Slow Roasted Chicken in Coconut Milk

A different take on Thai green curry.  The small amount of green curry paste used in the dish gives it a subtle Thai accent without making the dish overly spicy, as the traditional dish tends to be.  Kind to kids!  If no Kaffir lime leaves are available, you can simply omit them.  An alternative would be to use an inch of ginger (sliced into pieces) or the zest of a lemon or lime.  Would also be nice with 1 or 2 smashed lemongrass stalks…

Slow roasting in a Dutch oven  (if you don’t know what a Dutch Oven is, Google is your friend… and so is Amazon too) makes the chicken falling-off-the-bone-tender but uncovering it towards the end of the cooking process allows  most of the skin to brown and crisp up like a traditional roast chicken.  Win-win situation, I’d say!  Husband says: This is how chicken should taste like!

Ingredients (to serve 4-6)
1 ~1.7kg Chicken, preferably organic
2 tbsp Coconut oil (or olive oil or butter)
3/4 cup Coconut milk
1 tsp Green curry paste (non-AIP, optional)
4-5 Kaffir lime leaves (optional)
1 Onion, sliced thinly
3 Garlic cloves, smashed
Sea salt, unrefined (or pink Himalaya salt)
Black pepper, freshly ground if possible (optional)

Method

• Preheat oven to 275F/ 135C
• Oil a Dutch Oven
• Place sliced onions, garlic cloves and kaffir lime leaves inside (if using)
• Add coconut milk
• Stir in green curry paste (if using)
• Rinse and pat dry chicken, remove fatty bits plus giblets and other spare parts from the cavity (if any), and tuck wings under (I don’t bother with trussing but by all means truss away…)
• Rub chicken all over with oil or butter
• Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper liberally over the chicken
• Place chicken in Dutch Oven, cover, and place into preheated oven
• Cook for approximately 3 hours
• Go do your stuff in the meantime (Spend time with kids/ go for a walk/ shopping/ movies/ read/ sleep… anything that takes 3 hours! I came home at the 3h30min mark and it was perfectly fine)
• Increase temperature to 375F/ 190C, continue roasting for about 30 minutes uncovered.  This will allow the skin at the top to crisp…. mmm crispy skin
• In the meantime prepare your rice/ veggies/ dessert etc (if desired)
• Remove from oven, allow to rest for 5 minutes, then serve
• Resulting gravy is awesome over rice!

Decadent tip: Remove oil from dish and drizzle over freshly cooked rice, fluffing to incorporate (makes it taste like chicken rice)
Keep the chicken bones to make stock with some carrots and celery.  Any leftover chicken can be diced and frozen for future use (in stir-fried vegetable dishes/ fried rice/ noodles/ chowders…)

Inspirations: http://nourishedkitchen.com/easy-roast-chicken/
http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-coconut-milk-chicken-98547