Sawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai kitchen so the holiday season is coming up so today I'm going
to share with you a roast chicken with gravy recipe but it uses some of the most iconic
flavors of Thai cuisine so this is a great way to add a little bit of a Thai flavor to your holiday
table without it clashing with your traditional side dishes like your mashed potatoes and all that
because the flavors are really quite subtle but it's going to be super delicious let's get started
so we're gonna start first with the marinade now you could use my barbecue chicken marinade but
I'm going to show you a simpler version to keep the flavors a little more subtle so I've got both
black and white peppercorns here and always slots in a Thai marinade okay after that we're gonna go
in with some garlic and get that into a fine paste as well it's sort of a paste is not super fine but
I'm going to go in with my cilantro roots so this is what cilantro bruce'll like it's simply just
the roots of the cilantro plant if you can't find it cilantro stems are fine now I really want this
into a very fine paste and now I'm going to add some chopped up palm sugar and the sugar is going
to help cut the salt and also help with browning a little salt in there grind that up until the sugar
is dissolved and of course you can just throw everything in a blender if you want alright so
I've got some fish sauce and really the fish sauce is my only seasoning here and a lot of times in
Thai food fish sauce is the only seasoning you need but I'm going to add also a little bit of
black soy sauce or dark soy sauce and this will just help with color there we go and then finally
some water it'll help the chicken absorb some of that liquid a little bit like a quick brine keep
the meat juicy that is it that's the marinade all right so here's our chicken and first we're going
to butterfly the chicken also known as spatchcock the chicken that's removing the spine so we can
open the chicken up and it will marinate and roast more evenly and just going to cut the spine out
and it should be with good scissors relatively easy when you get to this by bone part it's gonna
feel a little bit hard because it's usually piece of fly bone there if you just sort of maneuver
the scissors inward a little bit you can usually cut around it and so there's usually a hard part
there and then once you get to this rib case it becomes easier from this point on I could have
also removed the wishbone first so there's one side and then you repeat the same on the other
side these scissors aren't as good as I hope they would be but it was only 499 so really what did I
expect yay okay we're gonna save the spine cuz we'll use it for the stock now when you open
up the chicken there's a little cartilage right there and so I'm going to just make a little slit
with my knife through the cartilage like that and press it open like a book and it should just sort
of flatten out like that okay and now we've opened up a whole bunch of surface area for
marinade penetration and it's also a little more interesting looking when you present it at the end
trim off all this big fatty bits this is going to produce a lot of fat in the roasting pan and then
you just have more to skim off when you make the gravy so I just go and trim off all the fat so I
am going to make sure the marinade gets under the skin especially the breast to make sure that it's
really really flavorful so all you have to do is stick your fingers underneath the skin and
just make a pocket and this is commonly done in western cuisines you may have done it before and
now I'm just going to add some of our marinade into each side of the breast and now you're just
going to sort of massage it through we're gonna do the same thing underneath the thigh skin and
this is why spatchcocking the chicken is also good because now you it's really easy to get the
marinade under the thigh skin and now I'm going to pour the rest of my marinade wrap the wings
rub everything we're going to let this marinate for 30 minutes that's all it takes is a strong
marinade and so this is why I love this recipe - you don't need to plan this days ahead of time and
then halfway through I'd like to just come back and redistribute the dressing give it another
rub and make sure everything is well evenly coated we're going to make the quick stock for the gravy
and so I've got the spine that we cut up notice that I removed the but because the bud is really
really fatty believe it or not in Thailand they sell deep fried chicken but I sort of like its
own thing but anyway too much fat so just water just enough to cover it I'm going to let this
simmer for about 20-30 minutes whatever you've got time for so now we're going to prep our herbs now
traditionally the western-style roast chicken gets stuffed with all sorts of herbs in the
cavity right so in a similar way that's what we're going to do but we're going to make a bed for the
chicken to lay on so I've got some lemongrass here and I'm actually going to also use the top which
we don't normally use so I'm going to remove the little end bit here and then just with the back of
