You Put the Chicken In the Coconut and Shake It All Up

Not quite the method, but its about that simple.

Today we are making Fijian Coconut Cream Chicken.

This dish I was introduced to when my lovely friend, Birgit, brought us a meal, I believe, after one of the kids was born.  It was the first time I discovered the awesomeness of coconut milk and jasmine rice.  Both are delicious on their own, but when combined...It. Is. Heavenly.  There are no leftovers when we make this meal.  It's all in the sauce mixed with the rice. Even Brett, who has a tenuous history with coconut [primarily the texture], likes this.

The method is frying chicken in panko and then making a pan sauce with coconut milk.

Very straightforward, which makes this a perfect candidate for a weeknight meal.

Let me set our scene:

It is past 4pm on a Friday.

I've lost count of how many episodes of Curious George they kids have watched today.

Austin's eating the rest of Ezri's lunch.

Both kids have apparently lost their duds.

And I care not... now to cook!

I go back and forth with my chicken habits every few months.  I had been buying chicken from a local farmer for awhile, but its hard to find boneless chicken breasts locally.
And then there can be such great deals on chicken at the store, and this week there was.

So using regular chicken from the store, I decided to cut the breasts in half.  
Being so large, they would fry up more evenly in smaller pieces, so this is 2.5 large breasts.

So now we'll be frying chicken in the usual manner.
Before this I had never fried chicken,
so the whole dredging in multiple substances was foreign to me.
Combine flour, pinch of salt and pepper on a plate.

Beat an egg and thin with water, with a general ratio of 2 parts egg: 1 part water.
This bowl was way too small.  After beating my egg all over the counter, I transferred to a regular cereal bowl before coating the chicken.

Panko.
Japanese-style breadcrumbs, makes for a nice breading.
I had Italian seasoned Panko, which would seem strange in this kind of dish, but it's really quite tasty.
I finally found plain Panko at Cub, which I switch over to halfway through when I run out of Italian Panko.

Now lets bread some chicken.

Roll in flour.

Dip in egg mixture.

Coat thoroughly in Panko on all sides.
This will soak up the coconut milk later on, adding lots of flavor.

Now we're ready to fry.

Heat oil in an oven-safe skillet.

If you don't have an oven-safe skillet, no worries; later on you will just transfer the chicken and sauce to a baking dish before putting it into the oven.

Sautee chicken on both sides until golden brown.

Now that's golden brown.
Nevermind that I continue to burn the other side.

Now for the sauce.
Chop the onion.

Open your can of coconut milk.
Measure out 1 Tbsp corn starch, 1 tsp red pepper flakes (I use a pinch, because I'm a wuss.)

Sautee onions, and do not wipe out the pan first.
Those brown bits left from the chicken are the goldmine of flavor and the foundation of a hearty pan sauce.
My pan was quite dry, so I added another Tbsp or so of oil.

Scrape up the brown bits while cooking the onions.
This will encourage their flavors to meld together, and it will also prevent the bits from burning.

Add coconut milk, corn starch and red pepper flakes.
Whisk the corn starch into the liquid and bring almost to a boil.
May need more cornstarch to thicken, but I like a thinner sauce in this dish, goes further in coating the chicken and rice.
Remove from heat.

Add chicken back to pan and spoon sauce over.

Bake at 350 for 20-30 min until done.
I'm leery of raw poultry and these chicken pieces were quite thick, so I use a thermometer when I can.
My chicken baked to 165 degrees in about 25 min.

Serve over Jasmine rice.
And all God's people said, Om Nom Nom.

This is a great meal to throw together quickly. I've also made double batches and frozen half; it thaws well and doesn't get that rubbery-reheated-chicken texture, which I despise.
I avoid reheated chicken at many costs.
Leftover poultry in general, sorry to say I'm not a fan.
Including Thanksgiving turkey.
There. I said it.


Fijian Coconut Cream Chicken
by Birgit Feig

4 Chkn breasts
1/2 c. AP flour
Salt and Pepper
Egg, thinned with water 2:1
3/4 c Panko
2 Tbsp olive oil

Sauce:
1 med onion, diced
1 can coconut milk (1.5 c)
1 Tbsp corn starch
1 tsp red pepper flakes

1) Preheat oven to 350.
2) Frying the chicken:

• Using 3 bowls/plates, mix flour, salt and pepper on one.  Then mix egg and water in a bowl.  Pour panko onto a plate.
• Roll chicken pieces in flour mixture, then egg mixture, then panko.
• Heat oil in oven-safe skillet and sautee chicken on both sides until golden brown
• Remove chicken from skillet.

3) Make the pan sauce:

• Sautee onions, scraping up brown bits. (You may need to add more oil.)
• Add coconut milk, cornstarch and red pepper flakes.
• Bring almost to a boil to thicken.  (May need more cornstarch.)
• Add chicken back to skillet and spoon sauce over. (If your skillet is not oven-safe, transfer to chicken and sauce to a baking dish.)

4) Bake 20-30 min, until chicken is cooked through.

Serve over Jasmine rice.

Biscuits

I bought a lot of eggs.  Egg salad sounded good, so I bought an 18-pack of eggs.  Turns out I had the same idea the week before and had forgotten about it, so now I have ~3 dozen eggs in my fridge.  Made some egg salad and hard boiled eggs, but barely made a dent in the egg population.  So I woke up Saturday morning with breakfast ambitions involving eggs.

