Using A Heavy Bottom Skillet for a Quick and Delicious Meal

I'm going to start the fun process by using a heavy bottom skillet, which I find to be perfect for cooking with coconut oil. It's about medium heat now, and I've added two tablespoons of coconut oil - the people of Madagascar really do use coconut oil for everything, it gives it a nutty flavor and adds a creamy texture to most of my food. I almost think there are more coconut trees than there are people in Madagascar, but that might be a lie since there's 26 million people from Madagascar on the island. I thought it was interesting enough to share, and I felt the need to mention it.

Coconut Oil: A Flavor Enhancer

In this chicken thigh recipe, you see ginger being used throughout the whole book - in every almost country, ginger is used as a flavoring agent. And then again, you see a variation of coconut oil. The sweetness of the coconut and the heat of the ginger and garlic really enhance each other, taking a simple chicken thigh to a whole new level. I'm going to go ahead and put our chicken in the skillet, getting the chicken thighs as flat as possible so that they cook on one side evenly. They cook really fast - about 15 minutes, so keep that in mind.

Making a Side of Carrot Salad

While my chicken cooks, I'll make a simple carrot salad. It adds to the quickness of the meal and is super easy to make. To start, I need a small red onion. East Africans and people across the Indian Ocean really love using red onions in their cooking - it's milder in flavor and sweeter than a yellow onion. It really adds a depth of flavor to most of my cooking. Now that I have my red onion sliced, I'll combine it with my shredded carrots.

Adding Flavor to the Carrot Salad

I'll add a half of lemon juice if you want to use the whole lemon - it won't hurt you; it's just a lot of juice. It's a good one! I'll drizzle some olive oil, some ground pepper, a little salt, and a few pinches of chili flakes. I think red onion and lemon together really complement each other once in a dish. And finally, I'll break off a little cilantro - you can chop this if you want to; I won't because I like my cilantro whole.

The Finished Dish

My chicken looks ready now, so I'm going to rest them on this plate and then serve myself. I'm so excited! This recipe has become a staple in our home since I first did it for the cookbook - it's become a favorite that everyone can make, not just me. It's really nice.

The Finished Carrot Salad

Here we go! I'll throw some cilantro on top to brighten up the flavor and make it look pretty. You can see the juice of the lemon and olive oil have completely settled into our carrots - this makes for a great leftover too, as you can keep them for two to three days.

A Message from the Author

When I was writing this book, I wrote something in my note that ultimately ended up being the letter that I sent out when I was sending this book to people. I said, "I hope you see yourself reflected in this book and that for me was if you were white, black, yellow green - if you were from the Midwest or from you know the Pacific Northwest - I wanted people to open this book and see their grandmothers." I wanted people to open this book and see an island that they might have grown up on. And then I wanted them to educate themselves about these foods.

