Chicken in Coconut Milk

This is a recipe adapted from Clarissa Dickson Wright’s one pot recipe book, Potty. I’ve turned it into a soup… It’s so flavoursome you won’t need to add any salt at all.

As much chicken as you want – I used 3 chicken thighs ad 3 drumsticks, and it fed 2 and a half with a portion left over. I urge you to use chicken on the bone! It stays more juicy, which makes it easier to eat for little ‘uns.

A tin of coconut milk

2 chopped onions

1 deseeded green chilli (Miles likes mildly spicy food, but you know your own baby! So put in as much or as little as you like)

2 garlic cloves, crushed

A generous pinch of turmeric

A thumb size piece of ginger, chopped

2 tsp of ground coriander

1 tbsp of peanut butter

2 Kaffir lime leaves (we already had these lingering in the cupboard. If you don’t have them, just some lime zest will do)

2 lemongrass stalks, sliced

1. Chuck the onion, garlic, ginger, peanut butter, spices, lemongrass and chilli in a food processor with a little of the coconut milk. Whizz to a paste. Then pour in the remaining coconut milk and give it another whizz.
2. Put the chicken in a big old pot, and pour over the coconut milk mixture. Bring gently to the boil, and allow to simmer uncovered until the chicken is cooked. – I haven’t specified a time because it depends on the enormity of your chicken pieces! We had some huge thighs and it took about 25 minutes. Use your noggin and test the chicken at its thickest part after about 15 minutes.
3. When the chicken is cooked, take out of the milk and allow the liquid to bubble away and thicken slightly. Meanwhile take the meat off the bone.
4. Add the meat back to the pan just before serving.

lovely stuff!

For Miles we served this with sticky rice and green veg. He liked the chicken because it was so tender, and really enjoyed trying to pick up individual rice grains.

You could make this vegetarian by substituting the chicken with sweet potato.

 

 

Giraffe at Spinningfields Manchester

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Giraffe, so when we found ourselves hungry and on Deansgate we gave it a whirl.

mmm, what shall we have?

The Food… I ordered the mexican breakfast. Scrambled egg, chorizo, black beans, sweetcorn, avocado, salsa and manchego cheese on a tortilla. And it was pretty tasty! I was especially impressed with the scrambled eggs. They are so easy to get right, but so easy to get wrong! They were beautifully soft, and not rubbery at all. Slightly disappointed the chorizo was sliced sandwich style chorizo and not big chunks of chorizo sausage. Put I’m just being picky 😉
Little Dudes Dad had half a rack of ribs. The meat was falling off the bone! I wouldn’t have thought about ribs for Miles, but the meat was so tender he loved it. I might try ribs when we get home.

We ordered from the kids menu for Miles. He’s getting so efficient at eating. If all his lunch came from our plates, then there would be nothing left for us! We chose a beefburger with chips for £4.25. He really liked the burger, but found it a bit tough. It didn’t stop him having a good go and sucking out the juices though! He also had some of my scrambled egg and avocado and Marks ribs. I’d have liked to have seen some more veggies in the kids meals, and maybe some fruity desserts?

2 soft drinks, 2 meals and a kid’s meal came to £27, which I thought was just reasonable.

Mama and Milesy eating

Highchairs… Wooden with no tray. They were a good height and he sat right up to the table. I always prefer a tray at the moment, so he doesn’t have to eat off the table. I can’t trust him eating from a porcelain plate just yet!

Howdy everyone!

Staff… Efficient! Our food came quite quickly, and everyone was nice. Miles was waving at people (as normal), and one of the bar staff came over and gave him a little plastic giraffe, which was cute.

Would I go again? I would. But there are so many other places around I haven’t tried in Manchester! So not for a while.