Sawaddee Ka, welcome to hot thai kitchen so today i'm making grilled lemongrass chicken which
in canada it's an item that's like ubiquitous at vietnamese restaurants everywhere now my husband
loves this dish he gets it for lunch almost weekly and at some point i was like you know i could
probably make that and it would save us a lot of money and sure enough i can and so now i'm going
to share it with you let's get started so let's start with the marinade and it's super easy it's
all going to happen right here in the morn pestle starting with some garlic some black peppercorns
there you go that's kind of what we are going for a nice fine paste and then i'm going to go
in with some thinly sliced lemongrass and when you use lemongrass i only use the bottom half
that's where it's most flavorful the top half it's fine to use but it's going to be weaker and
i tend to just save that for making stock now this is already finely sliced but i'm going to
pound it anyway to really bruise it and get all the flavor out because it's such a tough herb
nice it doesn't have to be a complete paste but it should be you know
paste-ish and you should definitely smell a lot of lemongrass at this point now i'm gonna go in
with some oil it will really help draw out some of the flavor compounds in herbs and spices
that are oil soluble and the seasoning is super simple just some fish sauce some soy sauce and
some sugar just give that a swirl so the sugar is dissolved oh one more thing some water
i like to add a little water to meat marinades because the water will actually get absorbed into
the meat making it juicier and more resistant to overcooking and that's our marinade nice and
simple for the chicken i am using boneless skinless chicken thigh which is what most
commonly used for this and also it's really convenient because you can make a whole bunch
keep it in the fridge you can chop it up throw it into a sandwich in a stir fry top
your salad like it becomes a really useful all-purpose protein the marinade goes in
and you just need to give this a good mix give it a couple hours if you can i like to just do
this the day before oh that smells so good now i have to say that i don't know if this is like an
authentic dish that exists in vietnam for those of you who know better please
tell me but at least in canada every vietnamese restaurant has a lemongrass chicken of some sort
i have a feeling it is not authentic okay that's it for the chicken how easy is that here's one
that i marinated yesterday now i'm gonna throw this on the grill but you can definitely bake it
or cut it up and stir fry it if you like it's a really versatile recipe and i'll put details on
how to do those in the recipe post all right let's grill so i like to start my chicken on
high for some nice grill marks and you can turn it down for the larger pieces if they need more time
this is a brand new grill for me so it's sticking a little bit more than usual but you want to make
sure your grill is well oiled anyway because the chicken tends to be sticky for dark meat
you want to get the internal temperature up to 175 degrees fahrenheit for best texture
and check the smallest pieces first so they don't overcook before we move on i'd like to tell you
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so good but before we can eat it we need to make a dipping sauce which is the vietnamese nuoc cham
which this is the sweet and sour orange dipping sauce that you see on most vietnamese things you
buy it's super easy starting with some garlic and i'm gonna add one thai chili which probably makes
this way spicier than any nuoc cham you've ever bought from vietnamese takeout but hey we are thai
i don't quite have it fine yet i'm going to add some sugar and the sugar is going to
give a little bit of abrasion that will help break this down more easily
little pieces of chili skin is not a problem so i am pretty happy with that now all the liquids
go in fish sauce of course and hey if you want to be authentic you should use vietnamese fish sauce
lime juice and this dipping sauce is quite mild because you want you can use a lot of
it so you have to add quite a bit of water to thin it out this is one key difference between
like a vietnamese dipping sauce and a thai dipping sauce this the thai one is usually
really intense and use just a little bit but this is you can really drench your chicken with that
look at that wow i have one enormous piece of garlic that i failed to crush wow so pro
and then this is totally optional but you'll often see just like little shreds of carrots
that they add for garnish but you know looks nice i have carrots so let's do it yes look at that
so good and i find a lot of times what you get from restaurants is really overly
and spicy overly sweet as i was saying but when you make it yourself you can make it
however you like let's review the chicken just gonna slice oh look at that still nice and juicy
and the grill marks that's what makes the difference a smoky
grill flavor now all of this goes on top of my rice
look at that i'm gonna put some sauce
right on the chicken i'm so excited for this you have no idea and now i started
just making a whole lot and just keeping in the fridge and then my husband can just go to town
beyond the fact that this is delicious it's got a neutral enough flavor that you can
put it on anything as i said you can put this in a bun me in fact in vietnamese restaurant
when they make chicken bun meat this is the same chicken that they use you can put other sauces on
it if you like and change it up it's got a subtle enough flavor that it can really be versatile
and man i can eat this every day some nice greens on the side for freshness and man you do not need
anything else without the dipping sauce very kid friendly as well so the recipe as always will
be on hotthaikitchen.com a special thanks to our patreon supporters who help support the show and
if you want to watch my videos ad free get bonus content and special prioritized access to me you
can join us on patreon i'll put the link in the description below thank you as always for watching
and i will see you next time for your next delicious...i guess not so Thai meal this time!