Gai Tod Hat Yai
Southern Thai fried chicken, shatteringly crisp, scented with white pepper and coriander root, and finished with a blizzard of sweet fried shallots. Boneless thighs keep it under twenty minutes without losing the point.
- Total time
- 19 min
- Serves
- 2
- Effort
- Medium
What you need
Written for 2 — nudge the counter and the numbers follow.
0 of 10 in the basket.
How you make it
Toss the chicken with the fish sauce, white pepper, coriander root, garlic and turmeric and leave 5 minutes.
Heat the oil to 160C and fry the sliced shallots for 3 minutes, stirring, until pale gold, then lift them out onto kitchen paper where they will crisp and darken.
Mix the rice flour and cornflour, dredge each thigh and press the coating on firmly, shaking off the excess.
Raise the oil to 175C and fry the chicken in two batches for 6 minutes per batch, turning once, until deep golden and cooked through to 75C at the thickest point.
Drain on a rack, not on paper, so the underside stays crisp, and scatter over the fried shallots before serving with sticky rice.
Read all that and thought “absolutely not”?
Completely fair. Gai Tod Hat Yai is sitting in the Thai kitchen right now, it costs nothing, and it will never arrive.
Order it insteadMore from the Thai kitchen
Sour, sweet, salty and hot arguing in the best way.