Beer with Thyme with Coconut

This dish was inspired by a lot of things. One being Red Stripe and the fact that a Jamaican man will drink a hot beer right off the shelf. So I figured what if the heat came from a flame as opposed to nature. Next, Thyme: it’s only a natural feature in any Jamaican dish. And, Coconut milk, nice and thick from the can.

                It was a Friday and I wanted something fun and new that included beer. At first I wanted to put the three together with steak, but none of us felt like going as far as turning on the grill…maybe next week. Easier option: chicken (I swear I am going reincarnate as a yaad fowl).

                Friday dinner became a time for experiment, throw together, especially after we moved to Harbour View;  before that we lived in Stony Hill Fridays, which brought pizza and church fish fries. I got the inspiration, from Iron Chef, to de-bone and de-meat two wings and a thigh, cooked the meat down in thyme and coconut milk, then stuff the meat back in the wings (wrap the rest in skin of the thigh).  

                But divert back to beer with me. Growing up I used to tease daddy about drinking something that looked like urine: “How is he satisfied by warm urine? Poor thing, work must very rough.” He explained it was an acquired taste. Of course, I had to wait to get to college to acquire said taste and looked forward to coming home in the summer to Heineken yesterdays. A cold beer became as attractive to me as tea was mum. Don’t get me wrong, after dinner, the decision between fever grass (or vanilla chai) tea and a cold Red Stripe or Heineken seems life altering in those five minutes.

                This then begs the question: Why would you sacrifice the satisfaction of beer's cold, crisp potential for a room temperature one on a typical hot Kingston day? To this day all I get in response is a pair of shrugged shoulders. All I can do now is raise my cold beer to these weirdoes and enjoy the hot beer the way I can tolerate it – via stove. Here goes.

Thyme & Coconut Brewed Chicken

Ingredients:

1 ½ c of beer (Heineken)                                      Chicken: 2 wings, 1 thigh

1 c coconut milk                                                    Thyme – 2 sprigs

Salt and pepper                                                     Granulated sugar – 1 tsp

5 Pimento seeds                                                    1 clove Garlic - diced

Coconut oil - 1 tbsp                                               Green pepper - sliced

Tomato – sliced                                                      string

How:

With meat scissors where necessary, remove the meat from the skin of the respective parts. Put the skins in a bowl and cover with beer, 1 sprig of thyme, and the sugar and leave to marinate.

Dice the meat and put in another container and cover with the coconut milk, thyme, salt, pepper and leave marinate.

After one hour, shake off as much of the milk as possible and brown the chicken in the coconut oil.

Wrap the cooked meat in the three skins and tie with string then brown them in the same pan.

 

Mix the beer marinate with the coconut milk marinate along with the diced garlic and pimento seeds.

After the chicken is browned, lower the heat and pour the mix in. Leave it to reduce around the meat.

Garnish with the sliced tomato and green pepper. 

Warm caramelized beer and coconut milk at their goodest!

Eat well,

Gillian M.