Gai Yang

How to make it

1. Scrub the cilantro roots clean and roughly chop them. Pound them in the mortar together with the garlic and white peppercorns until you have a sticky, pale green paste with no visible fibers.
2. Stir the fish sauce, palm sugar, light soy sauce and coconut milk into the paste until the sugar is completely dissolved and the marinade is smooth and thin. Pour off a third into a small bowl and set it aside for basting, so you have a clean portion to use on the grill.
3. Place the chicken breast-side down and cut out the backbone with heavy kitchen shears. Turn the bird over and press down firmly on the breastbone until it gives way with a crack and the chicken lies completely flat. Score two to three cuts down to the bone in the thickest parts of the thighs and drumsticks, so the heat and marinade can reach in.
   Chef's tip Spatchcocking evens the thickness so breast and thigh finish closer together. Press with the heel of your hand until you hear the keel bone crack — a bird that springs back hasn't flattened and will cook unevenly.
4. Rub the rest of the marinade all over the flattened chicken and under the skin of the breast and thighs, where it will stay put during grilling instead of dripping off. Place the chicken in a dish, cover it and refrigerate (see advance prep).
5. Rinse the 400 g sticky rice in cold water until the water runs almost clear from the grains. Cover the rice with plenty of cold water and let it soak (see advance prep), as it will never become tender from steaming alone.
   Chef's tip Sticky rice will never turn tender from steaming alone — the center of each grain has to take on water first. The soak is long enough when a single grain crushes between two fingernails with no hard, chalky core left inside.
6. Toast the 2 tbsp raw sticky rice dry in a pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the grains are nutty brown and smell toasted and popped. Pound them in the mortar to a coarse, sandy powder — not to a fine dust, since it's the crunchy grains that give nam jim jaew its texture.
7. Stir the fish sauce, lime juice and palm sugar for the nam jim jaew together in a bowl until the sugar has dissolved and the sauce tastes sharply salty and tart. Fold in the chili flakes, scallions, shallots and the roughly chopped cilantro, and let the nam jim jaew sit and develop while you grill. The toasted rice powder is stirred in just before the sauce goes to the table, so the grains stay crunchy.
8. Light a good layer of charcoal and let it burn down until the coals are covered with an even layer of gray ash. Push them together to one half of the grill so you have a hot zone and a zone with no coals underneath at all. ⏱ 25 min · passive
   Chef's tip Even gray ash means the coals have stopped flaring and give steady radiant heat. The two-zone setup is what makes the long, gentle phase possible — with coals underneath, the sugary marinade would blacken long before the thigh is cooked.
9. Drain the soaked rice and spread it in the steamer basket lined with a cloth. Steam the rice over boiling water with the lid on for 25-30 minutes, until the grains are glossy, half-translucent and cling together without being mushy — turn the rice once partway through. The rice is not salted, as it should stay neutral against the salty sauce and chicken. ⏱ 25 min–30 min · passive
   Chef's tip Lift the basket off the heat the moment the grains turn glossy, and leave the rice sitting in the cloth. Shut inside a metal pot, the condensation drips back down and turns the top grains wet and mushy.
10. Place the marinated chicken skin-side up on the cold zone, put the lid on the grill and let it cook for 35-40 minutes. Baste it twice along the way with the reserved marinade. The chicken is ready to leave the cold zone when the skin is deep golden brown and a thermometer pushed into the thickest part of the thigh, without touching bone, reads 75°C. ⏱ 35 min–40 min · passive
11. Move the chicken over the coals skin-side down and grill it just until the skin tightens up and turns crisp with dark spots — lift it back to the cold zone the moment it is there. Stay at the grill the whole time, as the palm sugar in the marinade can burn within seconds. The chicken should be cooked through with a core temperature of 75°C in the thickest part of the thigh.
12. Place the grilled chicken on a cutting board and let it rest for 10 minutes, until the meat has settled and the juices stay in instead of running out when you chop it. ⏱ 10 min · passive
    Chef's tip Thigh meat can read pink near the bone even at 75°C — that's pigment, not underdone meat. Rest uncovered, or trapped steam will soften the crust you just built.
13. Chop the rested chicken through the bone into rough pieces with a heavy knife and arrange them on a flat platter. Set the steamed rice out in the steamer basket or a bowl in the middle of the table, and divide the nam jim jaew into small bowls, one per person. Eat with your fingers: pull off a clump of rice, roll it into a firm ball in your hand, dip it in the sauce and eat it together with a piece of chicken.