Ayam pongteh is a Nyonya-style chicken and potato stew which I really love as my Gran used to cook it often when I was little. The tau cheo (fermented soy beans) in the sauce is the most important ingredient. It really gives a beautifully deep and rich umami flavour to the dish. If you’re interested to know how to make this dish from scratch, check out my Ayam Pongteh Recipe that I’ve shared earlier.
As mentioned in a previous blog post, I had bought a range of different spice and sauce packs from Heng’s, a Malaysian food brand. So today, I’m featuring this chicken stew recipe using Heng’s Pongteh Sauce which you can get online from Qoo10. Just click on the link to go to the distributor’s store.
While it’s not difficult to make this dish from scratch, using a store-bought ready sauce does help save some time and hassle. Heng’s Pongteh Sauce is robust-tasting but is also more on the salty side. Still worth a try if you’re considering to buy it. A disadvantage of using this ready sauce is that it doesn’t allow you to adjust the sodium content. If only it comes in an unsalted version. At least we can adjust it accordingly.
With such a rich, flavoursome sauce, you will definitely need to cook a pot of rice to go with it. Alternatively, rice congee will be perfect as well. Enjoy! ??
- 1kg skinless chicken drumsticks
- 1 packet Heng’s Pongteh Sauce 200g
- 500g baby potatoes, quartered
- 10 dried mushrooms, soaked in water, stems removed & halved
- 600ml hot water