So, to anybody who is cooking from this book or trying to learn more about the continent of Africa, I would say there's a lot to be learned. You could start by making sure your pantry is reflective of the world, so that you can cook from a global perspective. How simple was that? 15 minutes - we've got an incredible side dish and a protein dinner in almost less than 15 minutes.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe real story of global culinary tradition can be found in the kitchens of everyday women cooking for their families so much so that i wrote a book about it featuring grandmothers from different african countries sharing traditional recipes from their homeland now i want to share my take on some of these classic african dishes for you to enjoy welcome to hawa at home hi i'm hawa hassan and today i'm going to be making chicken thighs with ginger garlic and coconut oil from my book in bibi's kitchen which is based on the indian ocean and the african countries that touch it this recipe happens to come from madagascar which is the fourth largest island in all of the world i was infatuated by the stories of madagascar and the people of madagascar because i really didn't know much about it before going into it with this book so let's cook this and let's get to learn a little bit about madagascar together i'm going to just roughly chop our garlic peel our ginger and chop it i will get my chicken thighs put them in here and if you're able i would suggest marinating this overnight if not a few hours is more than plenty before i decided to write this book based on the indian ocean and the countries that touch it i really i think all i knew about madagascar was that it had been carnalized by the french and that they spoke french and that they ate a lot of crepes what i didn't know was that their food was incredibly delicious and that there are a lot of great places to visit the french colonized madagascar in the late 1800s they did not give madagascar back to the people of the country until 1960 like most africans madagascar came into independence in this in 1960. it is one of the five largest islands in the world it is surrounded by reunion island comoros which is also featured in the book the foods of madagascar include lots of coconut lots of bananas many different variations of bananas and their cuisine is heavily influenced by indian cooking what i ultimately took away from writing this book and focusing on grandmothers from that part of the world was that they love coconut like coconut grows everywhere everyone eats it as a snack everybody flavors their food with it so hence the coconut oil in this dish my other takeaway from the people of madagascar was they do not fuss over their food their food is made rather quickly this dish comes together in 15 minutes i'm using boneless chicken thighs they cook a lot faster and they hold on to the juice a bit better both the garlic and the ginger can be roughly chopped you don't have to do this any other way i also am going to peel my ginger very quickly like this you want to be sure when you're marinating your chicken not to put salt in it especially if you're doing it overnight that will promote for your chicken to start cooking and you don't want that if you feel the need to just like move a little bit while doing this to the ginger while getting the skin off go for it it does make the time go by faster this might look like a lot of ginger and garlic but it's the two main ingredients outside of the coconut oil in the dish so don't hold back put it into our bowl i'm just gonna get our chicken so we can start the marination process i've got about two pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs i'm not gonna cut them any smaller than this they're in good shape i'm not gonna fuss around by taking the fat off i'll knead it in the in our coconut oil so i love to use chicken thighs because they hold on to the juice better but you could use chicken breasts you know if you have something at home that you need to use all the recipes are incredibly flexible it just holds on to things better but i would recommend if you're going to use chicken breasts just go ahead and marinate have some foresight you know marinate for a little bit put a you know put it in a ziploc bag forget about it and then cook it i want to bring all this together my garlic ginger and boneless skinless chicken thighs i'll massage it all together i want to cover it and put it in the refrigerator there we go this looks really good oh the ginger and garlic form such an incredible smell i'm gonna wash my hands seal this with some plastic there we go i'll put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours however i was thinking ahead and have one from the night before the drama now i'm gonna start the fun process i'm using a heavy bottom skillet i'm just gonna cut the heat on to about medium i'll put two tablespoons of coconut oil and the people of madagascar really do use coconut oil for everything it gives it a nutty flavor and it also adds a creamy texture to most of my food i almost would say there's more coconut trees than there are people in madagascar but i think that might be a lie because there's 26 million people from madagascar on the island i don't know if anyone needed to know that but i felt the need to share i mean coconut oil again in the same way that coconut is heavily reflected in all these foods in this book is again used as a flavoring agent to layer the flavor so in this chicken thigh you see you see ginger which goes throughout the whole book in every almost country ginger is used and then again you see a variation of coconut and so i think the sweetness of the coconut and the heat of the ginger and the garlic just a simple chicken thigh was able to for lack of better words level up was really enhanced you know and benefited from the the flavor combinations i'm gonna go ahead and put our chicken in you want to get the chicken thighs as flat as possible so that they cook on one side