shallot The shallot is a botanical variety (a cultivar) of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with '' Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the ...

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Welsh onion and Chinese onion. It is native to South Asia, Central Asia and northeas ...

chilli pepper Chili peppers (also chile, chile pepper, chilli pepper, or chilli), from Nahuatl '' chīlli'' (), are varieties of the berry-fruit of plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for t ...

coriander Coriander (;

tamarind Tamarind (''Tamarindus indica'') is a leguminous tree bearing edible fruit that is probably indigenous to tropical Africa. The genus ''Tamarindus'' is monotypic, meaning that it contains only this species. It belongs to the family Fabacea ...

juice,

candlenut ''Aleurites moluccanus'', the candlenut, is a flowering tree in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae, also known as candleberry, Indian walnut, ''kemiri'', varnish tree, ''nuez de la India'', ''buah keras'', ''godou'', kukui nut tree, and ''rata k ...

turmeric Turmeric () is a flowering plant, ''Curcuma longa'' (), of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the rhizomes of which are used in cooking. The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast ...

galangal Galangal () is a common name for several tropical rhizomatous spices. Differentiation The word ''galangal'', or its variant ''galanga'' or archaically ''galingale'', can refer in common usage to the aromatic rhizome of any of four plant spec ...

and salt. In Java, ayam bakar usually tastes rather sweet because of the generous amount of sweet soy sauce either as marination or dipping sauce, while the ayam bakar

Padang Padang () is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of West Sumatra. With a Census population of 1,015,000 as of 2022, it is the 16th most populous city in Indonesia and the most populous city on the west coast of Sumatra. Th ...

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and ...

Lombok Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is ...

and most of

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

are usually spicier and more reddish in colour due to the generous amount of chilli pepper,

and other spices, and the absence of sweet soy sauce. The chicken pieces are usually partially cooked in the spice mixture using a small fire prior to grilling, in order for the chicken to absorb the spices. During grilling process the remaining spices are applied upon the chicken. Ayam bakar is usually served with '' sambal terasi'' (chilli with ''terasi'') or ''sambal kecap'' (sliced chilli and shallot in sweet soy sauce) as dipping sauce or condiment and slices of

cucumber Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

as garnishing. Ayam bakar Aie Badarun.JPG, Ayam Bakar

West Sumatra West Sumatra ( id, Sumatra Barat) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the west coast of the island of Sumatra and includes the Mentawai Islands off that coast. The province has an area of , with a population of 5,534,472 at the 2020 cen ...

Ayam bakar khas Taliwang 2.JPG, Ayam Bakar Taliwang,

Ayam bakar bumbu rujak.jpg, Ayam bakar bumbu rujak,

Variants

There are many recipes of ''ayam bakar'', among the popular ones are

-style ayam bakar, ''Ayam Percik'' and ''Ayam Golek'' from Malaysia, '' ayam bakar Taliwang'' of

island, Sundanese ''bakakak hayam'', and Javanese ''ayam bakar bumbu rujak'' (grilled spicy coconut chicken). Usually, the chicken is

marinated Marinating is the process of soaking foods in a seasoned, often acidic, liquid before cooking. The origin of the word alludes to the use of brine (''aqua marina'' or sea water) in the pickling process, which led to the technique of adding flavor b ...

with mixture of spice pastes, sometimes kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), and then grilled.

References

External links

Ayam Bakar Recipes (in Indonesian)
{{Chicken dishes, state=collapsed Indonesian chicken dishes Malaysian chicken dishes

Marination and spices

Variants

See also

References

External links