The Science Behind Making Delicious Chicken Juices at Home

I know some of you are thinking "what just happened?" explain that to me because that's what I thought when I first saw this but now that I thought about it I was like oh yeah that makes perfect sense it's brilliant. So all this juice is actually the liquid that was already in the chicken right it's chicken natural juices. Yes, there's a little bit of a soy sauce and fish sauce but definitely not this much right. But what happened is when we cook the chicken all the juices come out of the chicken they evaporate and because we put cold water on top it condenses and drips back down so by doing that we never lose even a single drop of chicken juice so we're able to eventually spray the chicken with its own juices and that's why this stuff is so delicious.

This process is crucial in making the dish taste amazing. If the water gets too hot the water will not condense and if there are little gaps around between the bowl and the pot you start losing steam. Okay, but if it's a very good seal and you don't lose any steam what you create is a highly pressurized situation so if you accidentally forgot to change the water and it's like boiling away on top of your bowl don't just lift the pot off okay because all the steam the built up pressure will come rushing out and that's dangerous. So, what I would do in that case just turn off the heat and just take the water out put some cold water back in okay so don't panic in that situation.

Another reason why it's very important that you use bone-in chicken okay because if you just use boneless chicken all this water is not going to be flavorful right all this sauce all this juice is all going to be just chicken meat water. It's like a soup without the bones it is what flavors that juice just look at that that that just looks rustic, you look at that and you know it's rustic food and it's going to be good.

And let's talk about the ingredients okay so there's just a couple of dried chilies and then just a sprinkling of julienned kaffir lime leaves. Oh yeah you want to have this with jasmine rice but of course, silly me I forgot to put the rice on which happens quite a lot actually so I'm going to eat it as is that's okay.

Oh and just watch for the bones because the chickens cut up with the bone sometimes you get bits of sharp bone so if you're serving kids make sure maybe you do this for them take the meat out for them you don't want them poking their mouths with sharp edges of bone. Let me get this awesome there oh I wish I had some rice to sum up all that sauce how the chicken is so tender and so flavorful it still blows my mind every time I eat this how good that is just how simple is you know just roll the chicken with a bunch of herbs and a couple of seasoning and it's just amazing.

So, if you give this a try I know you're gonna want to give it a try just to see if it actually works and you'll impress some people but just remember if you do decide to do it keep that water cold. Just remember PV equals NRT remember high school science class okay if you keep that in mind you'll be fine.

