Baking
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"A very easy and very yummy chicken recipe. Even tastes good without the vanilla bean"– Angela Woerlee.
I am a big fan of savoury dishes with vanilla aromatics ever since travelling through French Polynesia and the island of Taha’a (where they grow amazing vanilla beans) - they have mastered cooking with this fragrant bean and is where I had a very similar dish served with fresh caught fish.
In this recipe the vanilla sings in the background without being too overpowered thanks to the soy and lemon, and the coconut infused rice brings the whole concept together.
Serves 4. GF if swap out the soy. DF if swap out the butter. Freezes well.
Pictured: Aromatic Roast Chicken Breasts with coconut
Ingredients
- 1 vanilla bean
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp grated palm sugar/soft brown sugar
- 1 - 2 tbsp grated lemon zest
- 4 boneless chicken breasts, leave skin on
- Juice of 3 - 4 lemons
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 50g snow peas/mange tout shoots
- Steamed Coconut Rice
- 400g white long grain rice
- 750ml light coconut milk
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp butter
- Preheat the oven 200 °C.
- Using a sharp knife, slice the vanilla bean half lengthways and scrape the seeds into a bowl (reserve the vanilla pod for another use). Add the soy sauce, sugar and lemon zest (add how much you like depending on how lemony you like it) and stir to combine.
- Using a sharp knife, cut several long incisions into the skin of each chicken breast, then rub the soy mixture into the skin. Put the lemon juice and olive oil in a small casserole dish or baking dish and add the chicken breasts, skin side up.
- Roast for 20 – 40 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through, you can test by piercing with a skewer and if the juices run clear rather than pink it is ready.
- Carve each chicken breast into several thick slices.
- Coconut rice (serves 6 as a side dish) - Put the rice in a large bowl and cover with water. Stir several times and then drain away the water. Repeat this process several times to remove some of the starch from the rice.
Method
Put the washed rice and all the remaining ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting. Cover the saucepan and cook for 30 minutes.
Serve with the snow pea shoots on a bed of steamed coconut rice, with the baking juices over the top.
Dietary preferences
- Gluten-Free with substitutions
