Recipe: Thai coconut chicken

Thai coconut chicken

So apparently today is national Yorkshire pudding day - I seem to have missed the memo about that one and gone for more exotic flavours altogether for our Sunday dinner!

As always, the meal was based around making the most of my latest cut-price buys. Last night I found some free-range chicken breasts reduced from £4.63 to £2.50 as well as a pot of coconut chunks reduced from £1 to 15p. With a bag of reduced chillies in the fridge (£1.12 to 39p) and some limes (£1.29 to 25p for five) something with a Thai influence was clearly on the cards.

Alas, as I was preparing the meal something very rare happened - for once I actually threw out one of my shelf bargains! The coconut, only a day out, did not smell particularly appetising and so was banished to the bin. A rare occurrence but one I thought worthy of mentioning - use your nose and you'll soon know if you should be using the cut-price food or not.

A re-think was in order, but here is how I eventually made the meal:

1) Dice a red pepper, a green chilli, slice a few spring onions and finely chop a clove of garlic and a thumb-sized piece of ginger.
2) Cut the chicken breasts into bite-sized chunks.
3) Heat a glug of oil in a wok or large frying pan and brown the chicken for a few minutes.
4) Add the veg and stir fry for another minute.
5) Add a tin of coconut milk, the juice of a fresh lime, a glug of Thai fish sauce and a glug of soy sauce.
6) Leave to simmer for five minutes.
7) Add a handful of frozen peas and leave to cook for another minute or two.
8) Serve with rice and fresh coriander leaves sprinkled over the top.

Simple yet very effective. Mr Kate seemed most pleased with this one!

Pricewise this was a little more expensive that I usually like my meals to be but it still only came in at around £4.50 for the two of us. Coconut milk is rather expensive these days - £1.99 a can for the more well-known brands but we got a lesser known foreign brand for just 89p a can. £2.25 per person isn't bad for a weekend meal but not as cheap as I'd like! The cut-price mission continues!