Malaysian Soy Sauce Chicken (Ayam Masak Kicap)

I was chatting with Ricky-oppa, JoAnne and I don't remember who else one day about food.  Ricky was telling us about some dishes that his mom makes that he knows how to make.  He sent me some instructions for five of them and this is the first one that I have tried.  He described pretty well how to make it, but without much in the way of quantities.  Then I went and looked up the dish on YouTube and watched a few videos.  Turns out his mom doesn't make it like any of those, so they weren't much help, lol.  Anyway, this is how I made it tonight.  It was a hit, and got thumbs up from both Sam and Meghan. Ricky's mom uses chicken wings and legs, and most of the YouTube vids showed that too.  I used chicken breast, because that's what I had.

I didn't take pictures of all the ingredients because, frankly, I forgot, lol.  We were rushing around trying to get dinner made so that Meghan wouldn't be late to her night class.  I do have a picture of the soy sauce bottle.  This is important because this is a sweet, thick soy sauce that is not like Kikkoman or whatever kind you have for your Chinese food.  It's called Kicap Manis and I found it in the Filipino store in town.

So, these are the ingredients that I used to make enough for about five people (we had leftovers). We ate it over rice, but noodles might be good, too.

cooking oil

1 medium onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 or 2 teaspoons of minced ginger

2 chicken breasts, cut into chunks

1/2 cup (approx) of Kicap Manis soy sauce

1/2 cup (approx) water

2 biggish potatoes, peeled and sliced (Mama Anne cuts hers in chunks, I did slices cuz it cooks faster and we were in a hurry, lol)

1 big carrot, sliced (same thing, Mama Anne cuts hers in chunks)

1/2 bell pepper, sliced...I used a yellow one

Heat a couple of tablespoons of cooking oil in a skillet or wok.  Add onion, garlic and ginger and stir and cook until fragrant.

Add chicken and cook for a bit, until it starts to get brown.  (If you're using legs and wings, the directions online say to cook about halfway through)  We did it stir fry style, where we kept stirring as it was cooking.

(wow, that's a blurry picture, Meg must have been stirring fast, lol)

After the chicken gets kind of browned, add the sweet soy, stir it around to coat all the chicken, then add the water.  

Then put in the rest of the vegetables.

Stir until the veggies are coated, then turn down the flame, cover the skillet with a lid and let it simmer.  I just happen to have a giant skillet lid that is the perfect size for covering a wok.  Let it cook until the veggies are tender.  It only took about 10 minutes, might take longer if you have chunks instead of slices.

When the veggies are done, it's ready to serve.  I think it took me about 15 minutes to prep the veggies and chicken, and about 20 to make it.  Rice was already in the rice cooker.  So that's a pretty fast, yummy dinner.  We ate it with spicy sambal oolek on the side. 

One thing I noticed in the YouTube vids was that most of them put some rice vinegar in it.  It was tasty without it, but when we were done eating, just to see the difference, we put a splash of rice vinegar in the leftovers and retasted.  I think it brightens the flavors a little bit, I liked it. I would add a Tablespoon or so when you put in the soy and water.