Gai yang stock

The drippings kept from a gai yang, the Thai roast chicken. It sets in two layers in the refrigerator: a fat cap on top and a jelly below. It carries the coconut oil of the marinade, the rendered chicken fat and the aromatics from the paste and the bird. It is far more concentrated than any stock. Use it where it is concentrated, not where it is diluted. Aroma perception is threshold-driven: a compound below its detection threshold contributes nothing at all, not a weak version of itself. 100 g spread through 400 ml of braising liquid falls below threshold for much of what is in it. The same 100 g used to fry a paste puts those compounds on every surface the paste then touches. So put all of it in the paste. Use water for the braising liquid. The higher water content makes a paste slower to crack. Judge it by the fat separating, not by the clock.