Viet World Kitchen

Thai Chicken Biryani Recipe (Khao Mok Gai)

Trade, travel, and empire have fused together the cuisines of Asia in many delectable ways. This spiced chicken-and-rice dish reflects the Muslim-Indian-Thai culinary marriage.

You may not know of khao mok gai (also spelled kao mok gai) but it is deliciously complex in perfume and flavor. In fact, in the span of a week, I ate it three (3) times while I was in Sydney, one of the greatest places for Thai food outside of Thailand! Go to one of the Chat Thai restaurants for a very good rendition.

Hell bent on replicating it, I found a recipe in David Thompson’s new book, Thai Street Food.  I’ve made it several times, the first following the recipe and it was superb. Then I tweaked it slightly for the resulting khao mok gai recipe below. (Disclosure: I provided an official book jacket endorsement for Thai Street Food. Thompson’s recipe for this dish was one of the reasons why.)

Get ready. Khao mok gai takes time to make. It is not straightforward and quick like last week's Thai grilled chicken (gai yang), though you can mix a little of that lovely sweet chile sauce into the rice, if you want to.

But if you make this Thai version of biryani, you’ll have enough for 8 people, or several rounds of eating. Add a salad and you’ve got a celebratory meal that will be sure to WOW your family and friends.

A few notes:

• Basmati is my substitute for the aged long-grain rice (e.g. jasmine) that would likely be used in Thailand.
• The use of dairy (here it's yogurt) and combining cilantro and mint is unusual for Thai cooking but it works for this hybrid dish.
• The chicken and rice are great on their own but add some tart-spicy-sweet sauce and it enlivens the entire dish, making it bright and spritely. The spicy mint sauce below is akin to an Indian green chutney but the galangal zing skews it toward Thailand. Or, you can use some sweet Thai chile sauce.
• Make the paste and fry the shallots a day in advance to get a head start.
• Use a heavy-bottomed, large, wide pot that you would braise a big stew to ensure that things cook evenly. I used an All Clad 6-quart pan.
• Thai cardamom is available at well-stocked Thai markets but regular green cardamom works great.

Thai cardamom (left), Indian green cardamon (right)

Dive into the khao mok gai recipe below and parse the cultural influences as you cook and eat. For more background information on khao mok gai, read "Biryani, Bangkok Style" by Austin Bush, a photographer and writer in Bangkok.

What is Street Food? -- 2010 Eat Real Festival

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This Friday evening, I'm participating in the Lit Fest at the 2010 Eat Real Festival. There are about a dozen writers invited to talk about street food at the Oakland event that spans 3 days. The Eat Real Festival is kinda like the Woodstock of food. It's free too!

Friday night's theme is Street Food.  I'm in  the 7 to 9pm line-up with some buddies of mine as well as other writers and chefs whose work I admire: Pim of Chez Pim, John Birdsall of SF Weekly, Rachel Saunders of the Blue Chair Fruit, Gustavo Arellano of Ask a Mexican, Anamika Khanna of Kasa Indian, Richie Nakano of Hapa Ramen, Sara Deseran of 7x7 magazine, and David Boyk of California Taco Trucks.

The other themes cover  making, growing, and finding food (Saturday), and food storytelling (Sunday). All the Lit Fest events happen on the second floor of the Harvest Hall of Jack London Square. See more details at the Eat Real Fest site.

Back to the photos. Preparing for my 10-minute talk (it's short but has to be potent!), I reflected on street food that I've enjoyed during my time in Asia and America.

The images above are from my travels spanning 2003 to 2010. Use the "Notes" function to see my descriptions and comments for each photo. There are about 24 photos here and they're helping me ponder issue such as:

• What is street food?
• What is Asian street food? Is it different from others?
• How can we get good street food all over America?

Your thoughts?

Instead of gawking at street food photos, you can always make some. Here are few Asian street food recipes on my two sites:

Viet World Kitchen

• Master Banh Mi Recipe
• Thai Grilled Chicken Recipe (Gai Yang)
• Green papaya salad with beef jerky (Goi Du Du Kho Bo)
• Beef in Wild Betel Leaf (Thit Bo Nuong La Lot)
• Taiwanese Spicy Beef Noodle Soup (Niu Rou Mian)
• Beef Pho Noodle Soup (Pho Bo)
• Chicken Pho Noodle Soup (Pho Ga)
• Hu Tieu Nam Vang (Phnom Penh Noodle Soup)

Asian Dumpling Tips

• Steamed Chicken and Shiitake Mushroom Buns (Bao)
• Japanese Octopus Dumpling Balls (Takoyaki)
• Portuguese Egg Tart (Poh Taht, Pasteis de Belem)
• Japanese Braised Pork Belly Buns

 

Thai Grilled Chicken Recipe (Gai Yang)

The sun decided to make an appearance this past week in Santa Cruz for longer than just a couple of hours a day! I was unfortunately stuck in my office reviewing edits on a writing project. After finishing on Friday, it time for a real weekend. 