evenly i'm again this cooks really fast about 15 minutes so keep that in mind so i'm gonna put as many pieces as i can into my skillet i'll let the rest sit and do them after i'm done or i'll keep them for tomorrow so while my chicken cooks i'm going to make a side of carrot salad super simple only a few ingredients as well it adds to the quickness of the meal that i'm making so let me get my red onion have a small red onion east africans and across the indian ocean they really really love using red onion in their cooking it's milder in flavor and it's sweeter than a yellow onion it really adds a depth of flavor to most of my cooking so now that i have my red onion sliced i'm going to combine it with my shredded carrots i'll go ahead and add a half of lemon if you want to use the whole lemon it's not going to hurt you you can i might it's a lot of juice it's a good one just gonna go ahead and drizzle a little olive oil some ground pepper a little salt and a few pinches of chili flakes i'll combine all of this together oh this smells great i don't know what it is about red onion and lemon together but they really do complement each other once in a dish i'll just break off a little cilantro if you want to chop this you can i won't because i like my cilantro hole can never use too much cilantro all right oh they look great you could tell they're still holding on to their juice oh look at that come through coconut oil i actually do get that happy about food all right so my chicken looks to be ready i'm gonna go ahead and rest them on this plate and then i'm gonna serve myself i'm so excited i've made this almost every single week since i did the recipe for the cookbook it's become a staple in our home it's one that everyone can make not just me so it's really nice all right here we go i'm gonna just throw some cilantro on there to not only brighten the flavor but to make it look pretty all right you can see the juice of the lemon and the olive oil have completely settled into our carrots these make for a great leftover too you can keep them for two to three days here we go juicy it's really good you know when i was writing this book i wrote down something in my note which ultimately ended up being the letter that i sent out when i was sending this book to people and i said i hope you see yourself reflected in this book and that for me was if you were white black yellow green if you were from the midwest or from you know the pacific northwest i wanted people to open this book and see their grandmothers i wanted people to open this book and see an island that they might have grown up on and then i wanted them to educate themselves about these foods and so i would say to anybody who is cooking from this book or trying to learn more about the continent of africa that there's a lot to be learned you could start by making sure your pantry is reflective of the world so that you can cook from a global perspective how simple was that 15 minutes we've got an incredible side dish and a protein dinner in almost less than 15 minutes boneless chicken thighs with ginger coconut and garlic carrots red onion cilantro lemon juice both go together really well super light super simple to make dinner is ready youthe real story of global culinary tradition can be found in the kitchens of everyday women cooking for their families so much so that i wrote a book about it featuring grandmothers from different african countries sharing traditional recipes from their homeland now i want to share my take on some of these classic african dishes for you to enjoy welcome to hawa at home hi i'm hawa hassan and today i'm going to be making chicken thighs with ginger garlic and coconut oil from my book in bibi's kitchen which is based on the indian ocean and the african countries that touch it this recipe happens to come from madagascar which is the fourth largest island in all of the world i was infatuated by the stories of madagascar and the people of madagascar because i really didn't know much about it before going into it with this book so let's cook this and let's get to learn a little bit about madagascar together i'm going to just roughly chop our garlic peel our ginger and chop it i will get my chicken thighs put them in here and if you're able i would suggest marinating this overnight if not a few hours is more than plenty before i decided to write this book based on the indian ocean and the countries that touch it i really i think all i knew about madagascar was that it had been carnalized by the french and that they spoke french and that they ate a lot of crepes what i didn't know was that their food was incredibly delicious and that there are a lot of great places to visit the french colonized madagascar in the late 1800s they did not give madagascar back to the people of the country until 1960 like most africans madagascar came into independence in this in 1960. it is one of the five largest islands in the world it is surrounded by reunion island comoros which is also featured in the book the foods of madagascar include lots of coconut lots of bananas many different variations of bananas and their cuisine is heavily influenced by indian cooking what i ultimately took away from writing this book and focusing on grandmothers from that part of the world was that they love coconut like coconut grows everywhere everyone eats it as a snack everybody flavors their food with it so hence the coconut oil in this dish my other takeaway from the people of madagascar was they do not fuss over their food their food is made rather quickly this dish comes together in 15 minutes i'm using boneless chicken thighs they cook a lot faster and they hold on to the juice a bit better both the garlic and the ginger can be roughly chopped you don't have to do this any other way i also am going to peel my ginger very quickly like this you want to be sure when you're marinating your chicken not to put salt in it especially if you're doing it overnight that will promote for your chicken to start cooking