Last week Faith's post about Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk got me thinking about the further possibilities of cooking a chicken in milk and I came upon the sweet pungent flavors of coconut milk and lemongrass.
Here's an adaptation of Jamie's recipe with a southeast Asian influence. I cooked it in about an hour, called a neighbor, and served it to us all Friday night with brown rice. Coconut sorbet for dessert. Delicious.
Chicken in Coconut Milk
Serves 4-61 3-lb whole chicken
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1 tablespoon sesame oil or olive oil
1 cinnamon stick
2 whole pieces star anise
1 bunch cilantro
1 large lemon, cut into eighths
lemongrass, white part, 5" chopped into 1/4" pieces
6-8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 16-oz can coconut milk
3 cups spinach leaves
2 green onions, chopped into 1/4" pieces
Rinse and dry chicken, then sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Put in refrigerator for up to 24 hours, or set aside while you prepare remaining ingredients if you're going to cook it right away.
Preheat the oven to 375° F.
You'll need a covered pot that will hold the chicken close, such as a Dutch Oven. Melt the butter over medium heat, then add the oil. Put in the chicken, breast side up and let it sizzle for about 30 second. Carefully flip the bird and cook the other side, another 30 seconds. Remove from the heat, put the chicken on a plate, and remove the fat in the pot.
Put your chicken back in the pot with the cinnamon stick, star anise, a handful chopped cilantro stems (about 1/2 cup), lemon, lemongrass, garlic and coconut milk and cook in the preheated oven for 60-90 minutes (depending on size), basting the sauce over the top of the bird every 20 minutes or so. The chicken is done when an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thigh reads 165° F.
Remove chicken and put on a plate. Pull out cinnamon stick, and any other solids you do not want to serve with the chicken. Put sauce back on the stovetop, add the spinach and heat over medium flame just until wilted.
Carve chicken and serve each piece over rice with sauce spooned over the top. Garnish with chopped scallions and cilantro leaves.
(Images: Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan)
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I tried the original recipe but with mint leaves instead of sage. Mint & lemon made a great combo.
Oooh, this looks even more up my alley than the original! I've got to buy a chicken!
This looks amazing and simple. I have been experimenting cooking a lot of Thai food of late and love the flavor of coconut milk. However, I just found out just how much fat it contains and have been substituting the lite version in my recipes. It is very good.
Can't wait to try this!
http://dishinanddishes.blogspot.com
great idea with the coconut milk sara kate. I'll definitely try this
This one sounds yummy I will definitely be trying it soon!
I tried the Jamie Oliver recipe last week, inspired by Faith's excellent post, and I loved it. I immediately started to wonder if it would work as well with coconut milk. Is anybody else familiar with Charmaine Solomon's chicken adobo recipe from the Complete Asian Cookbook? I was thinking that would adapt perfectly to this method.
@wesaturtle: Mint sounds much better than sage. I tried it with tarragon, because that was all I had handy, and that was really delicious too.
I made this today and loved, loved the taste of the chicken. However, the sauce over the rice was too rich/fatty. I'd probably try it with fat free coconut milk next time, or serve the chicken with out sauce.
@kittyz, @dishinanddishes
don't waste your money on lite coconut milk, it's just regular coconut milk diluted with water and it costs the same as the full fat stuff. Buy the regular stuff and dilute it yourself with water or stock.
you can use the leftover milk in another recipe - coconut rice anyone? Yum yum yum...
I tried this and my sauce turned out very sour. Did anyone else have this problem?
You could easily adapt this to a stove top recipe with cut chicken pieces - sounds like a good one to try!
This was fantastic. Only change I made was I had no star anise so I used 1 tbs of chinese 5 spice on the chicken when I seared it. Also, I doubled the coconut milk because I wanted to make sure it was "soupy". It was so freaking good. We took the leftovers to work and ate it for lunch. We were so sad when it was gone! I'm actually making it again today :-)
this time I'm adding eggplant and maybe another veg.
Hey.. I just thought. I bet it's great with a bit of Sriracha.
its in the oven :D
@ellystapes, my first batch was very sour and bitter. The second time, though, I used a Meyer lemon and it made all the difference. Very tasty! Got the thumbs up from the whole family.
I just made this last night in my brand new 5.5 quart le creuset. Super easy to make, and I think I can honestly say I've never had a more tender chicken. I always have coconut milk on hand for curry but the cans are only 13 oz, so I substituted a few ounces of almond milk.
