A classic Thai palate pleaser that is not much on the eyes
Chicken and rice. It seems so simple, almost too simple to be mentioned in the same breath as complex, in-your-face Thai dishes such as face-meltingly spicy papaya salad or rich, aromatic green curry.
But when I first came to Thailand, kâao man gài or Thai chicken and rice was on my list of “must try” Thai foods only by virtue of its position as one of the world’s most delicious foods—certainly not based on the lackluster name.
I found a small, four table restaurant in one of Bangkok’s famous food-lined soi’s (streets) that claimed, among a dozen others, to sell the best kâao man gài in the city. Walking into the small shophouse, Bangkok’s inescapable smell of incense, grilled pork, sewage, and tuk-tuk fumes was quickly replaced by a heady aroma of cooked chicken and sweet jasmine rice.
“Ao kâao mun gài nùeng nkáp.” (One kâao man gài please.)
The shopkeeper nodded almost imperceptibly and lifted one of the whole, cooked chickens hanging by a hook in a glass case onto her cutting board and began removing the breast meat from the carcass with a huge cleaver so quickly and masterfully it bordered on wizardry.
Pulling the lid off of a car tire-sized rice cooker, she spooned steaming rice into a small bowl and inverted it onto a pink melamine plate, creating a perfect mound of jasmine scented grains that acted as a pillowy bed for the sliced chicken breast she gently placed on top.
To her right was an enormous pot of simmering, not-quite-clear broth dotted with chunks of garlic, cilantro root, and ginger. As she ladled out a bowl of broth, still-cooking chickens breeched the surface like pale beige whales coming up for air.
To finish the plate, a small dish of dark brown sauce flecked with chilis, garlic, and ginger was perched on the rim and a sprig of cilantro provided a touch of color to the mostly pale, white plate of food.
When the plate was placed in front of me, I honestly wasn’t expecting much. It looked like a plain plate of white rice, poached chicken and some sauce. Then I took a bite.
Just like when Dorothy got her first glimpse of Oz and everything changed from black and white to color, that first bite of kâao man gài transported me from the pale, colorless image on the plate to a rich, stunningly beautiful world of chicken and rice flavor I would have never thought possible from such a simple set of ingredients.
The chicken was juicy, tender, seasoned perfectly, and had the most pure chicken flavor of any dish I’d ever tasted. Likewise, the rice was shockingly flavorful with the slightest fragrance of galangal, garlic, and ginger and had the perfect texture, both a result of the chicken fat and broth it’s cooked in.
The accompanying soup was rich and fragrant—like the most comforting chicken soup you’ve ever eaten. And the sauce (nam jim) masterfully balanced sour, spicy, salty and sweet, adding a punch of flavor and spice to everything it touched.
This simple plate of chicken and rice was anything but simple, and the techniques for extracting every bit of flavor out of a handful of ingredients was nothing short of masterful.
Kâao man gài is the Thai version of Hainanese chicken rice, brought to Thailand by immigrants from Hainan Island, China and quickly became one of the most popular breakfast and lunch foods across the country but rarely appears on Western Thai restaurant menus because of the time and skill it takes to prepare properly.
The right chickens (non-egg-laying female chickens are preferred) must be cooked perfectly in a light broth scented with the right combination of aromatics. Carefully selected rice (many shops prefer Thai Hom Mali rice) is cooked in a perfect ratio of chicken broth to chicken fat, making each individual grain glisten with chickeny deliciousness. There are as many sauces for kâao man gài as there are cooks, but a perfect balance of sweet, sour, spicy, and salty is paramount.
This is where I typically include a recipe but this is a case where the simplicity of the dish makes a worthy recipe extremely difficult to find. Imagine trying to share your grandmother’s biscuit recipe—no matter how precise you recorded the recipe, there’s no substitution for grandma’s experienced touch.
If you want to make this at home, I’d start with a good kâao man gài recipe from a Thai native and make it until you get it right—100 to 200 times should do it. It’s just chicken and rice, right?
Mike McJunkin is a native Chattanoogan who has traveled abroad extensively, trained chefs, and owned and operated restaurants. Join him on Facebook at facebook.com/SushiAndBiscuits