Balinese Stuffed Grilled Chicken (Ayam Betutu)

Who has never heard about Bali? Someone asked me before, when I said I am from Indonesia.."Where is Indonesia? Is it close to Bali?"..Oh my..I was speechless for a moment, trying to find a nice way to explain without insulting. Well I am not gonna explain where and what about Indonesia, I think that explain much of how famous Bali is, the paradise island. Beside its richness of beautiful scenery, Bali is rich of culture, including food. I am lucky to be able to try and enjoy Balinese culinary. One of them is this grilled chicken. I made this for our thanksgiving family dinner, since we are not that keen into turkey.

The original recipe is here, but a little modification was made.

Ingredients:
- 1 whole chicken, cleaned
- 1 pack of ground cassava leaves (app. 200g)
- vegetable oil for sauteeing
- banana leaves for wrapping

Spices to ground:
- 7 big red chilli and 5 chili paddy, adjusted into your preference (I used about 25 chili paddy)
- 8 roasted candle nuts
- 10 cloves of shallot
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 2 tsp fermented shrimp paste
- 1 Tbsp ground coriander
- 2 stalk of lemongrass, chopped
- 1 tsp ground white pepper
- 4cm of galangal, cut
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 5 kaffir lime leaves
- 4cm of ginger, cut
- 1 Tbsp ground kencur
- salt and sugar to taste

Directions:

Grind all of the spices in a blender, and then sautee with a little bit of vegetable oil until fragrant. Cool it off and divide into 2 parts. Mix one part with ground cassava leaves. Stuff it into the chicken cavity. Close the opening with tooth picks. Cover the whole body with the rest of ground spices and stuff it under the skin too. Wrap the chicken with banana leaves. Broil in a preheated oven at 180C for 2-3hours. It may be steamed for 45min prior to broiling to cut off the broiling time into just an hour. Cut and serve with steamed rice.
I would like to share it with my fellow Indonesian foodie for the monthly event masbar.

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