Kenyan coconut chicken

This is one of my favourite dishes ever. Really. It's so simple, so flavoursome. It has a lot of my favourite flavours, right there--garlic and coriander, corn-fed chicken and chilli. Most of the ingredients--the spices, the coconut milk, the chilli, the onions, the garlic, the ginger--I pretty much always have kicking around the pantry. When I feel like making this, all I have to buy, normally, is the chicken itself and the tomatoes. You can, of course, use canned tomatoes for this dish.

4 chicken legs (that is, the thighs and drumsticks), ideally free-range, organic or corn-fed
400mL coconut milk, shaken
4 tomatoes, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 onions, sliced
1 chilli, diced
1 tbs desiccated or, better still, freshly grated coconut
1 tbs freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp freshly ground coriander seeds
a small lump of ginger
a couple of springs of fresh coriander, leaves picked
a generous pinch of sea salt
sunflower or vegetable oil
steamed rice, to serve

Pre-heat the broiler to medium high. Peel way the skin from the chicken legs and discard. Prick flesh all over with a skewer or fork, then rub oil, sea salt and ground pepper into the flesh. Broil until flesh is lightly browned.

Meanwhile, fry onions, garlic and ginger in sunflower oil in a large, lidded pan over a low heat. Add the diced chilli, tomatoes and ground coriander. Cook until the tomatoes have gone mushy--between five and ten minutes, depending on the size of the tomatoes, the pan and the exact temperature. Add the coconut milk and stir. Then add the chicken pieces. Place the lid over the pan and cook for a good 40-50 minutes, removing the lid every so often to stir the gravy and turn the chicken legs. Once cooked, turn off the heat and use tongs to place a chicken leg into each bowl. Spoon the gravy over the chicken legs. Garnish each portion with a sprinkle of desiccated coconut and a few coriander leaves.