Sarawakian Local Dekights : Chicken in Bamboo (Pansoh)

 Buy a stem of bamboo (make sure that the ends are fresh..check the colour of the cut) One should be enough for a whole chicken. There are two sizes of bamboo. The bigger one is for cooking meat and the smaller or slimmer one is for cooking rice (lemang)

 Cut this chicken into small pieces. Sarawak style...no need to debone. But if you wish to have only chiken meat just buy lot of breast meat..and add a few pieces of chicken thighs.

Season with cut wild torch ginger and ginger. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add one cup of water.

Add crushed tapioca leaves in between each addition of chicken in the bamboo.

Make a round of tapioca leaves to add as a "stopper" at the mouth of the bamboo stem.

Cook slowly over a low wood fire for more than 40 minutes or until the tapioca leaves cook through. Steam will come out of the bamboo. If you add too much water the soup will overflow. Usually we add only one cup of water. Sometimes no water at all.

The longer you cook the better the chicken( flavoured by the natural nutrients of the fresh bamboo)

Photo by Audrey Liu.