debal chicken

Low Carb Debal Chicken
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Low-carb debel chicken with less than 5 nett carb per serving.

This dish brings back nostalgic feelings of growing up in historical Malacca — a small state located at the south of Peninsular Malaysia that was colonised by the Portuguese in the 15th century. As I am writing this post, a popular Portuguese-Eurasian folk song Jingli Nona is playing in my head and I am very tempted to clap and dance to the beat. Here’s the Youtube clip to the song for those of you who are not familiar with it.

Now back to the dish. Debal chicken is a fusion dish that is very popular among the Portuguese-Eurasian community from my home town. This is a sort of east-meets-west kinda dish. The word debal means “leftovers” in Kristang, a creole language spoken by the Portuguese-Eurasian community back home and this dish was originally made using Christmas leftovers.

The original recipes is higher in carbs as it contains potatoes and a few other ingredients and this dish is usually served with rice. I have omitted those ingredients and reduced the use of aromatics like onions, ginger and garlic to reduce the carb content. I am also happy to have this dish served on a bed of blanched cabbage or steamed cauliflower rice instead of white rice.

Carb: 5.6g | Nett carb: 4.9g | Calories: 602 kcal | Protein: 68g | Fat:39g

Ingredients (serves three)

500g chicken (marinate in soy sauce and pepper for 20 mins)

100g smoked bacon/roasted pork belly

1 1/2 cup homemade low carb chicken stock

2 teaspoons crushed mustard seeds

1.5 tablespoon red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Salt to taste

Julienne:

25g onion

1/2 inch ginger

1 clove garlic

Blend into paste:

12 dried chillies (soaked in hot water for 20 minutes)

50g onion

6 bird eye chilli

1 inch ginger

1 inch galangal/blue ginger

2 cloves garlic

Method:

  1. Heat up 2 tablepoons of cooking oil in a pot. Add julienned aromatics and stir fry till wilted
  2. Add marinated chicken, smoked bacon and spice paste and cook until the oil separates from the paste
  3. Add crushed mustard seeds, chicken stock, vinegar and salt to taste.
  4. Let simmer for 15 minutes