Tamarind Chicken

Recipe from Marion Grasby



Tamarind chicken

This East Asian twist on roast chicken tray bake is packed with vegetables and has a soy sauce-based marinade.

Yields:

about 10 servings

Time Required:

Ingredients:

Main dish:

Honey tamarind marinade:

Preparation:

To make the marinade, place all ingredients in a large bowl.

Use a sharp knife to cut marylands through the joint to separate drumsticks and thighs. Add to marinade, and toss to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to marinate.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C) fan-forced8. Line a large baking dish with foil. Place the sweet potato and onion in prepared dish. Drizzle with sesame oil, and season with salt. Toss to combine, then spread out vegetables in dish. Nestle chicken pieces in-between the vegetables, reserving marinade. Roast the chicken and vegetables for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, transfer the reserved marinade to a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer and cook for 3-4 minutes or until thickened slightly. Remove from heat.

Brush the chicken pieces with thickened marinade. Roast chicken and vegetables for a further 15-20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through9. Serve topped with cilantro.4

Cook's Notes:

I personally suggest making a double batch of the marinade, to enhance its contribution to the flavour mix. This recipe's original author, instead, says she reserves the second half of a double marinade recipe for grilled prawns, the next day. (Some cooks will want to thicken their marinade with a thickening agent such as flour, corn starch, or tapioca.)


1 Original recipe called for "4 chicken marylands". Having never heard the latter noun before, I researched it and found that it's a delightful Australian expression for a leg + thigh piece, presumably because, before separation, the piece resembles the US state of Maryland.

I concur with the author in liking dark-meat chicken for this recipe, but edited this line to a more-conventional description for North America. The author suggests that "if chicken marylands aren't available, use 1.4 kg skin-on chicken pieces or drumsticks".

My family prefers for all the solid ingredients (chicken, onion, and root vegetable) to be cut to almost stirfry-sized chunks, so I've done so, with the corollary advantage of letting the marinade penetrate better, which with chicken is challenging.

2 Potatoes also work fine. I quarter the root vegetable, and then cut into thin slices.

3 As with the sweet potato or potato, I quarter these, and then cut into thin slices.

4 Cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons are as defined in US Customary Units, not to be confused with differing British imperial, "legal", "coffee", Commonwealth of Nations, Canadian, Latin American, Japanese, Russian, or Dutch definitions — further proof that everyone needs the metric system.

5 Original recipe said "coriander", which in Australia (and the UK, and some other English-speaking countries) refers to both the leaves/greens (the intended reference in this recipe) and the seed of the coriander plant (Coriandrum sativum). In the USA, we use the Spanish word "cilantro" for the leaves/greens (and for the popular annual garden plant that produces it), and "coriander" for the seed, used as a spice. The plant and its greens are sometimes also referred to as "Chinese parsley".

6 Tamarind is the fruit of a tropical tree (Tamarindus indica) used in cuisines around the world, adding a strong, sweet and tangy flavour. The tree's leaves are also used in Indian and Filipino cooking. The pulped fruit is used in chutneys, curries, and sauces (including barbecue sauce), Central American agua frescas, and sharbat syrup drinks. It's mixed into savory dishes, notably meat-based stews, and often combined with dried fruits across the Middle-East.

Locally, I find tamarind purée/paste/concentrate in Chinese markets (such as New Wing Yuan Market, Sunnyvale, CA), or other East Asian markets, often marketed as a soup base.

7 Personally, I think 1 clove of garlic is tragically scant, but Views Differ™. In fact, I suspect that the phrase "1 garlic clove" in a recipe is often just a code phrase meaning "most cooks will use a lot more, but we're citing this minimum out of deference to the garlic-adverse."

8 "Fan-forced" means convection cooking, which is nice if you have a convection oven: They cook more evenly and at slightly lower temperatures, but aren't essential.

9 As always with cooking meat and particularly chicken (or pork), the meat must be cooked until its internal temperature reaches at least 160°F (72°C), to be food-safe. Always check with a good cooking thermometer, such as a Thermapen.

Taken from: https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/sticky-honey-tamarind-chicken-tray-bake-recipe/0zjc29sk, as the submission of Marion Grasby on April 10, 2025. Thank you!

Collected and re-published at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/recipes/tamarind-chicken.html by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> on Jan. 4, 2026. Individual recipes are free from copyright. Share and enjoy!

(If I have any copyright title in my own very minor contributions to this page — not my intention — they were created in 2026 by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. The image file (photograph) was taken on Jan. 4, 2026, also by Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com> and licensed for use under CC0. I have thereby waived all copyright, compilation copyright, and related or neighbouring rights to this work. This work is published from: United States of America.)