baby rambutan

the dish arrives with a caveat:
if you do not have a passion for fish sauce, what i call, patis love, look away now, “X” it now, come back another day.
still here?
the reward is a dish worth a pot full of rice both because the sauce deserves to be licked clean and because the spicy punch will need the soothing mouthfuls of starch to cool your mouth down.

the first step is to make this caramel with fish sauce. you must be brave.

you must also add at least one red hot chili pepper.
based on recipes from three cookbooks (authors Nicole Routhier, Corinne Trang, and Mai Pham) and my desire to eat something spicy and saucy, since i had a stuffed up nose with matching dead tastebuds. i had to consult with my favorite testers to check if the flavors (lemongrass, garlic, chili, chili paste, caramel, fish sauce, shallots) were all right .

recipe coming soon follows…

6 chicken thighs, cut in two with a cleaver
vegetable oil for stir-frying
10 whole dried chilis (or to taste)
1/4 cup minced lemongrass, preferably fresh
1 tbsps. minced garlic
1 tsp. ground chili paste, and/ or
1 small fresh red chili, thinly sliced
1/4 cup fish sauce-caramel (or more, according to taste)
1/2 cup homemade unsalted or canned chicken broth
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 yellow onion, sliced thinly
1 cup julienned carrots, blanched and shocked in ice water (optional, i think pickled radish served separately was a better foil)
fresh cilantro sprigs for garnish

NOTE: quantities are based on Mai Pham’s recipe, from The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking); feel free to adjust according to your tastes.

heat the oil in a nonstick fry pan over low heat, add the dried chilies and cook until they puff up and are slightly brown (not black), about 10 seconds. remove from oil, drain on paper towels, and set aside.
brown the chicken thighs in the hot oil until surfaces are slightly seared.
increase the heat to high and add the lemon grass, garlic, chili paste, and fresh chili until fragrant, about 1 minute. add the chicken and any juices and cook until the chicken is well coated. reduce the heat and add the chicken stock, fish sauce-caramel, salt, onion, and carrots if using, and continue cooking until chicken is tender. add the reserved chilies, garnish with the cilantro, and serve immediately.

fish sauce-caramel (from Nicole Routhier’s The Foods of Vietnam):
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup fish sauce (preferably phu quoc, made in Vietnam)
1-2 shallots, thinly sliced
freshly ground black pepper

cook the sugar in a small heavy saucepan over low heat, swirling the pan constantly until brown. it will smoke slightly. immediately remove the pan from the heat and stir the fish sauce into the caramel, being careful to guard against splatter (the mixture will bubble vigorously).
return the mixture to low heat and gently boil, swirling the pan occasionally until the sugar is completely dissolved about 3 minutes. add the shallots and ground pepper to taste. stir to combine.

tip: add water w/ the fish sauce if you’d like the caramel to be a bit thinner. it also helps to dissolve the sugar. oh, and don’t forget to ventilate the kitchen

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 10:15 am and is filed under winged creatures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.