Thai-Inspired Baked Chicken with Lemongrass & Coconut

Ingredients

• 8 chicken thighs, bone-in, skin-on
• 1 x 250g pouch microwave jasmine rice
• 2 stalks lemongrass, tough outer leaves removed, finely sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 thumb fresh ginger, finely grated
• 2 red chillies, finely sliced
• 400 ml coconut milk
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp palm or soft brown sugar
• 1 lime, zested and juiced
• 2 pak choi, halved
• 15g Thai basil or coriander, to serve
• Pickled cucumber, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C. Pat the chicken thighs dry with kitchen paper — water means steam, and steam means no bronzed skin — then score the skin two or three times across each thigh and season generously with salt and black pepper. Lay them skin-up in a roasting tin.
2. Pound or blitz the lemongrass, garlic, ginger and half the sliced chilli to a rough, fragrant paste. Don't worry about it being smooth — you want texture clinging to the chicken.
3. Whisk the paste through the coconut milk with the fish sauce, sugar and lime zest. The coconut milk is your break-down liquid here — it carries the aromatics, stops the garlic catching, and reduces into the sauce as the chicken roasts. Pour over the chicken, turn to coat, then leave skin-side up so the tops sit proud of the liquid and crisp.
4. Marinate for 15 minutes while the oven comes up to temperature. The lime zest, fish sauce and coconut do the work of a longer marinade in a fraction of the time.
5. Roast for 35 minutes, basting the skin once at the halfway point. You're watching for the skin to bronze and the sauce around the edges to thicken and turn pale gold — the garlic in the paste is protected by the coconut milk, so it perfumes the sauce instead of burning.
6. Tuck the pak choi halves cut-side down into the sauce around the chicken. Back into the oven for 8–10 minutes, until the leaves have wilted, the stems are just tender and the chicken juices run clear when you nick the thickest thigh.
7. Squeeze the lime juice over the tray off the heat. Taste the sauce — it should land salty, sweet and sharp in roughly equal measure. Adjust now with a splash more fish sauce or a pinch of sugar if it needs it; at the table is too late.
8. Heat the jasmine rice pouch according to the packet. Spoon rice into bowls, sit a chicken thigh and a half of pak choi on top, and ladle the coconut sauce over. Scatter with Thai basil or coriander leaves and the reserved sliced chilli, and tuck a lime wedge alongside each bowl.