Thai Grilled Chicken Skewers – Gai Yang
Thai Grilled Chicken or Gai Yang in Thai, is coconut-basted grilled chicken.
UK BBQ Week coincided with our live cook. The theme was World Cuisine so we were inspired to use the recipe from last year’s Thai class. Rather than cook a whole chicken we used thighs to create skewers. We paired it with a Thai Green curry and it really intensified the flavour of the whole dish. The skewers would could also be the star of the show in a Thai salad.
Cooking surfaces
BBQ Temperature
Ingredients
- 4 chicken thighs (1 thigh per person)
- 2 tbsp coriander stalks, chopped
- 2 cloves fresh garlic
- 2 shallots
- 2 sticks lemongrass
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/2 tsp white pepper powder
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp palm sugar
- 1/2 cup of coconut milk (tins with 60% min coconut)
Method
- To make the marinade, add all the ingredients except the coconut milk to a blender and blend to a paste.
- Unless you have bought chicken thighs already prepared, you need to remove the skin and bone from the chicken thighs. Then chop the thigh in half lengthways so you have two pieces of thigh.
- Place your chicken in a bowl and marinade in the paste and allow to marinade for 4 hours minimum, preferably overnight.
- Setup your Big Green Egg for a direct cook at 180°C with just your stainless steel grid.
- Place 2 pieces of the marinaded chicken on to one skewers. Repeat until you’ve skewered all the chicken. We used soaked wooden skewers during the cook.
- Cook your chicken, basting it every 5 or so minutes, with the coconut milk. Every so often, turn your chicken skewers over.
- Cook your chicken until it has a good colour and the internal temperature of the breasts has reached at least 74°C.
- Allow your chicken to rest for 10 minutes . Thai people portion their chicken into bite-sized pieces.
- Serve with your dipping sauce.