weekend lunch

mom is in the philippines at a family gathering (hi karen!), so i cooked lunch for pop today: pandan chicken, red rice, and pickled wing beans.

the pickles were made by my mom earlier in the week with fresh wing beans boiled in a pickling liquid of coconut vinegar, sugar, ginger, onion, garlic and boonie peppers. they've been sitting in the fridge cooling and curing to piquant perfection.



the pandan chicken is a simplified version of the thai khai hoh bai toey, by way of Big G. usually it is fried in pandan leaves, but errrgggh, no, not if i'm doing it and it's super warm out (like it is today). what i like about it is that because the chicken is boiled first, frying time is cut down dramatically, and some of the fat gets rendered out so the skin is wispy and crispy.

basic recipe: mix one can of coconut milk with sliced ginger (fat knob), several pandan leaves (or pandan extract), crushed garlic (half a small head), whole but slightly smushed boonie (thai bird) peppers, cracked black pepper, a tablespoonful of salt, the peel of one small lime, and a teaspoonful of turmeric. add a couple cups of water to this, and bring it to a boil then quickly reduce it to simmer. cut up a whole chicken into manageable smallish pieces, add to the coconut milk mix, add enough water to cover the chicken, then bring it back up to a simmer until the meat is just cooked (for a 3lb chicken, it was about 20 minutes). place the cooked chicken on a rack over a baking pan to dry out a little. heat up a few inches of oil in a frying pan or wok, then fry the chicken until funktastically golden crispy. the coconut milk keeps the chicken from drying out, and the spices are subtle, but i think more successfully infused than if it was just marinated cold. this, i think, would be a fantastic picnic fare, as the fried chicken tastes better the next day (as it almost always is).



for dessert, a scoop of selecta brand fruit salad ice cream (vanilla with papaya, coco gel, and candied cherries) with a wee bit of anko on the side.