Chicken Floss (Abon Ayam)

On By cruiseoflifeIn Food Story

In Indonesia, beef and chicken floss are more popular than pork and even fish floss. Good quality chicken and beef floss can be very expensive in Indonesian standard.  I’ve almost never  seen chicken and beef floss in where I live right now, so I tried to make my own chicken floss (hopefully I will also try making beef floss real soon). 

For the seasoning, you can adjust to your preference. My family like it to be on the savory side and not too sweet, so I didn’t use too much sugar. If you like it to have a stronger sweet taste like the one that you bought from the store, add white sugar to the mixture. 

It takes quite a long time and patience to cook this, and you have to stir almost constantly so it doesn’t get burnt at the bottom of your pan. That was why I used my bread machine to help with the process. It was very easy and the machine helped to break down the meat into very fine texture with no clumps. The texture that I got from making the floss in the bread machine was not so crispy and brown, so I would use some of it as the filling for my glutinous rice and I continued browning the rest of the floss on stovetop. 

Ingredients:

  1. 600 gr chicken fillet
  2. 1.5 L of water
  3. 5 bay leaves
  4. 5 slices of ginger
  5. 1 lemongrass, bruised with knife handle
  6. 5 tbsp cooking oil
  7. 1.5 tsp salt, or to taste
  8. 1 tbsp coconut sugar

Spices:

  1. 10 shallots
  2. 6 garlic
  3. 5 candlenuts
  4. 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
  5. 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
  6. 5 kaffir lime leaves
  7. 1 lemongrass, bruised

Method:

  1. Bring water to boil, then add chicken, bay leaves, ginger, and lemongrass. Cook until the chicken is soft, then remove from the water. Let cool and shred into small pieces
  2. Blend cooking oil with shallots, garlic, and candlenut until smooth, then stir fry until fragrant, the mixture starts to dry and turn to brown color.  Add coriander seeds, ground turmeric, lime leaves, and lemongrass, stir for another minute, then add coconut sugar and salt and mix well
  3. Add shredded chicken, stir fry in low heat until the meat floss becomes fluffy and dry  and has turned brown (If you see a clump of chicken, break it up). Taste and adjust the seasoning
  4. Wait until it is cool completely before storing it in an airtight container

If using bread machine:

  1. Bring water to boil, then add chicken, bay leaves, ginger, and lemongrass. Cook until the chicken is soft, then remove from the water. Let cool and shred into small pieces and transfer to a bread machine
  2. Blend cooking oil with shallots, garlic, and candlenut until smooth, then stir fry until fragrant, the mixture starts to dry and turn to brown color.  Add coriander seeds, ground turmeric, lime leaves, and lemongrass, stir for another minute, then transfer to the bread machine
  3. Add coconut sugar and salt to the bread machine
  4. Press floss function (or jam function if you don’t have floss function in your bread machine). Wait until the bread machine finish its process (you can do more than one cycle for crispy texture). I used a different brand of bread machine to make this, so unlike my previous bread maker who can turned the floss into dark brown color, this was the texture that I got after 2 cycles
    You can use this as the filling for lemper (Indonesia glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk)
  5. So I continued to cook this on stove top until brown and crispy
  6. Wait until it is cool completely before storing it in an airtight container

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