Thai Marinated Fried Chicken

The other night I made the Thai marinated fried chicken I saw on chez pim's blog. I can't tell you all the compliments and rave reviews it's received. One of my friends swears she's going to find her next man with this recipe, and Stan even asked me to marry him all over again. O.K. I lied, but I'm sure he would have if he would have stopped eating the chicken long enough to speak.

First I made the marinade using 5 cloves of garlic that I ran through the garlic press, about 1 tablespoon of chopped cilantro stems, half a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper, and a teaspoon of sea salt.

Let's pound this all up in the mortar.

Pound the heck out of it with the pestle until you have a paste. If you have a small food processor that will work too but not half as much fun as this.

Transfer the paste to a bowl and add 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce,

and 1/4 cup of fish sauce.

Add the chicken pieces and toss well with the marinade. Let marinate at least 3 hours. I mixed the chicken up a few times while it was marinating.

 

Lightly dust the chicken pieces in rice flour, shake off excess flour.

 

I fried these in peanut oil until golden brown.

 

Deeelicious. This has spoiled me for any other fried chicken.

Here's Pim's recipe, straight from her blog. I swear, you have to try it.

Thai fried chicken, or, the crispiest fried chicken ever
8-10 pieces of chicken, drumsticks or thighs, or both (a little over
2lbs or 1kg)
4-6 cloves of garlic, peeled
about 1 tbsp of chopped cilantro roots (or just the bottom part of the
stalks)
about 1/2 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp kosher or (large-grained) sea salt (If all you have is fine
salt, skip it.)
3tbsp oyster sauce
1/4 cup fish sauce
Enough canola oil or other high-temp oil to fill about 2-inch from the
bottom of your cast iron pan (or a deep frying pan)
In a mortar or a small food processor, pound or chop the garlic,
cilantro roots, kosher salt into a rough paste.  Transfer the paste
into a large bowl, add the oyster sauce and fish sauce and stir to mix
well.  Rinse and dry the chicken pieces thoroughly, then place them
into the bowl.  With your hands, toss and rub the chicken pieces all
over with the marinate mixture.  Cover the bowl with plastic and let
marinade in the fridge for at least 3 hours.
When you are ready to cook the chicken, place your pan over medium-low
heat, fill it with enough oil (I used Canola) to cover about 2inches
from the bottom of the pan, or about half way up the side.  Let the
oil come up to frying temperature, about 360F or 180C.  Meanwhile, put
about 2 cups of rice flour into a large plate (a pyrex pie plate works
very well for this.)  When the oil is ready, take the chicken pieces,
one at a time, drop it into the flour plate and coat well with the
rice flour.  Shake each piece once or twice to remove excess flour and
place them, gently, into the hot oil.
If you don't have a thermometer, make sure your chicken pieces only
gently sizzle in the hot oil.  Just listen to it, you should hear the
oil just softly sizzling.  You should also see small bubbles around
the chickens as they cook.  If the oil is too hot, you'll be able to
see and hear it too.  There will be a lot of large bubbles blowing up
and spitting viciously.  It will make a lot of violent noises and your
chicken will brown up in just a few minutes, but the inside will be
rare.  That's no good.  Just keep the flame low, and, when in doubt,
turn the heat down just a little bit.

Cook the chickens until brown and crisp all around.  If you're not so
sure if they are cooked perfectly, cut one up and see if it's cooked
all the way through.  If you see a little blood, no big deal.  Just
warm up the oven to about 225F or 100C, place your fried chickens on a
cake rack over a cookie sheet and let them sit for 10 minutes to
finish cooking.  (Don't forget to lower the heat on your frying pan so
the rest of your chickens take a bit longer to cook!)  It's a good
idea to heat up your oven to that temperature before you begin frying
anyway, you can put your cooked chicken pieces in there while you fry
the rest.  The oven will keep everything nice and warm, not to mention
super crispy.

Comments

[Shawn Martin]

Sounds like a variation of what I used to call Issan. We used it all the time on grilled pork. I haven't tried chicken (yet). The idea of breading, and pan frying is a new one for me. But one I will give a try the next time the stove needs a good cleaning.

Great blog.

[koko]

I had to google Issan and found out it is Northern Thailand. What a beautiful country.

Using it on pork is a great idea, I know I'll try that soon.
Yes, frying is a messy ordeal and something I don't do very often as I'm the stove cleaner.

Thank you for your compliment on my blog.