Chicken with Coconut Milk Soup Recipe
The recipe (or recipes I should say) being presented today are a bit special. How we usually approach Moni Dadi’s recipes is that Ms. Shortcut Sokhina is the one who prepares the food, and I am the one who assists and does the tasting. And on occasions, I am the one preparing the food if I believe it to be an easy one to cook. But today Moni Dadi’s granddaughter prepared the food items from Moni Dadi’s recipe book. It was her ,Dadi’s granddaughter Sunita apu, first time making something from this recipe book. So she wanted it to be a special evening. So she invited 3 of her friends and they together made 4 items from the recipe book. Without pre-planning the menu, she whipped up the four dishes, Deshi Beef Roast, Alu Shim Posto, Chicken with Coconut Milk Soup, Aam er laundho, each bursting with flavor. And to her surprise, they not only tasted excellent with Polao, but each one complemented the other.
Now, of the 4 dishes I had the least interest in the Chicken with Coconut Milk Soup, or you may call it Coconut Milk Chicken. Regular followers of Moni Dadi’s recipes, or anyone who has read any of the previous chicken dishes of Moni Dadi will know that I am not a fan of chicken. And I make sure everyone knows this. I do not hate chicken, and I do enjoy eating most of the chicken based dishes. But if there is an alternative to the chicken, like beef or mutton, I’d absolutely pick the latter one.
And to make the case worse for Chicken with Coconut Milk Soup or , Coconut Milk Chicken is my distaste for coconut in curries. I went to South India once and using coconut or coconut milk in curries is the tradition there. And as you can guess, I did not have a good time eating those curries. But I still put on a brave face and gave them a shot to get a taste of the local cuisines. The taste was just not pleasant for me.
Now, you might be thinking why am I talking about curries when the dish is named a soup. Well because even though it is called a soup, it has more in common with curries than soup. You can take some hot Chicken with Coconut Milk Soup in a bowl and have it with a spoon. But you’d have a better experience having it with Polao. Because the “soup” here is very rich in flavor and spices, just like a curry. And if you look at the recipe instructions, you can add water to make it more soupy. Or you can make it gravy as well.
Those of you who’ve lived in Dhaka must have had chicken soup with parata for breakfast at some point or another. This dish tastes kind of like that, but with the flavor of coconut. Now I like the chicken soup, but the coconut flavor is a deal breaker for me. But if the flavor is right in your alley, try making it. Sunita Apu had the Chicken with Coconut Milk Soup with Polao, but if you have it for breakfast let us know how it feels.
One thing you should know is that you can use different cuts. Moni Dadi originally instructed us to use shredded chicken, but Sunita Apu used thigh pieces. And the dish still came out perfect. So you’re free to experiment with different cuts of meat. Of course, share your experiments with us so we can try something else as well.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken cut up into 14-16 pieces. You can also cut chicken breast into 3-4 pieces.
- 4 cups coconut milk
- 3 tbsp ginger cut up in small pieces
- 12-15 Thai basil leaves
- 6-8 green chilies slit in two pieces
- 8-10 shallots/small onions cut in half
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- Salt to taste
- 2 tsp sugar
- 4 tsp fish sauce
Instructions
- Mix everything in a pot and cook on low to medium heat for about an hour
- Add water if needed to make it soupy, or you can keep it as is with less gravy