Delia's Thai chicken with lime and coconut

Judging by the interested shoppers gathered around the end cap in Waitrose where all the ingredients could handily be found, a good number of households sampled Delia Smith's Thai Chicken over the weekend.

Heavily promoted on TV, the ingredients were well discounted so the recipe  costs just £2.30 per serving.

Thai cooking is regarded with great suspicion by J who is a traditional meat and two veg man. So I didn't tell him what I was preparing and served it up as a fait accompli. He actually liked it! Although he is heavily prejudiced by the words "Delia Smith" and "Waitrose". I have found that Nigella simply doesn't have the same effect.

My observations from cooking the recipe are:

• The juice of two limes is quite plentiful, and if anything the recipe was a little "wet," so I would only use the juice of one next time
• The coconut flavour was more elusive than the lime flavour. J said he couldn't taste coconut at all. I was expecting the sauce to be a bit thicker.
• Delia's method for cooking rice was flawless and worked perfectly. Measure out 150ml rice in a measuring jug (for two), pour into a small frying pan with a lid and add 300ml boiling water and a pinch of salt. Stir once, then put the lid on and barely simmer for 10 minutes. The liquid had been absorbed by then and so I placed a teatowel over the top (having taken it off the heat!) to keep the rice warm. If the liquid hasn't disappeared, Delia advises increasing the heat for a minute.

This campaign is great marketing from Waitrose. The recipe is pretty fool proof but looks impressive, and the average Waitrose shopper likes to cook from scratch when he / she has enough time. The fact that the chicken is reduced in price to £2.89 from £4.33 is a pleasant surprise because Waitrose has only recently started competing in price against the other supermarkets. Its profits were buoyant last year and put down to the successful Essentials range.