Recipes

Bangkok Birds

Preparation & Cooking Time: 1 1/2 hours
Serves: 4

Ingredients

Not sure who to thank for this recipe, but found it on hub pages.com

NOTES: In Bangkok and across Southeast Asia, skewered, grilled chickens are sold by street vendors. This recipe, from August 1990, is served with a Thai chili sauce.

2 chickens (3 to 3 1/2 lb. each)

1/4 cup chopped garlic

1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

2 tablespoons chopped fresh ginger

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon coarse-ground pepper

1/4 cup Asian fish sauce (nuoc mam or nam pla) or soy sauce


Method

1. Remove giblets and necks; save for another use. Rinse chickens. With poultry shears or a knife, split chickens lengthwise through breastbones. Pull birds open and place, skin up, on a flat surface. Press down firmly, cracking bones, until birds lie flat.

2. Insert a metal skewer (you need 4, each 10 to 12 in.; see above), across 1 chicken through drumstick (knee bent), then thigh, over backbone, through opposite thigh and its drumstick (knee bent). Repeat step with remaining chicken. Then, on both chickens, push another skewer parallel to the first through skin of outstretched wing into breast, over the backbone, through breast, and out through skin of opposite wing.

3. In a blender or food processor, whirl garlic, onions, ginger, coriander, pepper, and fish sauce until a coarse paste. Rub paste all over chickens.

4. Prepare barbecue for indirect heat (page 96, step 1). Lay chickens, skin up, on grill as directed (step 2). Cook until meat at thighbone is no longer pink (cut to test), about 1 1/4 hours.

5. Pull skewers from chickens, cut chickens into pieces, and serve with Thai chili sauce.

Per serving: 777 cal., 50% (387 cal.) from fat; 85 g protein; 43 g fat (12 g sat.); 8 g carbo (0.7 g fiber); 846 mg sodium; 264 mg chol.