Coconut Chicken

This one turned out to be kind of interesting.  I ended up cooking some of the chicken withOUT the crunchy coconut breading because I was just flat out tired of the whole process.  Turns out, we all liked the non-breaded chicken WAY better!  Funny, huh?  :)  So, in the future, I will definitely use this recipe but will cook the chicken in a skillet after it sits in the marinade for a few hours but withOUT the coconut breading.

(You can see a little bit of the non-breaded chicken at the top of the plate in the photo.)

Coconut Chicken
1 (14 oz.) can coconut milk, divided
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. lime juice
1 ½ pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves cut into strips

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup panko bread crumbs
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. black pepper
½ cup all purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
½ cup mayonnaise

Pour half the coconut milk, the garlic, soy sauce, and lime juice into a resealable plastic ziploc bag and shake thoroughly to combine ingredients.  Place chicken strips in the bag and squeeze several times to coat the chicken with marinade.  Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.   (Note - next time, since I won't be doing the breading, I will make another marinade but will heat this on the stove to serve as a sauce over the chicken. That will use up the rest of the can of coconut milk, plus I think a sauce will be nice with the chicken over rice.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with foil and grease with olive oil.  (Note - I also did a comparison between this method of lining baking sheet with foil and using a Pampered Chef stoneware bar pan... I like the result of using the PC pan better.)

Place the shredded coconut in a blender or food processor and pulse several times until coconut is ground into crumbs.  Mix it with the panko crumbs, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Place flour in a 2nd bowl, and egg in a 3rd bowl.  Shake excess marinade from chicken strips and dip them in the flour to coat, then in the egg, then in the coconut crumb mixture.  Place the coated strips onto the baking sheet.

Bake chicken strips in preheated oven until golden brown - about 30 minutes.

Mix the reserved coconut milk and mayonnaise in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, serve the sauce drizzled over the chicken strips or on the side for dipping.  (Note - again... I will use the reserved coconut milk as stated above - this coconut milk/mayo mixture just doesn't sound good to me at all!)

I originally found this recipe at Allrecipes.