Pandan chicken

November 19, 2009 • Hello. I am currently out of the country and unable to respond to comments and e-mails. Rest assured, however, that future posts have been scheduled so new recipes will go live almost everyday during my absence. I'll be back soon with lots of stories and photos. Ciao for now! ~ Connie

Click here for the fried version of Thai pandan-wrapped chicken.

As far as I know, pandan chicken is a Thai dish. I have a friend who cooks this dish by deep frying each pandan wrapped chicken fillet. But me, I hate frying.

Ingredients :

deboned meat from 8-10 chicken thighs, skins on
1 tsp. of finely minced garlic
1 tsp. of finely chopped ginger
salt (herbed, if available) and pepper
4 tbsps. of oyster sauce
1/2 c. of powdered coconut cream
12-15 pandan leaves
3-4 c. of cooking oil, if deep frying

Cooking procedure :

Cut each deboned chicken thigh into three to four pieces, depending on how large the thighs are. Two-and-a-half inch cubes would be good since the meat will shrink a lot during cooking. Place in a glass bowl and season with salt and pepper. Add the minced garlic and ginger, oyster sauce and powdered coconut cream. Mix well, cover with cling film and let sit in the fridge for at least two hours.

Note that if powdered coconut cream is not available, it might be a better idea to substitute dessicated coconut rather than canned or fresh coconut cream. Too much liquid will make the chicken meat slippery and rather difficult to wrap.

After marinating, wrap each piece of chicken in a pandan leaf, rolling the leaf around the chicken. You can secure with wooden toothpicks if you plan to deep fry your chicken pandan. Otherwise, simply lay the pandan wrapped chicken pieces on a baking tray tucking the ends of the pandan leaves underneath.

Cook the pandan wrapped chicken in a very hot pre-heated convection oven (I set it at its highest setting). Do not skip the pre-heating part. It is essential so that the pandan wrapped chicken pieces go into an already hot oven. That way, the outside of the chicken will brown fast
while the inside remains moist. With the small size of the chicken pieces, cooking will only take about eight to ten minutes.

With an ordinary oven, you’ll have to use the broil setting meaning using the top heat. Gas ovens don’t have this setting. If you can’t broil your pandan chicken, I suggest grilling them over live coals or deep frying them. If grilling, do not put the grilling rack too near the live coals. Grill the pandan chicken about 6-8 inches above the live coals, turning once halfway through the cooking. If deep frying, make sure that your cooking oil is very, very hot before adding the pandan chicken. Otherwise, they will get soggy as they cook. Whether grlling in a convection oven, broiling, grilling over live coals or deep frying, cook only until the outside is golden brown. Do not overcook so that the chicken remains moist and succulent.

That’s it, really. Within a minute from shutting the oven door, the mixed aromas of the spices, pandan leaves and coconut cream were all over the kitchen and my family knew they were about to experience something great. And they did.

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