- [Trevor] Coming up for all you Food Rangers,
we're going deep into the Borneo Rainforest
to taste a local native specialty, Bamboo Chicken.
We've teamed up with a local guide to show us the way.
She's going to help us make this unique and delicious dish.
Alright, so check it out guys, it's Trevor James.
I'm with Ting Ting and Chou Chou and our guide Siddy.
We are deep in the Borneo Rainforest,
and today we're going for a three hour hike
into the woods and we're going to make
- (foreign language)
- Oh, that sounds awesome. Let's go try it out.
Thank you, Siddy.
This is the beautiful tropical rainforest of Borneo.
We drove from Kuching deep into the jungle near
the Malaysia and Indonesia border.
As soon as you step in here, you can feel
the beauty of this world gem,
home to more than 45 different ethnicities
and aboriginal communities.
Known as the Dayak, this is a great place to visit
not only for the beautiful rainforest,
but to experience traditional aboriginal culture as well.
Wow! We're deep in the rainforest.
It is so beautiful here.
You can hear the birds, everything is,
there is bamboo everywhere.
How are you doing?
- Great. - Good. Lots of fun.
Yeah, we're gonna work up an appetite.
We're hiking up. This is
full on humid, sweaty.
How're you doing Chou Chou?
- Lots of mosquitoes, but it is so beautiful in here.
- This is a Durian tree.
- Durian! A Durian tree!
- But is no fruit.
- No fruit. - No.
- Aw.
That's too sad.
- Do you like Durian City?
No fruit in this Durian tree though.
Unfortunately this Durian tree - The fruit's around December.
- December? - Yeah...
- Oh, we're getting a walking stick here.
Wow, walking stick.
(cutting sound)
What are these leaves for?
- (speaking foreign language)
- Oh, to clean it. - The hair.
- Oh, the hair.
Thank you Siddy. We've got a walking stick now.
- To make the bamboo chicken,
Siddy taught us how to make it using the ingredients
from the Borneo Rainforest
including wild ginger, bamboo and tapioca.
What a true treat.
Take the whole stem?
- Upper part, the upper part.
- Oh the upper part, the young part.
- The young part. - The young part, okay.
Pick the babies. - This one.
- Oh right here, oh like right here, nice. Tapioca leaves.
This gives it a nice flavor, great.
- Bamboo shoot! - [Trevor] Oh bamboo shoot.
- How we get the bamboo to flip, I cut it.
Peel the skin like this.
- Local bamboo shoot.
And we can cook this with the bamboo chicken.
- No we cannot eat.
- Cannot eat?
- This one we have to boil it first, then
we soak in the water for one night, remove the bitter one.
- Oh so we cannot eat this right here?
- Yeah, we cannot eat.
- You have to soak it?
- Yeah.
This one we have to fry with curry.
- Fry with curry?
- Yeah.
- Wow I'm loving how much
- We cut it and then we slice, slice it very small
and then we boil with water.
- Oh.
- After we boil, we soak for one night,
remove the bitter piece.
- Yes you can find this in a lot of
different cuisine, can't you?
Chinese, Malaysian, oh what a,
I'm just blown away
how much different foods there are in this, in this jungle.
- This is smoking pipe.
We put the tobacco here and then we burn it and then we
- Oh it's like a bong?
There's water in there?
- Yes. The water enter here.
- Oh wow.
So you smoke tobacco in here?
- Yeah. We put the tobacco here and then we burn it.
After we burn it, we suck it.
- Oh.
Is there anything else you put in here?
Is there any local things that you smoke from the forest?
- Used to smoking they put the tobacco here.
- Tobacco.
- But we don't have any tobacco.
Later on I bring it there and then I show you
how to make it.
- Okay.
Alright.
So we've been hunting for the bamboo, oh that's nice.
That's a big one, whoa.
It's comin' down.
That's a tall one.
Wow.
Okay watch out.
Wow!
So this is the Dayak cuisine, Dayak local cuisine.
Deep in the Borneo jungle.
So we're making how many pieces of bamboo?
Two?
- No, we need one.
- This is so cool.
Hunting for and foraging.
- This one first.
- This one?
- Yeah.
- That's a good piece?
Wow.
Oh it's comin' down.
So is this the big piece that we're gonna use right here?
Nice and hollow.
Oh yeah look at that.
Wow.
You can hear that, how hollow it is.
Cool.
Oh yeah, look how hollow that is.
That's what we're gonna stuff the chicken in.
And what else do we need to put in for the chicken?
- Oh the wild ginger.
- Wild ginger.
- And the tapioca leave.
- Oh okay.
- But the chicken is marinate.
- Oh.
- The home marinate.
- You marinate it at home?
- Yeah, marinate with chicken stock, and big onion
and garlic.
- Garlic? Nice.
- Little bit of ginger.
