Grilled Chicken Served with Com lam in the Central Highlands

Grilled chicken served with com lam (sticky rice cooked in a bamboo tube) is a specialty of people in the Central Highlands. This dish has many different versions, but even so, it still keeps the flavor and taste of chicken and sticky rice.

Visitors enjoy the dish in a space imbued the culture of the Central Highlands. 

The chicken used to make the dish is selected carefully, and should weigh about one kg, with firm meat and thin skin. After cleaning, the chicken is marinated with spices such as garlic, onion, lemongrass, pepper, fish sauce, salt, honey and forest leaves that make it special. The marinated chicken is brought to the grill over a charcoal fire to give it a distinctive flavor.

To create soft and fragrant rice grains, it is necessary to carefully select glutinous rice to cook. The grain is moderate, elongated, white, and fragrant, grown by the locals in the Central Highlands.

The rice will be soaked in water and left for four to six hours before putting it into bamboo tubes. The bamboo tubes should not be too young or too old, but should be incredibly fresh ones to keep the taste of bamboo when the rice is cooked. When pouring rice into the tubes, do not jam it in too tightly. Finally, use forest leaves, mainly banana leaves, to seal the open ends of the tubes. The tubes are then grilled along with the chicken. During this process, the chef always has to turn the tubes until the outer shell is slightly burnt and a faint smell of sticky rice comes out of the tube.

It is wonderful to enjoy grilled chicken with com lam in restaurants built with the architectural style of the highland culture. The eateries here often serve from noon to late evening. The price is about 300,000 dong (12 US dollars). 

A specialty of in the Central Highlands. 

By Cong Dat/VNP Translated by Song An