121/18 – Coconut Roast Chicken with Soy Honey Glaze:
I bought a book called The Asian Barbecue Book on Amazon a while back and a recipe that stood out was Coconut Roast Chicken with Soy Honey Glaze. The reason it stood out is because you cook it like beer can chicken but use a coconut instead of a beer can!
This recipe is from The Asian Barbecue Book by Alex Skaria and is available from Amazon. Click the link below to buy the book:
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The Meat:
A whole chicken from Gartmorn Farm – 2.4kg for £12.
The Prep:
First things first. As I needed a pretty large cooking surface I fired up the Kamado Joe Big Joe. A full fire basket of Oxford Charcoal oak lumpwood lit in three places with Flamers:
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Target cooking temperature was around 250C which is why I went for three flamers. One in the middle, one at the back and one at the front. Vents wide open, deflectors in place and as the temperature approached 200C I slowly started closing the vents down until it levelled at 250C.
With the fire ready I made a soy honey glaze for the chicken from light soy sauce, honey, sugar, coconut water, garlic, ginger, black pepper and curry powder. Normally you would use some of the coconut water from the coconut you were using to hold the chicken but there appeared to be a local coconut supply issue when I cooked this so I used Vita Coco coconut water instead.
I applied the glaze to the chicken and put it in the fridge for half an hour.
Next I prepped a few bits to go in the poultry roaster: Onion, spring onions, green chilli and a red chilli.
Chopped.
Then placed in the poultry roaster with some coconut water.
The Cook:
Two chunks of cherry into the Kamado Joe then I placed the chicken on top of the poultry roaster and put it in to cook.
The cherry chunks were from a new supplier: Guy and Jacqui Neath who sell on ebay as jacqui1treetops. I got 14kg of mixed smoking woods for £24.50 delivered which seems great value. 4kg Apple, 4kg Beech, 4kg Oak and 2kg of Cherry. Also in the box was a mix of eight different woods: Apple, Oak, Beech, Sweet Chestnut, Hazel, Walnut, Hawthorn and Plum – £22 delivered. Quite a few I haven’t tried on that list before so looking forward to cooking with them.
The recipe suggests Japanese Grilled Eggplant as a good side dish to serve with the chicken. A sweet soy marinade is made from rapeseed oil, spring onions, soy sauce, sugar and garlic. The toasted sesame seeds in the picture get sprinkled on at the end.
Aubergine sliced thinly, covered with Maldon sea salt and left for 30 minutes before it was rinsed and patted dry.
Sweet soy marinade with the aubergine. I forgot to keep the sesame seeds separate and added them to the marinade!
I used the Meater probe on the chicken and set it to alert at 70C. 50 minutes in to the cook it was ready so I popped the lid. The chicken looked a bit toasty! I think the sugar in the marinade had burnt a bit, no big deal though.
The chicken came out and was wrapped in foil. I took the deflector plates out the Kamado Joe and left it to heat up.
The aubergine went on to the grill. Around four minutes per side until it softened.
Then out onto a tray.
Soy marinade brushed over the top.
The chicken was moved to a deep pan and the liquid was poured in too.
Time to carve it.
Time to Eat:
Coconut Roast Chicken with Soy Honey Glaze and Japanese Grilled Eggplant.
SUMMARY:
Bit of a disappointment that I couldn’t get hold of a coconut! Looking at the recipe I think it’s looking for a green, young coconut as well rather than the brown ones you usually see in the supermarket and I haven’t seem them around here. I was planning to cook this again and order a young coconut online but having used the poultry roaster again I think I would skip the coconut and either stick it on the rotisserie or spatchcock it as I think both methods cook the chicken better and more evenly than the poultry roaster.
The marinade tasted quite nice but it was too thin so if I made it again I would put more honey in to thicken it. Although the skin was a bit charred it tasted fine. The chicken itself was incredibly juicy and had the usual awesome chicken taste you get with a quality chicken. I couldn’t taste any coconut, maybe it’s very subtle!
The aubergine was the stand out part of this dish and tasted fantastic so I will cook that again!
| Cook Difficulty: | 2/5 |
| Cook Duration: | Quick: 2/5 |
| Cook Equipment: | Kamado Joe Big Joe |
| Cook Method: | Indirect and Direct |
| Charcoal: | Oxford Charcoal oak |
| Smoking Wood: | Treetops cherry chunks |
| Cook temperature: | 250C |
| Cook time: | 50 minutes |
| Internal temperature: | 70C |
| Notes: | 1: Don’t bother with the poultry roaster, spatchcock it or use the rotisserie. 2: Add more honey to the marinade to thicken it. 3: Cut the aubergine slightly thicker. |
This recipe is from The Asian Barbecue Book by Alex Skaria and is available from Amazon. Click the link below to buy the book:
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