To start things off, Rory opened up a liter bottle of a dry Riesling and I made Thai grilled chicken (gai yang).  Mymenu choice was inspired by two things: (1) the jar of Thai sweet chile sauce I recently made and (2) memories of a fabulous rendition of gai yang at Sailors Thai, a renowned restaurant in Sydney, Australia.

I had basically given up on ordering cloyingly sweet grilled chicken at Thai restaurants, but my dining buddy that evening, Bangkok-based journalist Jarrett Wrisley, convinced me to order the signature Thai dish. He was prescient in saying, “If this is a good Thai restaurant, they should at least do this well.”

We were startled by how good the gai yang was at Sailors Thai. Jarrett and I politely fought each other over every last bit of flesh and tangy-spicy sauce.

Sailors Thai was started by David Thompson, the chef/owner of Michelin starred nahm at the Halkin hotel in London and the soon-to-open outpost at the Metropolitan in Bangkok. David is one of the foremost authorities on Thai cuisine. He is feisty in nature and uncompromising in his cooking. Over the years, he has elevated Thai food to a high level of craftsmanship and respect that it deserves.

Thompson’s cookbooks, Thai Food and Thai Street Food are phenomenal works. Thai Food is one of my reference books and I used it to work up this gai yang recipe, which is frankly super easy.

Hardline traditionalists would use a small chicken (think game hen size) but I opted for chicken-leg and-thigh quarters. They are juicy, cost less, and taste great.

Brush the sweet chile sauce on at the end or serve it on the side. Do both, if you like. You can’t lose.

Curry Fried Rice Recipe -- Mark Bittman site

As you may know, I've been somewhat disabled by an Achilles heel injury. I'm a temporary gimp. Fortunately, that doesn't see to stop my ability to cook. The other day I scrounged up some leftovers in the fridge -- including some dry rice -- and crafted a curry fried rice on the fly.

Mind you, this is not my own creation. If you're a fan of Ramenya in West Los Angeles, this fried rice will remind you of theirs.

I posted the recipe and a few tips on how to make fried rice at Mark Bittman's site. Oh, for the curry powder, I used Sun Brand, which you can find online and at gourmet shops and some Asian markets. Look for the tall metal tins.

If you're interested in other rice dishes, check these out on Viet World Kitchen:

• Perfect Rice
• Coconut Rice
• Vietnamese Red Rice
• Hainan Chicken and Rice

Travel Book Review: Communion

Americans have a lot of baggage when it comes to Vietnam. I’m often asked if the Vietnamese like Americans. My response is usually, “Vietnamese people are practical. During wartime, they had issues with the US government, not its people. Visitors, even overseas Vietnamese like me, are walking dollar signs. It’s a poor country and our money goes a long way.”

Travel writer Kim Fay captures some of those nuances in Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam (Things Asian Press, 2010). It is a work that details her food experiences from north to south Vietnam. She’s accompanied by her photographer sister Julie and Vietnam-native Nguyen Thi Lan Huong.

Despite the book’s name, it is not religious. Perusing the work, I tried to figure out with what and whom Fay was communing. The chapters break down into cities and then vignettes of the women’s experiences in each locale.

Their culinary journey involves many cooking classes but there are few actual recipes or explanations of techniques. This is largely a travel memoir and the subtitle is not fulfilled in the culinary arena.

That said, what is valuable are her interactions with and reflections on people that she meets. As an American expat, she leads off with stories of experiences with fellow expats, Hanoi chefs Didier Corlou and Bobby Chinn. Both are well known abroad and offer the outsider’s passionate perspectives on Vietnamese food culture. Foreign visitors to Vietnam are often initially drawn to other foreigners.

In subsequent chapters, Fay includes interesting interviews with Vietnamese chefs. Many of them are women and they reveal their resilience, strength, and determination. They charm with their low-key affect and wit. But those human characteristics are sometimes lost in Fay’s tangential and overly descriptive prose.

She tries to define culinary concepts such as umami and fusion cooking but her discussions distract from her compelling subject – the people and foodways of Vietnam. Tighter editing would have produced crisper narrative and more impactful storytelling.

At the end of the book, it dawned upon me that Fay is communing with her personal history, the people she meets in Vietnam, and her travel companions. There are a lot of loose ends in Communion, but that is what travel is all about.