PreparationPairs with
Nam Jim Jaew
Isaan dipping sauce of toasted dried chilli, toasted sticky rice, fish sauce and lime
The table sauce for this chicken. Make it while the chicken rests.
Gai Yang Isaan
Recipes · Gai Yang Isaan
First revision · 23 SEP 2026
RecipeFirst revisionVia mcp
Gai Yang Isaan
Spatchcocked chicken in a pounded paste, cooked upright beside wood coals
A 1.2 kg chicken, spatchcocked and slashed. It marinates overnight in a pounded paste of coriander root, garlic, lemongrass and bird's eye chilli. Fish sauce, oyster sauce and palm sugar bind the paste. A little coconut cream helps it hold to the skin. The chicken cooks upright in a hinged grid beside wood coals. The bone side faces the fire first. The skin side finishes. Baste the skin with coconut cream when it starts to look like it will burn, not on a timer. Judge the chicken by the char first and the probe second. Take the thigh to 76 degrees C. 78 degrees C is also correct. Serve with nam jim jaew and sticky rice.
Batch
Why the first revision
First version in the store. Records the wood-fire method, scaled to a 1.2 kg bird. It includes the corrections from the cook after the fire run: judge by char first and probe second, take the thigh to 76 degrees C, and baste when the surface starts to burn.
Prepare
3 steps- 1 A
Put the chicken breast down. Cut along both sides of the backbone with shears. Remove the backbone.
Work Butchery - 2 A
Turn the chicken over. Press on the breastbone until it cracks and the bird lies flat. Dry it with paper.
- 3 A
Cut 3 to 4 shallow slashes through the skin into each thigh and the thickest part of each breast.
The slashes let the paste reach the meat. They matter most when the marinade is short.
Paste
6 steps- 4 B
Scrape the coriander roots clean. Pound them in the dry mortar to a fibrous pulp.
Work GrindingTool mortar and pestle - 5 B
- 6 B
Add the lemongrass. Pound until no long fibres remain.
The smell changes when the cells open. That is the citral.
Work Grinding - 7 B
Add the bird's eye chillies last. Pound them coarse. Leave pieces in the paste.
Work Grinding - 8 B
Stir in the fish sauce, the oyster sauce, the palm sugar and 25 ml of the coconut cream. Do not pound.
- 9 B
Stir in the white pepper and the black pepper last.
Ground pepper pounded in early spreads evenly and tastes flat. Stirred in last, it stays in pockets.
Marinate
2 steps- 10 C
Rub the paste under the skin, into the slashes, into the cavity and over all surfaces.
- 11 C
Cover the chicken. Refrigerate it overnight.
Minimum 30 minutes at room temperature. Up to 48 hours in the refrigerator is correct.
Time 8 h–2 d
Fire
2 steps- 12 D
Burn wood down to medium coals: grey-white, a steady glow, no flame.
Time 30 min–45 min - 13 D
Take the chicken out of the refrigerator while the fire burns down. Leave the paste on.
Time 30 min
Cook
7 steps- 14 E
Clamp the chicken in a hinged grid. Stand the grid upright, 25 to 30 cm from the coals.
Work GrillingTool hinged braai grid - 15 E
Cook with the bone side to the fire. Move the coals to keep the heat even.
The bone shields the meat and passes the heat in slowly.
Time 25 min–30 minWork Grilling - 16 E
Turn the grid so the skin faces the fire.
Work Grilling - 17 E
Watch the skin. Baste it when the char starts to look like it will burn.
Use the remaining 50 ml of coconut cream mixed with any paste that is left. Do not baste on a timer.
- 18 E
Repeat the baste each time the surface needs it. Keep the coats thin.
- 19 E
Cook until the skin has deep char in patches. Then probe the thickest part of the thigh.
Char first, probe second. The whole cook took about 70 minutes on the first fire run.
Tool probe thermometer - 20 E
Take the chicken off when the thigh reads 76 degrees C. 78 degrees C is also correct.
