Sticky Coconut Chicken with Melon Salad

In the kitchen (at least) sometimes the most unlikely combinations are the best ones. That was the case last night with a rather wonderful melon salad. It was not intended to be the star of the event, but somehow managed to acquire all the accolades. In otherwords, it was flippin' wonderful. 

 

You see I had a rather lonely honeydew melon in the refrigerator that needed eating and since the rest of dinner was highly spiced (what else is new in this house) I figured something cooling to the palate would be essential. The big guy seems to possess ironclad tastebuds, but me..well I'm a bit less adventurous in the "heat" department - not much, but a bit. We combined melon with english cucumber, red onion, jalapeno and minced ginger with lime juice and a little sweet stuff and came up with this incredible salad. Quite honestly the combination is really, really something - cool cucumber and refreshing melon along with a little jalapeno surprise - oh yum. Download Honeydew Salad You've just GOT to try it!

Since the big guy was home yesterday and available to grill again for the third night in a row, we tried a Sunset magazine recipe for Sticky Coconut Chicken with a Chili Glaze. Chicken thighs are marinated in a mixture of coconut milk, ginger, pepper and red chili flakes then grilled while being basted with the marinade and topped with a chili glaze.  http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=522896

Of course I made a couple of changes to the recipe - we used skinless chicken thighs with the bone in because they have so much more flavor, even though they take a little longer to cook. Also the recipe says to baste the chicken during grilling with the marinade, but I've got this thing about re-using marinade that chicken has been sitting in so I actually made double the recipe, one for the chillin' and one for the grillin'. I mean, what are you going to do with the rest of the can of coconut milk anyway? Course that assumes you're not making coconut rice to go along with the chicken which would have been wonderful -  but hey, we're back to watchin' our carbs so that idea got tossed. We had thai green beans as a side dish, courtesy of Trader Joe's freezer.

The big guy and I both agreed this recipe is a real keeper. If you're frightened by the amount of red chili flakes in the marinade, don't be. Not many of them actually end up in the chicken, but if you think it'll be too spicy for you, cut the amount in half. By the way, the chili glaze is unbelievable - sweet, spicy and totally delicious. It is more than worth the 10 minutes it takes to put together and combined with the cool honeydew salad...well geez. Next time I'm going to double ALL the recipes. 

Comments

[Mags]

I'm with you on the marinade thing. I'd never reuse meat marinade unless it had been boiled first and from looking at the recipe, they don't mention to do that. I bought a can of coconut milk a few months ago and I have no idea why I bought it. This looks like a good way to use it.

That honeydew salad sounds great as well. Love that it has a jalapeno in it.

[JBug]

I use coconut milk quite often - usually the lite version because the full has an incredible amount of fat and calories. It makes a fabulous green or red Thai curry and not a bad coconut cake either mmm...cake!