Super Simple Grilled Chicken with Pineapple Chunks

I've made a promise to cook at home more often instead of just parking my lazy ass by SC's mom dining table, stuffing myself with her delicious treats every day. Call me silly, but if I continued doing so, I am sure that I'll totally forget how to cook and this blog might have to either close down or transferred to SC's mom.

So, on Monday, I told SC about the plan, he was excited, although a bit unhappy about having to wait for 30-45 minutes for dinner instead of going home to a whole table of fully cooked meal ready to be devoured. Too bad!

Every day after work, he'd ask me what I planned to cook...and he'd give a very generous amount of criticism "helpful suggestions" on every dish that I've planned. Including this one. I love sweet and ripe fresh pineapple chunks in savoury dishes. Pineapple gives a dish an exotic touch...and turns it...summery!

So, I told SC that I wanted to cook grilled chicken with pineapple chunks.
His helpful comments:
- Why would you cook chicken with pineapple?
- Pineapple is always cooked with pork (and by pork, he meant beef. The dish his mom always makes for him)
- I should remember to use corn starch (SC thinks that corn starch is the essence of Chinese cooking ^_^')

My response?
Since you're such an expert, how about you do the cooking tonight?

SC's response?
Pretended that he didn't hear me :P
Typical! :D

How here's my super simple dish...

Recipe
(serves two)
- 1/2 fresh, ripe pineapple, peel skin off, remove core, cut into chunks (if fresh pineapple isn't available, you can use canned pineapple)
- 2 boneless chicken leg fillet (for grilling I like them with skin on), trim excess fat off
- seasoning for chicken: salt, pepper, olive oil
- for the pineapple: sugar (or you can use golden syrup), a bit of hot water, salt, fish sauce, a bit of corn starch dissolved in water (optional)|

Season chicken with salt, pepper, add a bit of olive oil, grill skin down on a hot pan (I used non stick, so I didn't need so much oil) to brown the skin. Once the skin's brown, lower the heat and flip the chicken, cook until the chicken is thoroughly cooked. If you wish, you can let the chicken finish grilling in the oven. Set grilled chicken aside (I cut mine to a bite sized chunks, you can serve them whole).

Get rid of excess fat from the pan, add pineapple chunks, let them caramelize a little (I was too impatient to wait for that), add sugar, salt, hot water and a touch of fish sauce to season. If you don't want the sauce to reduce much and you want it thickened, use corn starch & water mixture. The corn starch mixture will also help the sauce to "hang on" to the meat (this is a lesson learnt from SC ^_^).

Garnish with freshly chopped chillies, crispy shallot and coriander to make the dish even better. SC doesn't like them at this moment (he's having a weird moment), so I didn't use any ^_^'

Next time, let's let SC do the cooking, shall we? ;)