Roasted coconut chicken

Name: Roasted coconut chicken
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Indonesian
Ingredients: 4 cm (1½ inches) turmeric, peeled, or 1 teaspoon ground turmeric; 1 teaspoon ground coriander; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 tablespoons oil; 400 ml (1½ cups) full-fat coconut milk; 2 teaspoons dark palm sugar (gula jawa); 2 onions, roughly chopped; 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped; 2 large red chillies, half seeded and chopped; 2 lemongrass sticks, trimmed and sliced; 1.5 kg (3 lb 5 oz) chicken; 1 tablespoon tamarind paste

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Fire Islands

By Eleanor Ford

Published 2019

About

Roast chicken gets the spice treatment. The flavour is authentically Indonesian, the method not, but I think you’ll love it nonetheless. The bird is bathed in a silky coconut sauce, which thickens and caramelises in the oven forming an irresistible burnished crust.

Ingredients

1.5 kg (3 lb 5 oz) chicken
1

Asia
Indonesia
Spice Mix
Main course
Gluten-free
South East Asia

Method

Find a roasting dish in which the chicken sits reasonably snuggly, just a little room around the edges to hold the sauce. Put the bird inside and paint the skin with tamarind paste. Leave to come up to room temperature whilst you make the bumbu.

Grind all the bumbu ingredients to a paste in a food processor. Heat the oil in a pan and cook the bumbu for 5-10 minutes, stirring often, unti