my knife just smash there you go note I am using not the big roasting pan but just a quarter sheet
pan because the roasting pan I find the sides are too high and the sides will actually prevent heat
from circulating around the chicken evenly and so the bottom half of my chicken tends to not brown
as nicely so for this because our chicken is flat I prefer something with a shallower rim and then
my galangal is going in just on top now you don't have to have all the herbs I'm using some ginger
some lime leaves which I'm just going to tear into big chunks okay and then finally some shallots
which I chopped up but before I put the chicken on this herb bed I'm going to pour some water
on it and this water is going to help steam the herbs help the flavors come up and infuse into the
chicken better and it'll also prevent the chicken juices from burning too quickly and we're going
to put the chicken 1 2 3 up on this bit here big thighs this one has if you want you can tuck the
wings under here so they don't darken too quickly but I think right here is fine brush this chicken
with some oil and that's just to help the skin brown and crisp while the chicken is roasting
you want to keep your eyes on the pan once the liquid dries up and the bits on the pan starts
to brown you want to deglaze the pan a little bit with some water to prevent those bits from burning
because that is going to be part of the gravy that's better mmm all this liquid here if you
can see that's all good stuff that we're going to use as part of the gravy and that's all the
stuff that's got the herb flavor in it as well one two three hep whew okay I want to put all
the herbs on the bottom of the serving plate so that way when you serve it on the table people
sort of you know get a visual cue of what flavors went into this chicken right okay now is the best
part the gravy this is the spine that I've been simmering for about 20-30 minutes I'm just going
to remove it along with any sort of scum and fat that is floated to the top so now I'm going to add
the juices from the roasting of the chicken lots of good things going in here the marinade that we
had left over from the chicken don't throw that away we want to add the marinade right into here
match the flavor of the gravy to the flavor of the chicken and now I'm going to bring this to
a boil because we had raw chicken juice in there from the marinade so we want to make sure it's
all cooked off and you can skim this off a little more if you want it to and now what you want to
do is give it a taste and if it is too too thin sort of too diluted at this point let it reduce
a little bit so you get a more concentrated flavor mmm mmm oh I like that nice and peppery but I will
reduce it a little further it's a little weak that's good mmm that looks better already if you
have juices that's been collecting from under the chicken pour that in at this point because that's
all chicken juice chicken flavor without of course pouring the chicken right off this part is sort of
optional sort of not I'm going to add some coconut milk and I think it as definitely a touch of Thai
exotic flavor to it and you can add as much or as little of you as you want depending on how
strong of a coconut flavor you want a little bit more and now to thicken this gravy so I've got
some cornstarch here just enough water to dissolve the cornstarch you never add dry flour into a hot
liquid you will get lumps you will never be able to get out only half first and see where we're
at and you want to bring it back to a boil because that's how you know the cornstarch has reached its
full thickening power I'll show you a little trick that I do to make the gravy really serve dark and
rich I'm going to add some black soy sauce of course what else but now just look at that this
stuff is so useful very nice and also a little squeeze of lime now you don't want to make this
sour but right now it's very rich and luscious and the little squeeze of lime will brighten it
up a little bit sharpen it and they do this even in western style gravy really brightens everything
up mmm mmm that's good oh ho ho ho yeah check this out my god so one of the benefits of spatchcocking
your chicken is that it is so much easier to carve because it's sort of like that all the way there
ready for you to cut it open I am a thigh kind of girl I think y'all know that by now there we
go Oh smells so good just take a little bit here make sure it gets some skin boop there's almost
no such thing as too much gravy mmm mmm so tender and so flavorful and the gravy is rich in a little
bit coconutty it's subtle enough though that it's not going to clash if you wanted to have mashed
potatoes or roasted cauliflower or whatever it is so I hope you give it a try the recipe as always
is on Hut Titan calm and when you try it send me a photo I would love to see them and I will
include some of them in my newsletter and you can send those bows to me on Facebook Twitter
or Instagram and oh if you haven't subscribed to show here's the subscribe button here and I
will see you next time for your next delicious tiny tip this end that's it that's it down hey