Balinese chicken, bean and coconut salad
The best chicken salads come from the East – Bali, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma – and I can’t get enough of them: they just grab your taste buds and don’t let go.
You can now buy fresh coconut in small packets (so no more buying a whole beast and taking a hammer to it). I know it’s a pain to open a whole can of coconut cream to use just a few tablespoons for the dressing, but there are plenty of other dishes in the book that call for coconut cream, so there should be no shortage of ways to use it up.
Ingredients
FOR THE SALAD
- 5 skinless boneless chicken thighs
- finely grated zest and juice of 2 limes
- 10 garlic cloves 2 crushed, 8 finely sliced
- salt and pepper
- 175 g 6oz cucumber
- 175 g 6oz green beans
- 150 g 5½oz beansprouts
- leaves from a medium bunch of coriander chopped
- leaves from a medium bunch of mint torn
- 125 g 4½oz fresh coconut, grated
- 2 red chillies deseeded and finely sliced
- 4 kaffir lime leaves finely sliced lengthways
- 4 shallots
- 1½ tbsp groundnut oil
FOR THE DRESSING
- 1½ tbsp caster sugar
- juice of 3 limes
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp groundnut oil
- 2 tbsp coconut cream
Instructions
- Put the chicken into a dish with the lime zest and juice, the crushed garlic and some pepper.
- Cover and put in the fridge while you make the rest of the dish.
- Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
- Shave the cucumber skin so that you end up with it in stripes (it doesn’t have to be neat).
- Halve the cucumber lengthways and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon (discard them).
- Slice the cucumber as thick as a 50p coin and put into a serving bowl.
- Steam or boil the green beans until only just tender (they should be slightly less cooked than you would serve them as a side dish).
- Rinse in cold water to stop them cooking further.
- Carefully pat dry with a tea towel.
- Add to the bowl with the beansprouts, herbs, coconut, chillies and lime leaves.
- Peel the shallots, halve them and cut them into moon-shaped wedges.
- Heat half the oil in a frying pan and cook until crispy and golden.
- Scoop out on to kitchen paper with a slotted spoon.
- Add the sliced garlic to the pan and cook until pale gold.
- Be careful not to burn it; that happens very quickly.
- Scoop that out, too, on to kitchen paper with a slotted spoon.
- Add the shallots and garlic to the bowl.
- Make the dressing by mixing the caster sugar with the lime juice and fish sauce.
- Stir vigorously to help the sugar dissolve.
- Add the oil and coconut cream.
- Heat a griddle pan until really hot.
- Take the chicken out of its marinade and brush on both sides with the remaining oil.
- Season and cook the chicken on the griddle, starting on a high heat to get a good colour on both sides, then reducing the heat and cooking until they are done.
- Slice into strips.
- Toss the chicken into the salad bowl with the dressing and serve.