I was also missing the star anise (more like husband forgot to buy it), so I'm not sure how much that affected the flavor. Mine was also nearing on the bitter end, and I think that may have been too much lemon grass...but it was still delicious never the less. And I had leftovers for a couple lunches!
I will absolutely make this again, but use more coconut milk, the star anise that I didn't have, and a meyer lemon like the above poster noted!
I made this last night and have to say WOW! This was truly one of the best chicken dishes I've ever made. Family loved it and serving it again tonight to friends. I made sesame peanut noodles with cilantro and lime which was a perfect accompaniment. My sauce had tons of flavor. I used chinese five spice powder because star anise is a key ingredient in it anyway. I did have to skim a lot of fat from the sauce before serving (kind of like Thanksgiving gravy duty!), but it was so worth it. Used the sauce on the noodles too and we were just so happy. Thanks for this great recipe!!
Has anyone tried this in a slow cooker / crock pot?
Yes. I basically followed the exact recipe (left out the anise) and cooked it 8 hours on low. I saved the resulting juices/sauce and used it on everything. So, so, so good.
I was wondering why it calls for so much butter and oil? This is much more than would be necessary to brown the chicken. Seems like a lot of waste when it just gets thrown out.
I want to try this but I'm concerned. About 3 of the above posts say that it came out biiter/sour. Why is this happening? Thanks!
Good recipe. The second time I made it, it did come out slightly bitter as well. I thought it was maybe the cilantro. After making it two times, I think I might try to minimize the amount of butter in the recipe. And I'll definitely do this recipe with a free range chicken next time. I was a vegetarian for a long time and I've been eating meat for over a year now but I'm just starting to learn to work and cook with different types of meats. This was my first whole chicken recipe. The non-free range chicken looked mostly like dark meat when I cooked it up. It made the sauce a lot fattier. I liked pouring the sauce over the spinach and quinoa, but it was so greasy the second time. It may have been a fluke, but likely not, considering one of the major criticisms about how chicken is raised for meat is that they are given limited space to move around. If your eating chicken to be healthy, do yourself another favor and buy free range.
I'm going to try this tonight -- I just happen to have a free range chicken bathing/brining in a bag with salt and lemon right now in my fridge. I don't have lemon grass -- am wondering if the lemon grass might be the culprit making some posters chicken a bit bitter? Am going to serve this with brown jasmine rice. nom nom nom...can't wait!
This was wonderful! Made it last night with Coconut Cream. Wanted it nice and thick and the extra healthy fat keeps my weight down. What a great way to get healthy coconut in your diet especially with the weather turning so nice. I served the extra sauce over collards.
This sounds delicious. It has similarities to a Filipino Chicken Adobo with coconut milk which I cook often and have posted on my blog. I'm going to try this recipe of Chicken in Coconut Milk you shared here. I just know my family will enjoy it. Thanks :-)
I had problems with bitterness in this dish, too. I suspect that it was the lemon rind!!! The chicken itself was absolutely DEVINE, but I found the sauce a bit too oily and bitter. I think next time I try this dish, I'm going try replacing the lemon wedges with kaffir lime leaves to see if it helps.
Anyone figured out why it is bitter? maybe it's suppose to be?
The lemon wedges are most likely adding bitterness to the sauce. I would use the rind only (without the bitter pith) and a good squeeze of lemon juice to counteract the bitterness. Coconut milk is rich for sure but using skinless chicken will help. I hate the fatty aspect of chicken skin so never use it!
Sorry, I meant to say 'counteract the oiliness'
About the bitter taste, lemon juice is one of the things added to milk or cream to sour it. It makes sense that it would happen. The taste was quite good, and the chicken was tender as promised, but after I ate I was left with a rather bitter taste. So, I ate some chocolate! Problem solved....
Do you cook it with or without the lid?
I did half and half. Actually, I started with it off for about 30 min., then on for an hour and finished with it off for the last half hour. (yes, I kept it in the oven about 2 hours.) The original recipe (Jamie's) looks as if it was only with the lid off.
I made the recipe yesterday and it came out just PERFECT!!! the flavor was so different, you can really feel the coconut milk and the lemongrass working on it. i was a little bit scared about the fact that it could come out bitter, so i took the pits of the lime out and i put half of the pieces of lime inside the chicken, it really helps the chicken grab more flavor.
I invite my boyfriend and his daughter (12 yrs old) and they were delighted :) i served with white regular rice and i pour the sauce on top ... mmm yumii