So tonight was my night to cook, and I’m pleased as hell with the results, so I figured I’d share.
Here’s the recipe that I created, off the top of my head, from the ingredients at hand:
Thai Coconut Chicken with Pineapple-Mint Rice.
Cut 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in 2-to-3 inch chunks. Dredge chicken in flour, then dip into egg bath (mix of 3 egg whites and 1 yolk, into which I had sprinkled curry powder, salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic powder and onion powder). Take egg-battered chicken into pile of shredded coconut to cover.
Heat pan with an inch or so of oil (I used a combination of plain vegetable oil and extra virgin olive). Finely chop one habenero pepper and toss into oil, cooking until the pepper is shrivelled and brown, then strain out pepper bits (this makes the oil have a nice bit of spice to it, which gets infused into the sweet coconut). Place coconut-festooned chicken into oil, and fry until golden brown on both sides. Remove and place on plain paper grocery bag to wick out excess oil.
In a pot, bring 2 1/2 cups of water to boil. When boiling, drop in one bag of Mint tea and stir around for 15-30 seconds at most. Remove tea bag, drop in 1 cup of rice. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Then uncover and remove from heat, fluffling with a fork occasionally. When the rice has absorbed the water (another 5-10 minutes), add chunks of pineapple into the rice (to taste).
Serve in bowls—Pineapple-mint rice, with a few chunks of coconut chicken on top. I served with a bottle of Bangkok Padang Peanut Sauce on the table as a condiment.
Pretty damned good.