Ayam masak kicap — Indonesia

Ayam masak kicap is a chicken dish poached or simmered in sweet soy sauce, known in Indonesia as kecap manis, which gives the meat a dark, glossy coating and a mild sweetness balanced against garlic, shallot and chili. It is reported from Java in Indonesia and is also cooked in Malaysia, where it carries a similar name in a slightly different spelling. The dish is common in home cooking, and appears on many everyday menus rather than being reserved for special occasions. To prepare it, chicken pieces are browned first, then simmered in a mixture of sweet soy sauce, garlic, shallot, ginger and chili, sometimes with tomato added, until the sauce thickens and clings to the meat. The cooking liquid is kept fairly loose rather than reduced to a thick glaze, so the dish is often eaten with plenty of steamed rice to soak it up. Within the wider family of soy-braised chicken dishes found across Southeast Asia, this version is set apart by its reliance on the thick, palm-sugar-sweetened soy sauce rather than the thinner, saltier soy sauce used elsewhere, which gives the finished dish a darker colour and a more pronounced sweetness. Cooks vary the amount of chili to adjust how much heat cuts through that sweetness.