Thai-style roast chicken - sort of gai yang

There’s so many reasons for choosing to cook what we do every night for dinner – often it’s planned, or something needs using up, or it’s just what you fancy.

But tonight … tonight I chose to cook this purely and simply because I wanted to chop it up.

Yup. I just really wanted to chop a whole chicken bones and all with my cleaver and see if I could do it ‘Chinese style’ rather than neatly carving it.  And that is the reason we are having roast chicken tonight.

Oh … and because I have some cucumber dipping sauce left over from the weekend I think will go well with it.

So, easy delicious roast chicken.  Just put into a bowl – or straight into a remoska if you also have one (I love mine – plus my oven’s on the blink):

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp white pepper

1 tsp ground coriander

6 drops doTerra lemongrass essential oil OR

1 stalk of lemongrass (outer tough part removed, cut into a few pieces + bashed with a rolling pin)

Zest of a lime

4 tbspn fish sauce

2 tbspn oil

Mix it all together and rub over and into the chicken (if using lemongrass stalk just throw it in the roasting pan).

Then cook until done! It takes about 90 minutes.

And then the exciting bit! I looked at a few videos and read some instructions and attempted to chop it all up.

Definitely the fun bit!

Serve with rice and sweet chilli sauce and cucumber sauce if – like me – you have some to use up.

Any day is better for being a roast chicken day …

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Gai gratiem - garlic chicken

It’s taken me a while to work out a recipe I’m happy with for this.

The main difficulty I’ve had with it is that what I love about having this in Thailand is the Thai garlic itself. The cloves are smaller and the skins are wispy paper thin – you just squash them rather than peel and those beautiful thin skins go crispy when fried and add such lovely texture to the dish that it just tastes different without that dimension.

Not much I can do about this though, so I’ve tried a few different recipes and ended up with this that I think gives all the flavours I want.  I’ve also eaten it before with very crispy chips of garlic on top but I’m not so successful at making those without them often tasting a bit burnt so I’m not adding those in this version.

It’s a very simple dish, often eaten just over rice for lunch or without rice as a snack with a drink. There is a lot of garlic in this but somehow you don’t end up smelling of old garlic the next day!

It’s a simple, elegant and quick recipe and it doesn’t need to be with chicken – beef, pork or squid work as well. My favourite is probably with slices of pork tenderloin.  I’m sure tofu would be good too – please let me know how it turns out if you make a version with tofu.

So, for one with rice as a main meal, I used:

about 3-6 garlic cloves depending on size

1 chicken breast

about 1 tablespoon cooking oil

1/2 tsp white pepper

1/2 tsp white sugar

a scant tablespoon light soy sauce

a scant tablespoon fish sauce

coriander leaves, to garnish, and lettuce leaves to serve

cooked boiled or steamed rice, to serve, if using

Smash gently the garlic with a flat knife and remove the skins. Is it possible to ‘smash’ gently? Perhaps I mean squash with a bit of force. Either or, up to you …!

Then chop quite finely.

Slice the meat and bash a bit with a rolling pin to flatten – you want the pieces in slices rather than chunks but quite flat so they cook very quickly and your garlic won’t burn.

Heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat until hot and add the garlic then cook for maybe a minute, stirring all the time so it doesn’t burn and until it is just starting to go a little brown.

Add the meat and again keep stirring constantly until it is cooked through. This will probably take around four minutes and do just cut or pull a piece open to check . If it’s sticking at all add a splash or water – in fact I would do anyway just to ensure the garlic doesn’t burn.

Add the pepper, sugar, soy sauce and fish sauce and another splash of water if needed to make sure it mixes together.

Mix then turn up the heat and cook rapidly for a minute or two until the sauce reduces and there is very little sauce left.

Then either serve on a plate with lettuce in the traditional ‘bar snack’ style and garnish with coriander leaves, or have with rice as a more substantial meal.

I really like the flavours of this and the slight heat from the white pepper makes a change from chillies!

Do let me know if you liked this …

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Stir fried pork with chilli and garlic

Ok so first up - this isn't going to be a very well written post.  I feel rotten.  I've had the biggest stinker of a cold for a week and all the cliches are true. Yes I feel like I'm wading through treacle and yes I feel like I'm underwater and can't hear properly. Sore throat, coughing fits, the lot.

Anyway, because I do love food, I take a bad cold as a sign to follow the old adage and 'feed a cold'. However I'm not entirely sure this meant go out and drink champagne on Tuesday. Or to go and sit outside in the cold pretending it was warm and eat tapas on Wednesday.

Haha ... so now, right now, at this blissful end of this trying-to-just-push-through-it week, right now -  it is Friday AND the Friday before the bank holiday weekend and NOW I am going to feed my cold chillies.  Or rather feed (and hope to kill it with) chillies.

This is a really nice and easy dish and you don't have to overdose on chillies if you don't want or need to.

It's not really a specific recipe as such, just a very easy dish with some traditional Thai flavours.  I did rather make it up as I went along and very good it was too.

Cold or no cold, I recommend a dose of this.

Make your rice first and then get together the ingredients.

This is roughly enough for two but do just decide for yourself on quantities and what looks right to you.

About 1-2 tbspn cooking oil

2 cloves garlic

4 red bird eye chillies

Approx 250g pork mince

1/3 knorr chicken stock cube

splash of water

1 tbspn light soy sauce

1 tbspn fish sauce

A pinch of sugar

2 spring onions sliced

a small handful coriander leaves chopped to garnish, if liked

Prepare, slice and chop all the ingredients and put a pan on over a medium high heat.

Add the oil and when hot, add the garlic and chillies and fry, stirring for up to 30 seconds, until it smells good.

Add the pork mince and stir fry for a few minutes then add the stock cube and splash of water and continue stirring until the meat is browned.

Add the soy sauce, fish sauce and sugar and cook, stirring, for a few minutes until cooked through.

Remove from heat, add the spring onions and coriander (if using) and stir in.

Serve with rice.

Simple, delicious, and - I hope -cold-curing! I'll let you know if it is  and in the meantime do let me know if you made this and if you liked it ...

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