The recipe is on hot Thai Kitchen calm when you make it send me a photo on Facebook Twitter or Instagram and if you haven't subscribed to the show right here you can do so and you'll never miss an awesome recipe like this. And I will see you next time for your next delicious Thai meal.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enSawaddee ka welcome to hot Thai Kitchen today's recipe is called gai tai nam now gai is chicken  tai is under and nam is water so it's literally under water chicken and you'll see why in a minute  now when I discovered this dish I was absolutely blown away by the brilliance of this technique  and what's even cooler is this is the epitome of rustic country cooking I mean this is not  something you find in a Thai restaurant this is something you find when you go to the countryside  and somebody cooks for you in their home super cool I'm so excited to be sharing it with you so  let's get started the cool thing about country cooking is they tend to deal with the whole  animal rather than you know pre butchered pristine boneless skinless chicken breast so traditionally  this recipe uses the whole chicken that they didn't cut up with bones and everything into  chunks so what I've got here is basically that except it's a supermarket version of it so if you  go to an Asian grocery store you a lot of times see this and this is basically a half a chicken  so if you can't find chicken that's cut up like this and bone in what you can do is buy a whole  chicken and see if a butcher will cut it for you they often will or you can also use chicken wings  which has a lot of bone to learn in individual chunks already so that's kind of a good cheat  all right so what I'm going to do is going to put this in a bowl sometimes they give me the neck to  love the neck meat I don't know if they gave me neck here oh there you go yay neck very simple  seasoning some soy sauce also some fish sauce and just to cut all that salt a little bit of  sugar I'm just going to give this a quick toss now we're not done with this yet but let's look  at the herbs so the herbs that we are using is the epitome of basic Thai herbs this is something that  everybody has I know it's not something that you have but it's a good example of you know what the  standard type pantry looks like in terms of herbs so lemongrass I'm using two because they're small  but you can get away with one and now I'm just going to pound this until it becomes fibrous  okay that's enough this will really allow the flavour to come out and now she's going to add  this to my chicken and then just a few rounds of galangal and I'm just going to crush them to the  broken that's it nothing serious that's it when you can take the time to make a fine paste if  you want but you really don't have to now kaffir lime leaves I am NOT gonna pound these I'm just  gonna roughly tear and add them to the bowl and then I've got some garlic now if you're asking  why don't you just pound everything together I find it's actually faster when you can just  concentrate on what you're looking for I did it once where I pounded everything together it's  like the lemongrass is blocking the galangal and like yeah it's just it's just easier so  just a ruff-ruff pounds with the garlic as well and one last thing we're gonna pound is dried  chilies for some spiciness as much as you want for this I'm just gonna pound just until they  break boom careful don't breathe too hard while you're doing this cuz you know chilies and that's  done for the mortar the last thing I'm going to add is some shallots and that'll just break down  when we cook the chicken and then give this a good toss you want to let this sit for at least  30 minutes you can do this overnight if you want and now comes the easiest part the cooking okay so  I've got a pot here and it should be a pot that's big enough to hold the chicken but then you still  have plenty of room on top keep the heat medium medium-low and you just pour the whole thing inand now the reason why you're going to need quite a bit of room on top even this pot is on the small  side that's okay it's because we're now going to make this chicken into underwater chicken  by putting water on top of it so I've got here a bowl of cold water a big bowl of cold water  and I'm going to let it go that's it like that's the entire cooking process for about 45 minutes  to an hour your only task between now and then is to make sure the water doesn't get hot warm  is okay Dave it's warm that's fine but if it's hot and it starts to steam you gotta you got to  change out the water into cold I know this seems a little crazy to some of you but it works and  it's brilliant and when you see the end result I'll explain to you how this works okay so it  has been about 20 minutes and at this point I'm going to change out the water because I start  to feel that it's hot and we want to make sure this water stays cold so I'm just gonna scoot it  out so this means that the bigger your bowl the easier it is because the fewer times you have  to change it I find that with this sized bowl I could have filled it up a little more I have to  change the water only once or twice at the most cold water going in you don't have to take it  all out so this time I'm gonna really fill it up to the top so I don't have to do this again until  it's done you can also put some ice in it if you want but I don't want to waste my precious ice  all right it's been about 50 minutes I'm going to turn this off now I suggest not trying to  just lift this bowl off but just transfer the water out it's much safer that way now check  this out look at all that juice that came out Oh smell so good it's basically turned into a  delicious braised chicken with tons of herbs now I know some of you are thinking whoa what just  happened explain that to me because that's what I thought when I first saw this but now that I  thought about it I was like oh yeah that makes perfect sense it's brilliant so all this juice  is actually the liquid that was already in the chicken right it's chicken natural juices yes  there's a little bit of a soy sauce and fish sauce but definitely not this much right but  what happened is when we cook the chicken all the juices come out of the chicken they evaporate and  because we put cold water on top it condenses and drips back down so by doing that we never  lose even a single drop of chicken juice so we're able to eventually sprays the chicken  all in its own juices and that's why this stuff is so delicious this is why it is so important  that you keep this water cold if the water gets too hot the water will not condense and if there  are little gaps around between the bowl and the pot you start losing steam okay but if it's a  very good seal and you don't lose any steam what you create is a highly pressurized situation so if  you accidentally forgotten to change the water and it's like boiling away on top of your bowl  don't just lift the pot off okay because all the theme the built up pressure will come rushing  out and that's dangerous so what I would do in that case just turn off the heat and just take  the water out put some cold water back in okay so don't panic in that situation yeah wish and that's  another reason why it's very important that you use bone-in chicken okay because if you just use  boneless chicken all this water is not going to be flavorful right all this sauce all this juice  is all going to be just chicken meat water it is like a in the bones it is what flavors that juice  just look at that that that just looks rustic you look at that and you know it's rustic food  and it's going to be good and look at all this look at all the rest of the sauce that is good  stuff it's highly concentrated chicken stock right there oh just a couple of dried chilies and then  just a sprinkling of julienned kaffir lime leaves oh yeah you want to have this with jasmine rice  but of course silly me I forgot to put the rice on which happens quite a lot actually so I'm going to  eat it as is that's okay oh and just watch for the bones because the chickens cut up with the  bone sometimes you get bits of sharp bone so if you're serving kids make sure maybe you do this  for them take the meat out for them you don't want them poking their mouths with sharp edges  of bone let me get this awesome there oh I wish I had some rice to sum up all that sauce how the  chicken is so tender and so flavorful it still blows my mind every time I eat this how good  that is just how and how simple is you know just the roll the chicken with a bunch of herbs and  a couple of seasoning and it's just amazing so I hope you give this a try I know you're gonna want  to give it a try just to see if it actually work and you'll impress some people but just remember  if you do decide to do it keep that water cold just remember PV equals NRT remember high school  science class okay if you keep that in mind you'll be fine so the recipe as always is on  hot Thai Kitchen calm when you make it send me a photo on Facebook Twitter or Instagram and if  you haven't subscribed to the show right here you can do so and you'll never miss  an awesome recipe like this and I will see you next time for your next delicious Thai meal you\n"