The Penalty Box

The best Portuguese chicken I’ve ever had is made in a restaurant in Macau. I had it during my trip to China and Hong Kong last year. The fact that it was stuffy as all hell and the air quality on a good day is worse than a Toronto summer did not detract from the food. It really was that good. I recently missed that, and while I in no way achieved anything close, what I made reasonably satisfied my need to eat some good Portuguese chicken. So below was my experimentation; enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 5 chicken thighs bone in, chopped into smaller pieces (you can use whatever chicken meat you want, I like dark meat)
• 1 big onion
• 5 nugget potatoes
• 1 can of cream of chicken
• half a can of coconut milk
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• olive/vegetable oil
• cornstarch, soy sauce, sugar, salt, pepper

Cooking directions:

1. Chop your chicken into pieces. Put it into a bowl with some cornstarch, soy sauce and sugar (probably a tablespoon or so of each, or enough to coat). Put in a teaspoon of salt and a couple teaspoons of ground pepper. Mix with your hands until coated. Let sit and marinade for 20-30 minutes.
2. Chop your onion into small-ish pieces. Small enough to fit in your mouth but big enough to stab with a fork.
3. Chop your potatoes into similar sized pieces.
4. Heat some oil in a pan and toss in your onions and potatoes. Saute until the onions become translucent.
5. Add your chicken to the pan with the chicken broth. Cook until your chicken is basically cooked through (juices run clear). This should take about 10 minutes.
6. Pour this mixture into an oven safe dish.
7. Put about a tablespoon of oil back into the pan and put in your curry powder. When it becomes fragrant, add your cream of chicken and coconut milk. Stir thoroughly and bring to a boil. Add pepper to taste here.
8. Add your chicken/onion/potato mix back in. Bring to boil again.
9. Transfer back into your oven safe dish and stash in your oven. Turn your oven to broil and leave your dish in there until it bubbles on top.
10. Serve on top of rice or bread.

You can optionally chop up some parsley and sprinkle on top when serving for a little colour. This turned out to be one of my more successful experiments. Hope you enjoy. Happy eatings!

As a final note, you may want to light a candle because curry is quite pungent and will linger. Of course, if you like the smell, no worries, but the candle helps the smell dissipate a bit faster.