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July 26, 2004

Coconut chicken and rice

I'm finally getting to the food blogging I mentioned on Friday. I went to have dinner with a friend in Philly, and we each made a recipe that we had enjoyed in the past. She made these absolutely delicious lime cilantro sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes aren't in season and are hard to find, so she used yams instead). I made this coconut chicken recipe; we realized when we were serving ourselves that having rice and sweet potatoes side by side is a little heavy on the carb-loading, but we're both pretty anti-Atkins, and we had a simple mixed green salad on the side.

Here is the chicken and rice as I plated it from the leftovers the next day:

There's not much contrast among the main ingredients of the recipe, so I garnished with fresh cilantro, heavily toasted (ok, burned) coconut, and a dusting of cayenne (beware, cayenne is the spicy kind!). This recipe is from Real Simple magazine's article on making food for potlucks, so I halved the original eight-serving recipe. I really like this recipe as is; the only change I made this time was to subsitute chicken tenders for the chicken breasts in an attempt to shorten cooking time, but even so the pan had to go back into the oven (minus the chicken) to finish cooking the rice.

One of the most successful dinner party meals I ever made included this chicken. The menu was:

Appetizer: Jalapeno pickled shrimp
Main course: Coconut chicken and rice and mango tomato salad
Dessert: Double chocolate torte with orange glaze and tropical fruit salad with lime syrup

The recipe for the coconut chicken follows.

8 boneless, skinless chicken-breast halves
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp cayenne
zest and juice from two limes
3 cups uncooked basmati rice
2 cups chicken stock (I usually use broth)
1 14-oz can coconut milk
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut

Heat oven to 325 F. Spray 13-by-9-inch baking dish with Pam, or similar. Wash chicken breasts and pat dry; sprinkle with garlic, cayenne, and lime zest, and set aside. Pour rice into baking dish. Combine stock or broth, coconut milk, lime juice, cilantro, and salt and pour onto rice. Arrange chicken on top. Cover with foil and bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and rice is tender.
Remove foil, sprinkle flaked coconut on top, and bake 5 minutes more, until coconut is lightly browned.

Posted by Carla at July 26, 2004 02:49 PM

Comments

I would suggest green curry paste. It's hot, but not too hot, and really complements the coconut milk. : )

Posted by: Deirdre at July 26, 2004 11:06 PM

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