Apocynaceous Chicken, Milkweed and Milk Sauce

Bone-in chicken thighs braise in a coconut-milk pan sauce that echoes the milky latex running through every plant in the dogbane family, with triple-parboiled milkweed pods folded in for a grassy, faintly sweet bite. A pinwheel of radish and a scatter of edible blossoms nod to the twisted five-petal shape that oleander, periwinkle, and frangipani all share.

Serves 6 · as served on Bluesky ↗

There's a particular smell when milkweed pods hit boiling water, green and sharp, and it mellows after the second change of water into something almost like fresh peas. I picked way too much of it off the ditch bank behind my sister-in-law Carol's place a few summers back and learned fast you can't just toss it raw in a pan. Chicken, it turns out, loves the same rich, milky quality that runs through every plant in the dogbane family, so I built the whole pan sauce around coconut milk to echo that latex. I wanted the plate itself to nod at those five-petal pinwheel flowers on periwinkle and frangipani, so there's a little fan of radish doing that same twist on the side. This one's for anybody who grew up walking past a milkweed patch every summer and never once thought about putting it on a plate.

Ingredients

Fresh

• 6 piece chicken thighs, bone-in, skin-on (patted dry)
• 2 cup young milkweed pods (tender, under 2 inches, tips trimmed)
• 4 clove garlic (minced)
• 2 piece shallot (minced)
• 1 piece lemon (zested and juiced)
• 4 sprig fresh thyme
• 4 piece radishes (sliced paper-thin for garnish)
• ¼ cup edible flowers, nasturtium or pansy (for garnish)

Fridge

• 4 tbsp unsalted butter (cold, cubed)

Pantry

• 1 can coconut milk (full-fat, 13.5 oz)
• ½ cup dry white wine
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ½ cup chicken stock

Spice rack

• kosher salt (to taste)
• black pepper (to taste)

Directions

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil, drop in the milkweed pods, boil 1 minute, then drain and repeat with two more changes of fresh water to carry off the bitter latex; set the pods aside. ⏱ 1 min
2. Season the chicken thighs all over with the kosher salt and black pepper.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high and sear the chicken skin side down until deeply crisp, about 7 minutes, then flip and sear the other side 4 minutes more; remove to a plate. ⏱ 11 min
4. In the same skillet, add the shallot and garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 1 minute. ⏱ 1 min
5. Tip in the parboiled milkweed pods and toss to coat in the pan drippings.
6. Pour in the white wine, scraping up the browned bits, and simmer until reduced by half. ⏱ 3 min
7. Stir in the coconut milk and chicken stock, add the thyme and the zest of the lemon, then nestle the chicken skin-up into the sauce, cover, and simmer until it reaches 165 degrees, about 18 minutes. ⏱ 18 min
8. Lift the chicken out to rest, then whisk the butter into the sauce off the heat along with the juice of the lemon, and season to taste.
9. Pool the sauce and milkweed on plates, set the chicken on top, fan the sliced radishes into a pinwheel alongside, and scatter the edible flowers over everything.

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