Gai Yang Isaan

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.

Mechanisms

three

Over a wood fire, read the char first and the probe second

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.

76 degrees C in the thickest thigh 78 degrees C is correct never below 70 degrees C

Coconut cream is a brake and a glaze

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.

thin coats baste when the char is close to black

No acid in the paste, so it can sit for two days

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.

30 min minimum with slashes overnight is the default 48 h maximum

The method

One recipe

Recipe

Gai Yang Isaan

The same record, read as a method. This page holds the reasoning; that one holds what to do.

Applied in

one recipe

Recipe

Gai Yang Isaan, oven

The same bird and the same paste as the fire method. The heat is different. A 1.2 kg spatchcocked chicken roasts on a rack at 220 degrees C fan. A tray of boiling water sits on the lowest shelf. The steam keeps the sugary paste from burning while the meat cooks. Take the water out when the skin takes colour. Baste with coconut cream. Then move the chicken under the top grill on maximum for 5 to 7 minutes. That gives the char the fire would give. In an oven the heat is even, so the probe leads. Take the thigh to 76 degrees C. The whole cook takes 40 to 45 minutes.

First revision

References

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