Grilled Thai Flavoured Coconut Chicken Thigh Fillets

If you like Asian flavours you wil love these Grilled Thai Flavoured Coconut Chicken Thigh Fillets.

We have started making this dish recently and I have to say flavour-wise, it is the bomb.

It is super simple to do you just need to think ahead as it really should marinate for around 5 hours, overnight is much better though.

Anything that has a Thai influence generally tends to tingle the taste buds in the most amazing ways, it does for us anyway.

You will need to allow around 15 minutes to knock it together, then bung it in the fridge until you are ready to grill. (Tip – Remove it from the fridge around half an hour before cooking).

So, what do you need to put this together? Not a lot really, we tend to have most of this in our fridge or cupboards.

Grilled Thai Flavoured Coconut Chicken Thigh Fillets

Ingredients:

• 1 kg chicken thigh fillets (skin removed)
• 1 x 2-3 inch piece of fresh ginger
• 3-4 cloves of garlic
• 1 long red fresh chilli (depends how hot you like it)
• The juice of 1 lime
• 2 Tbsp oil (Olive or Sesame oil)
• 1 ½ Tbsp of palm sugar or brown sugar
• 1 ½ Tsp salt (we like Himalayan rock salt – ground of course)
• 1/3 cup Thai Red Chilli paste (or whatever flavour tickles your fancy – Yellow works a treat too)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 handful of Coriander (Cilantro for our US friends)

Cooking Method

 Ok first up you need to crush the garlic and grate the knob of ginger into a bowl. Finely chop the chilli and add that to the bowl along with lime juice, oil, palm sugar, salt, Thai chilli paste and the coconut milk.

Mix all the ingredients with a fork or whisk to make sure that the oil is dispersed through the rest of the marinate.

Tidy the chicken thighs up (remove any excess fat or daggy bits as my wife likes it) then add to the marinade. Coat the thigh fillets with the marinade, hands work best, then cover and place in the fridge for at least 5 hours.

When you are ready to cook, light the grill and remove the chicken from the fridge to allow the chill to come off the meat a bit.

Once the grill is medium to hot, brush some olive oil over the grill then add the fillets allowing some of the marinade to drain off first. Grab a basting brush and coat the tops of the thighs with the marinade before turning them over. Keep coating them every time you turn them.

I tend to turn them around 2-3 times each side, it all depends how hot the grill is but you will generally get a feel for it so as not to burn the meat. After around 4-5 minutes per side they should be ready.

The ideal temperature of the chicken when cooked should be 74C or 165F, so if you have a meat thermometer just whack that in to make sure.

Remove the thighs from the grill and place on a serving dish and sprinkle the coriander over the top and hook in.