thai coconut poached chicken salad

The Spirit House at Yandina on the Queensland Sunshine Coast is a completely standout Thai restaurant.  A few years ago for my husband’s 40th birthday we booked out one of their famous cooking classes for  our friends and together we sliced, diced and ate divine Thai food.  This poached chicken comes from the Vietnamese Chicken Salad we cooked on the night.  My  paper copy of the recipe is well marked, stained and often cooked!   This version is much simpler than the original recipe which makes it good for every night cooking.  Next time I make the full version, I’ll post that too.

Poached chicken

• 250ml tin coconut cream (Mae Ploy brand if possible)
• 1 knob peeled ginger, sliced thinly
• 1 Tbsp light palm sugar
• 1 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 coriander root, cleaned and scraped
• 250ml chicken stock
• 500g chicken breast

1. Combine cream, ginger, sugar, fish sauce, coriander root and chicken stock in a large saucepan.
2. Bring liquid to the boil then reduce to a simmer.
3. Add chicken breast and poach on low heat for 10 mins.
4. Turn off heat and let chicken cool in the liquid.
5. When cool, remove the chicken and shred it.
6. Keep the poaching liquid and use it for another meal – I often make some kind of coconut soup out of it.

Salad

• roasted butternut pumpkin (peel, dice half a butternut pumpkin.  Toss in coconut oil and sprinkle with salt.  Bake in oven at 200C for about 30 mins until roasted.  Allow to cook or serve warm).
• mixed salad greens
• fresh coriander
• 1 Tbsp fried shallots (in Asian section of supermarket)
• 1 avocado, chopped
• cucumber, sliced
• any other salad vegetable you’d like to toss in.

1. Toss salad vegetables.
2. Add poached chicken and pumpkin on top of the salad.
3. Sprinkle with coriander and fried shallots.
4. Pour over some of the cooled poaching liquid  as a dressing.