Do not take it off below 70 degrees C, even if the char looks ready.
Temp 76 °CTool probe thermometer
Finish
2 steps- 21 F
Rest the chicken on a board for 15 minutes. Do not cover it.
A cover traps steam and softens the skin.
Time 15 min - 22 F
Carve. Scatter the coriander leaf. Serve with lime wedges, sticky rice and nam jim jaew.
Notes
21
WARNING Rinse a brined bird before the paste
A wet-brined bird already holds salt. The paste adds about 7 g of salt from the fish sauce, and more from the oyster sauce.
Over a long marinade the two amounts add together. The result is too salty.
Take the bird out of the brine. Rinse it. Dry it with paper. Then apply the paste.
2
CAUTION · SUBSTITUTION Swaps that have worked
Ground white pepper for whole white peppercorns. Stir it in after the pounding. Whole peppercorns pounded first give an uneven grind and heat that arrives in waves.
Coconut milk for coconut cream. Put the can in the refrigerator. The fat sets on top in 1 to 2 hours. Use that fat. If the can is still mixed, baste in 2 or 3 thinner coats.
Honey for palm sugar in the paste. Use 15 ml of honey for 25 g of palm sugar. Honey holds glucose and fructose. Both take part in the Maillard reaction on the skin at once. Sucrose must break down first.
African bird's eye chilli for Thai bird's eye chilli. Similar size and heat. Use the same count.
Provenance
Built as a second chicken-over-fire style to stand next to South African peri-peri. First cooked in a Berlin fan oven with a 30 minute marinade. Then made again with a 2 kg bird, with Marylands on a 48 hour marinade, with two birds, and then over a wood fire in South Africa. The fire method is this record. The oven method is a variation. The oyster sauce and the coconut cream are not in the plainest Isaan versions of the dish.
Related
1Batch logs
1The science
3What is actually happening in the dish, and why the techniques work.
M1
Over a wood fire, read the char first and the probe second 76 degrees C in the thickest thigh · 78 degrees C is correct · never below 70 degrees C
Radiant heat from coals is not even. It changes as the coals burn down and as you move them.
The skin records every one of those changes. The char is the sum of all the heat that reached the bird.
A probe reads one point. Near a pocket of fat or near the bone, the reading runs ahead of the deep muscle. One reading can say done when the thigh is not.
So over a fire, read the char first. Use the probe to confirm it.
In an oven the heat is even. There the probe leads and the colour confirms.
The target is for leg meat, not for breast. Thigh collagen starts to turn to gelatin slowly from 70 degrees C. A pull at 71 degrees C is correct for a breast and leaves the thigh chewy. At 76 to 78 degrees C the thigh is softer.
M2
Coconut cream is a brake and a glaze thin coats · baste when the char is close to black
The paste holds palm sugar and oyster sauce. Both carry sugar. Under strong radiant heat that sugar goes from brown to black fast.
Coconut cream is about two thirds water. A thin coat on a hot surface takes heat away as the water evaporates. The surface cools for a short time.
Then the water is gone. The coconut fat and its proteins stay. They brown and build a lacquer on the skin.
So one baste slows the burn and adds colour. Put it on when the surface is close to burning. That is when it does the most work.
M3
No acid in the paste, so it can sit for two days 30 min minimum with slashes · overnight is the default · 48 h maximum
An acid marinade denatures the surface proteins of the meat. Over many hours the surface goes soft and mealy.
This paste holds no lime and no vinegar. It can sit for 48 hours and the texture does not change.
The salt still moves in. 40 ml of fish sauce carries about 7 g of salt. A longer marinade seasons deeper, and a very long one seasons harder.
Variations
2A variation is the same dish taken a different way. Each one keeps its own versions, and none of them replaces another. The first is the dish the rest came from.
Gai Yang Isaan 1 version You are here
The dish the others came from.
Gai Yang Isaan, oven 1 version
Fan oven with a water tray, finished under the top grill, in place of the wood fire