Coconut Chicken

I bought a can of coconut milk a while ago to make this.  Then I used it to make some carrot coconut soup, and totally forgot about that.  By the time I figured out why my can of coconut milk had disappeared, I already had my heart set on making this.

You probably don't even need the coconut milk to make this work.  You can dredge the chicken in beaten egg or cream.  What you need is something with fat content to seal in the juices.  It's just hard to keep skinless chicken tenders moist.

I'm putting panko breadcrumbs in the recipe, but I actually used some stale buckwheat bread heels for the crumbs.  Any stale bread will do.  If you use unsweetened coconut, you could even use stale poundcake and skip adding sugar.

1-1/2 lbs skinless chicken breast tenders
1/4 C coconut milk
1/2 C panko bread crumbs
*1/2 C unsweetened coconut flakes
1 tsp sugar (or omit for sweetened flakes)
dash salt

1.  Place chicken tenders and coconut milk in a sealable bag and marinate for at least 1 hour in the fridge.

2.  Combine breadcrumbs, coconut flakes, sugar, and salt.  I used the food processor because I was breaking up bread.  With pre-made breadcrumbs, you can stir everything together in a pie pan.

3.  Preheat oven to 400º.  Use pan spray on a foil-lined baking sheet. Let the coconut milk drip off the chicken for a moment, then dredge in crumbs, coating all sides.  Arrange tenders in a single layer on pan.

4.  Bake for 8 minutes.  Turn pieces over and cook an additional 6 minutes, until the coconut flakes get toasty.  Don't flip them a second time, or you're going to start losing crumb.  Serve hot.

Difficulty rating  π