Chicken with Coconut Water (Ga ham voi dua tuoi) : AFF Indochina

The color of this dish is so blah. It is all brown and does not look attractive at all. Hence the shredded carrots and spring onion to perk it up a bit. The photo in the cookbook was no better. But one taste and you will proclaim that it is beautiful! 

What makes this dish so tasty is the caramelised coconut water. The original name in the cookbook is Chicken with Coconut Juice but I think Coconut Water is the more appropriate term (macam cikgu pulak). As I mentioned in my previous post, I used the packaged coconut water.

This is a very easy dish to prepare. Nothing fussy about it at all. You don't even have to marinate the chicken. All the sauce ingredients are mixed together beforehand. Once you have briefly stir fried the chicken, just pour in the sauce mix, wine and coconut water and simmer away.

As usual, the chicken released a lot of water and I had to remove the chicken pieces and continue simmering the sauce until it reduced and thickened. Then I returned the chicken into the wok and stirred to coat with the thick sauce. 

When I tasted the gravy, I was blown away. It was crazy good and I recommend that you make extra sauce so that there is enough to go around. Especially if your family members love gravy on their rice. Coconut water rawks!

Chicken with Coconut Water

Recipe source : Quick & Easy Vietnamese Home Cooking for Everyone (page 47)
(My notes in red)

Ingredients :

- 1 whole chicken or 4 chicken breasts (I hate breast and opted for 4 chicken legs)

- 3 tbsp olive oil (or any cooking oil)

Cooking sauce :

- 1 cup diced onions

- 1 tbsp each, soy sauce and chopped garlic

- 2 tbsp Maggi seasoning (I just used soya sauce)

- 2 tsp each salt and sugar (I omitted)

- 1 tsp black pepper

- 1/2 cup dry or sweet sherry wine (I use shiaoxing wine)

- 1 cup (8 oz/236ml) coconut water

Method :

1. Cut up whole chicken into 12 pieces.

2. Saute chicken in 3 tbsp olive oil until lightly browned.

3. Add cooking sauce ingredients and simmer covered for 10 minutes.

4. Pour in sherry wine and coconut water and simmer for another 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked and sauce is thick.

Note : If chicken bleeds a lot of water, remove the chicken once cooked and continue to simmer the liquids until it reduces and becomes thick.

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest - Indochina hosted by Kelly Siew Cooks.

This post is also linked to Cook-Your-Books #13 hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours.