This recipe serves 2 hungry people or four people with more modest appetites.
The first step is, about a week before you want to eat the khao man gai, finely slice some prik chi fa (red jalapenos) and discard the seeds, then mix them with about twice their volume of rice vinegar, and leave to marinade (you need at least a tablespoon of chillis).
When you are ready to cook, you need about
8 cups of unsalted chicken stock, made by boiling
chicken bones in water for about 15 minutes. If
you don't have stock, use water.
Place the chicken in a large casserole, and cover
with the stock. Add a few slices of phak thong
(winter squash), to the pot, and simmer or poach
over a low heat until the chicken is thoroughly
cooked and tender.
Remove and drain the chicken, then when it is cool enough to handle, cut off the wings and legs and reserve them for other dishes, remove the two chicken breasts, and smack them with a cleaver to dislodge the skin, which may be discarded if you are watching you weight. Cut the breasts into strips about half an inch wide, and cut the strips into bite sized pieces.
Place one and a half cups of washed long grain rice in a saucepan, and add two and half cups of the chicken broth from cooking the chicken. Cook over moderate heat until the liquor is absorbed, and the rice is cooked (the finished rice should be slightly moist).
Serve the chicken on a bed of the chicken steamed rice, garnished with coriander leaves, and accompanied by a good supply of sliced cucumber, with a cup of the chicken broth, and few pieces of squash as an accompanying soup, garnished with coriander leaves.
This meal is accompanied by the following two sauces:
Bean sauce
You will need
4 tablespoons of fermented yellow bean sauce
4 tablespoons of the chicken broth from cooking your chicken
1 tablespoon dark sweet soy sauce
1 tablespoon of pickled jalape?os (prepared earlier)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon of palm sugar
This is mixed and tasted, if required you can add extra sugar, and some of the vinegar used to pickle the jalapenos, for balance.
The second "sauce" consists of half a cup of freshly ground ginger.