Quick coconut chicken
When planning this week’s meals, I had leftover channa masala to use up — but not enough for a dinner on its own. It needed either a side, or to be a side.
I also had boneless skinless chicken breasts in the house; I almost never have these since we get most of our chicken whole. I wanted to use those up, as well. Each piece was about a half-pound and had a very fat end and a thin end, so cooking them evenly was not fun.
So, I took one piece of breast meat and cut it into two thinner fillets (one shorter and fatter, one longer and thinner). I seared these in a hot skillet with some coconut oil, then added a small can coconut milk (5 oz. size), and various herbs & spices from my cabinet: some ground ginger, fenugreek, dried cilantro, and garam masala. I let the sauce simmer down as the chicken finished cooking, and served it alongside the channa masala, over rice.
For something made up on the fly, it came out wonderfully, though I’d make some changes for next time: get a better sear on the chicken, and cook it more thoroughly before adding the coconut milk, so that the milk doesn’t have to almost cook off before the chicken is done. That way, there will be more sauce for the rice!
This is a very quick side dish, by the way — I put the chicken on when there was 10 minutes left on the rice timer, and it finished about 30 seconds after the timer went off. Cutting the fillets took about 1 minute. Very good for a weekday night, or if you’re just really hungry…