and you don't want that if you feel the need to just like move a little bit while doing this to the ginger while getting the skin off go for it it does make the time go by faster this might look like a lot of ginger and garlic but it's the two main ingredients outside of the coconut oil in the dish so don't hold back put it into our bowl i'm just gonna get our chicken so we can start the marination process i've got about two pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs i'm not gonna cut them any smaller than this they're in good shape i'm not gonna fuss around by taking the fat off i'll knead it in the in our coconut oil so i love to use chicken thighs because they hold on to the juice better but you could use chicken breasts you know if you have something at home that you need to use all the recipes are incredibly flexible it just holds on to things better but i would recommend if you're going to use chicken breasts just go ahead and marinate have some foresight you know marinate for a little bit put a you know put it in a ziploc bag forget about it and then cook it i want to bring all this together my garlic ginger and boneless skinless chicken thighs i'll massage it all together i want to cover it and put it in the refrigerator there we go this looks really good oh the ginger and garlic form such an incredible smell i'm gonna wash my hands seal this with some plastic there we go i'll put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours however i was thinking ahead and have one from the night before the drama now i'm gonna start the fun process i'm using a heavy bottom skillet i'm just gonna cut the heat on to about medium i'll put two tablespoons of coconut oil and the people of madagascar really do use coconut oil for everything it gives it a nutty flavor and it also adds a creamy texture to most of my food i almost would say there's more coconut trees than there are people in madagascar but i think that might be a lie because there's 26 million people from madagascar on the island i don't know if anyone needed to know that but i felt the need to share i mean coconut oil again in the same way that coconut is heavily reflected in all these foods in this book is again used as a flavoring agent to layer the flavor so in this chicken thigh you see you see ginger which goes throughout the whole book in every almost country ginger is used and then again you see a variation of coconut and so i think the sweetness of the coconut and the heat of the ginger and the garlic just a simple chicken thigh was able to for lack of better words level up was really enhanced you know and benefited from the the flavor combinations i'm gonna go ahead and put our chicken in you want to get the chicken thighs as flat as possible so that they cook on one side evenly i'm again this cooks really fast about 15 minutes so keep that in mind so i'm gonna put as many pieces as i can into my skillet i'll let the rest sit and do them after i'm done or i'll keep them for tomorrow so while my chicken cooks i'm going to make a side of carrot salad super simple only a few ingredients as well it adds to the quickness of the meal that i'm making so let me get my red onion have a small red onion east africans and across the indian ocean they really really love using red onion in their cooking it's milder in flavor and it's sweeter than a yellow onion it really adds a depth of flavor to most of my cooking so now that i have my red onion sliced i'm going to combine it with my shredded carrots i'll go ahead and add a half of lemon if you want to use the whole lemon it's not going to hurt you you can i might it's a lot of juice it's a good one just gonna go ahead and drizzle a little olive oil some ground pepper a little salt and a few pinches of chili flakes i'll combine all of this together oh this smells great i don't know what it is about red onion and lemon together but they really do complement each other once in a dish i'll just break off a little cilantro if you want to chop this you can i won't because i like my cilantro hole can never use too much cilantro all right oh they look great you could tell they're still holding on to their juice oh look at that come through coconut oil i actually do get that happy about food all right so my chicken looks to be ready i'm gonna go ahead and rest them on this plate and then i'm gonna serve myself i'm so excited i've made this almost every single week since i did the recipe for the cookbook it's become a staple in our home it's one that everyone can make not just me so it's really nice all right here we go i'm gonna just throw some cilantro on there to not only brighten the flavor but to make it look pretty all right you can see the juice of the lemon and the olive oil have completely settled into our carrots these make for a great leftover too you can keep them for two to three days here we go juicy it's really good you know when i was writing this book i wrote down something in my note which ultimately ended up being the letter that i sent out when i was sending this book to people and i said i hope you see yourself reflected in this book and that for me was if you were white black yellow green if you were from the midwest or from you know the pacific northwest i wanted people to open this book and see their grandmothers i wanted people to open this book and see an island that they might have grown up on and then i wanted them to educate themselves about these foods and so i would say to anybody who is cooking from this book or trying to learn more about the continent of africa that there's a lot to be learned you could start by making sure your pantry is reflective of the world so that you can cook from a global perspective how simple was that 15 minutes we've got an incredible side dish and a protein dinner in almost less than 15 minutes boneless chicken thighs with ginger coconut and garlic carrots red onion cilantro lemon juice both go together really well super light super simple to make dinner is ready you\n"