I love chicken floss but as a kid growing up in Malaysia it was always a bit of a luxury item so I never got to eat as much of it or have it as often as I wished. (I guess they mustn’t have been cheap even back in those days.)

I remember my parents might pick some up in Kuala Lumpur during one of our infrequent day trips to Malaysia’s capital, or  sometimes we might have them at Chinese New Year. It was a special treat and I would ration my portions carefully and lick the inside of the plastic bags they came in, to make sure I got at every last scrap.

Westerners are generally a bit confused about what it’s used for; while I like eating it straight, I’ve seen it used as a topping on congee or buns, or as sandwich filling.

I attempted to make my own chicken floss here in Australia in my pre-Thermomix days – the recipe called for hand-shredding cooked chicken meat, and then gently frying it in a wok for over an hour or more with all the seasonings added.

It didn’t turn out so well – the shreds of chicken breast were too coarse and all the arduous wok-frying yielded something that felt like a flavoured kitchen scourer in my mouth. I wasn’t too keen about having to stand over a hot stove for the duration either, stirring the contents in the wok to make sure they didn’t burn.

When I bought my Thermomix back in November, I researched recipes I could try with it, and found that a few people have had pretty good results making this long lost childhood favourite.

I had some leftover chicken from some Hainanese chicken rice I’d made, so I deboned about 500g of it, blended it in the Thermomix, added the seasonings and then set it to cook for some 35 minutes.

At the end, I took it out (found it still had a bit of moisture in it) and tossed it into my Tefal Actifry for 10 minutes (you could just put it in the oven at 170°C as well, or pan-fry it on a stove). It turned out perfectly.

A couple of days after that first experiment, I found some salmon fillets in my freezer that I had bought over a year ago at Ikea and promptly forgotten about. I would have thrown them out (the bag was split, so the fillets were caked in ice) but I decided there was no harm in trying to make fish floss with them (for personal consumption).

I threw them, still frozen, in the steamer basket and cooked them for 20 minutes on the Varoma setting, then transferred them into the bowl, whizzed it for a couple of seconds, added the seasoning and cooked it the same way as the chicken floss. I added a bit more of the thick caramel sauce this time around, so the result is a bit darker than the chicken floss I’d made earlier.

Here’s the video I shot, followed by recipe at the bottom (if you don’t own a Thermomix I’d imagine you can blend the cooked meat/fish in a regular food processor, and then pan fry everything like what I did previously. I think the blending would have made a world of difference compared to shredding the meat by hand).

Chicken or Fish Floss Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

• 500g cooked chicken or fish
• 8 cloves garlic
• 4 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp chicken stock granules
• 1 tsp thick soya sauce aka cooking caramel
• 1 tsp pepper
• 2 Tbsp oil

METHOD:

In Thermomix bowl –

1. Place 8 cloves of garlic and process at Speed 5 for 1 second.
2. Add 500g fish cutlets (skin off) and process at Speed 5 for 5 seconds.
3. Add the following – 1 tsp thick soya sauce, 4 Tbsp sugar, 1/2 Tbsp fish sauce, 1 tsp pepper, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp chicken stock granules.
4. Cook at 120°C for 15 minutes, Speed 2, measuring cup off.
5. Add 2 Tbsp oil.
6. Cook at 120°C for 15 minutes at Speed 2.
7. Remove and spread on baking tray; bake at 180°C for 10 minutes.

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