- A little bit of ginger?
- Yeah.
- Nice.
So what are we looking for now?
- We're looking for the wild ginger, the young one.
- Wild ginger?
Oh wow.
Let's go take a look.
Wow we're deep in the jungle,
lookin' for wild ginger.
Oh it's colorful.
So this is local wild ginger.
So we just got the wild ginger, and we got bitten
by ants so we had to cut the seam.
But we've got some fresh wild ginger
and we're gonna go cook it up.
Oh yeah.
- Now we open up the wild ginger.
- Oh okay, cut the wild ginger.
- Remove the hard skin.
- That is so fragrant, that smells so fresh.
That's soft on the inside, look at that.
- Because we need the soft one.
- Oh wow, look at that.
I've never seen this.
- This one you can eat.
- Can eat it?
- Yeah, we cut this like this.
Make with chicken, we all remove this thing.
The hairy, hairy thing.
- Remove the hair?
- Yeah.
- Cool.
So we put this in with the chicken?
- Yeah.
- It smells like a flower.
- Some of this type of wild ginger is sour.
It's good for us to cook fish with.
- Oh
it's a little sour.
- This type we cook with chicken.
- I think it's so cool that we, we foraged for the
tapioca leaves and the wild ginger, and the bamboo.
And that's gonna bring the dish a lot of flavor.
- Then we squeeze it.
- Squeeze it?
- Yeah.
- Like break it in half?
- Yeah.
- Oh there, so we make it into small pieces.
- Yeah.
- Like that?
- Okay.
- Tapioca leaves, nice.
So now we're gonna stuff the bamboo
with that marinated chicken.
- Chicken.
- Have you been making this dish for a long time, Siddy?
- Yes.
- So this whole area is all Dayak local people?
- Yes.
- And is this a special meal that you
would normally eat with family?
- No, no. Almost every day we eat this.
- Almost every day?
- Yeah, because when we in the jungle, we put our
chicken in the bamboo because we don't have to bring
our cooking pots from home.
- Oh so you can just find your own cooking pot?
Bamboo, that's really convenient.
And the bamboo probably gives it a lot of flavor.
You're stuffing that tapioca in, tapioca and wild ginger.
Nice. Stuff it full.
So if you're, if you're working or hiking you can just
find some bamboo, find some ginger, and tapioca
and bring some chicken.
- As long as we bring our salt and ajinomoto.
You know ajinomoto? Sodium glutamate.
- Yeah msg.
- Ah yes.
- Just bring a little salt and msg.
- Everything we can cook inside the jungle, of course we
know what we are going to eat.
What things that we are not going to eat.
- So just bring the salt and msg and you're good to go.
- Put the water in.
- Oh okay.
- That's not the water to cover the chicken.
- That smell is amazing.
That really smells so fresh and fragrant and floral.
So this is just really old bamboo?
- Yes. This is dry one.
- Dry, old bamboo.
So you can make a fire using the bamboo and you can
cook using the bamboo, we can put the chicken in there.
Cool.
That's how you get the fire going.
So Siddy just put the bamboo chicken over the fire she made
and that smell is entrancing.
Just watching that smoke rise off of that bamboo,
it's gonna be good.
How you doing Ting?
This is amazing and the chicken is cookin' up here.
We're just waitin' for that chicken.
Thank you so much, Siddy.
Nice.
It's ready.
There it is.
Wow you can really smell
You can smell that ginger
Oh yeah there it is.
- Make sure you dump the water in.
- Wow,
oh there it is.
Oh!
Wow! Chou Chou, smell that.
Ting, smell that.
Wow. That is so fragrant and aromatic.
- So fresh.
- Oh you can smell that wild ginger.
- Very nice smell.
- It's a very nice smell.
And over here we have the rice wrapped up in local leaves.
It's rice in uh, what's the leaf?
- This is
- Banana leaf?
- No, no. It's maroon leaf.
- Maroon leaf.
Okay so rice and then do we put the
chicken on top of the leaf?
Wow. After serving up all those big portions, we walked up
a few steps to the waterfall.
Siddy was just too polite and wanted to stay behind
and let us walk up to the waterfall ourselves.
Wow. Doesn't this look amazing?
We're deep in the jungle and we're
gonna have coconut chicken.
Oh yeah, get some chicken and some
rice and some tapioca leaf.
Cheers.
What a beautiful location.
- So tender.
Oh that, that wild ginger flavor and the tapioca leaf.
It's so fresh.
Oh yeah you gotta get the juice.
Wow.
It's so good, local ginger is so subtle.
It's not overpowering.
So smooth, the chicken is so tender.
It's very savory, slightly salty.
And those tapioca leaves picked right from the jungle.
What a nice occasion.
What an amazing bamboo chicken that was.
Gotta give a huge thank you to Siddy for cooking that for us
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