 A few weeks ago I felt I finally conquered Baking Powder Biscuits, something I feel a respectable cook should be comfortable with and able to whip up on the fly.  So I thought I'd give it a go, but I'm concluding that biscuits are something I'd have to make 20+ times before feeling *comfortable* and confident in my problem-solving skills.  These biscuits went well, but we didn't eat breakfast until 10:30.  But it was Saturday, and late breakfast is implied.

Saturday morning cartoons for the hobbits.

For something like biscuits, pancakes, dumplings, I skip the internet and my America's Test Kitchen Cookbook and go straight to the old, falling-apart Betty Crocker cookbook.


The other inspiration was that I had leftover buttermilk in the fridge.

Good ol' Betty Crocker knows how to get things done.  However, we have different expectations on the intended appearance of the biscuits, which you'll see later.

Sift dry ingredients together with your acquired helper.

1 3/4 c flour--I never realized until adulthood that 3/4 cup measuring cups do not come standard issue, and to this day it galls me every time I have to dirty the 1/2 and 1/4 cups!

Because of the buttermilk, decrease baking powder to 2 tsp.

Add 3/4 tsp salt. 

Indeed, I would also like a 3/4 tsp measure, but that I don't run into as often.

For the buttermilk version, add 1/4 tsp baking soda.

Sift dry ingredients together.

Now for the fun part!
Slice up the 1/3 cup butter.
*Keep butter in fridge until ready to use. 
Cold butter cuts into the dry ingredients much nicer.

Using a pastry blender, cut butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
I've heard you can do this with 2 knives, but that must be incredibly tedious.
It takes long enough as it is with a pastry blender, the equivalent of 6 blades.
Perhaps this is a task most suited for Edward Scissorhands.

When I was a little girl, I wanted so badly to help out in the kitchen.  I remember a few tasks that I was allowed to do routinely, and cutting the butter in for biscuits was one of them.  I can see now why my parents would pass this task off to me, its tedious and requires more persistence rather than skill. So its perfect for a motivated kid with energy to burn. And I was oh so proud.  In my memories I got the meal nice and fine, but I'm curious to hear my parent's version of the events!

You'll be mashing and mashing, and it won't feel like much progress at first.

When the butter builds up on your pastry blender like this, scrape it off so you're not just moving flour around.

My trick is focusing on a small corner of the bowl for about 20 strokes, then moving to another corner.  This helps get the crumbs in that area finer.

What does "fine crumbs" mean?  When you're pastry blender looks like this.

And when the mixture looks like this!

I'm always worried there's not enough butter, because not every flour crumb has butter in it, but this is not streusel, and that is not imperative.  The biscuits turn out fine when they look like this.

Measure out your milk.
I was making a double batch but only had buttermilk for recipe's worth.

Add the milk. 

The instructions say to stir in just enough milk so the dough leaves the side of the bowl and rounds up into a ball.  Too much milk makes the dough sticky, not enough makes biscuits dry.

I just add the milk and knead in more flour later if its too sticky, because its close either way.

Stir the sticky mess.

Rounding up nicely, so...

Pop it onto a lightly floured surface.
I feel like an amature when it comes to "floured surfaces" and doughs in general, so I heavily  flour all my surfaces, because I hate when dough sticks to the rolling pin or the counter.

This dough was pretty sticky, so I sprinkled flour on top before working with it.

Knead 10 times lightly.
I fold it in half.

Then fold that in half.
Something I learned in pottery class in college, I'm sure its appropriate here.

Then roll it out a bit and repeat.

Roll out to 1/2 inch thickness.
This recipe is intended for 2 inch biscuits, so the ratios are right, but 2 inch biscuits are tiny, not useful for egg sandwiches.
And I got a little over-zealous in my rolling out, so in future instances I would roll them much thicker for larger cut biscuits, at least 1 inch.

Don't use a mug, it doesn't work well.
I switched to a pint glass shortly.

This is the actually fun part, for me.

Place 1 inch apart for crusty sides or touching together for soft side.

As I mentioned, a little over-zealous in the rolling out.

Knead together remaining dough and roll out again.

The last bit of dough makes for a homely biscuit.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 min.
These were this golden brown at 10 min.

Nice, tasty biscuit, albeit a little squat.
The kids had theirs with butter and jelly, and we had egg and cheese sandwiches.

"Baking Powder" Biscuits
by Betty Crocker
Makes: about 1 dozen.

Ingredients:

1/3 c cold butter
1 3/4 c AP flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 c milk

*Buttermilk Biscuits Variation
Decrease baking powder to 2 tsp and add 1/4 tsp baking soda.
Substitute buttermilk for milk. 
(If buttermilk is thick, it may be necessary to add slightly more than 3/4 cup.)

1)
Preheat oven to 450

2)
Sift dry ingredients together.
Cut cold butter into dry ingredients with a pastry blender until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Stir in just enough milk so dough leaves side of bowl and rounds up into a ball.
(Too much milk makes dough sticky, not enough makes biscuits dry.)

3)
Turn dough onto lightly floured surface.
Knead lightly 10 times.
Roll 1/2 inch thick.
Cut with floured 2 inch biscuit cutter.

4)
Place on ungreased cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart for crusty sides or touching for soft sides.
Bake until golden brown, 10-12 min.  Immediately remove from cookie sheet.