Thai Coconut Chicken Recipe

Since Jim asked, here's the recipe for the chicken I did yesterday.

Loosely based off of one recipe in Steve Raichlen's Beer Can Chicken book, which is an AWESOME cookbook. If you own a BBQ, you need this book.

Anyhow, here goes:

You'll need:
1 whole chicken (fryer or roaster)
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 can coconut milk (used for cooking, for basting, for sauce, and for the rub)
1 can beer (ok, soda pop can will do). Regular size! sorry Guiness fans.
Fresh ginger, shallots, garlic (4 cloves), lime, lemon grass, cilantro
2 thai chilies, or serano or jalapenos.
brown sugar, salt, pepper, coriander
Vegetable oil
About 1 hr to prep and 1.5 hrs to cook.

1. Make the rub paste:

• In a small bowl (or mortar/pestle):
• Mix 1 tbsp each of coriander, salt, pepper, brown sugar
• Add 2 cloves garlic (finely minced), 2 tbsp minced cilantro, 1tbsp minced ginger
• Add a little shot each of veg oil and coconut milk
• Mash it up with a pestle or fork into a paste you'll later spread on the chicken

2. Prep baste solution:

• in small bowl, put 1/4 cup coconut milk, juice of 1/4 of a lime, and a spoonful of the paste from (1) above. Mix and let sit.

3. Prep chicken:

• Remove giblets (if you are like me, then cook these separately in foil - feed to dog. Makes for happy dog)
• rinse bird inside and out with cold water. Dry off with paper towel
• spread remaining paste from (1) all over bird - inside and out
• Sit bird in a bowl, covered, and put her in the fridge for an hour.
• Empty beer into glass. Drink beer. Contemplate the chicken's existence, and whether she anticipated being voilated posthumously such as you are about to do. Contemplate this for an hour. Or, go play Geometry Wars for an hour. It's up to you.
• Rinse can out, poke a couple extra holes around the top rim, pour in 3/4 cup of coconut milk and juice of a 1/4 lime. Stick a couple stalks of lemon grass in teh can.
• Take bird out and mount her on the can. If you've never done a beercan chicken before, she should look like this.
• Cook on indirect heat (i.e. don't light the side of the grill under her, light the other side, and then cover - you are going more for 'oven' than grill) for 90 minutes to 110 minutes, depending on size of bird. check with thermometer starting at 90 minutes.
• baste every ~10 minutes, with the solution created in (2) starting at 45 minutes

4. Make Sauce

• Dice the 2 peppers, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tbs ginger, 2-3 shallots
• In a deep frypan or wok, heat a little oil, fry the above ingedients until brown
• Add remaining coconut milk (should be about 1/2 to 3/4 cup)
• Add 3/4 cup peanut butter
• Add juice of 1/2 lime
• heat on low heat for 5-10 minutes while stirring. Should make a very thick sauce
• Remove, place in bowl, let cool

5. Serve it up

• Remove bird from grill. Make sure guests see bird in her provocative can-mounted state.
• carefully remove can - it's filled with hot coconut milk that can burn you, so be careful
• Carve up chicken, serve with sauce on the side
• Rice is a good side dish, because it's a vehicle for the sauce, which is yummy and people will want to polish off.