Thai Style Chicken Salad

It is always fun to try different style of cuisine. This simple chicken salad is my first experiment with the unique Thai ingredient such as fish sauce.


Ingredients

• 3 lb. Chicken leg quarter
• 2 tablespoon salt for marinating 
• 1 teaspoon salt for cooking the chicken

For sauce: 

• 2 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 red chili

Fresh vegetable:

• 1/3 cup cucumber slices
• 1/3 cup red onion slices
• 1/3 cup coarse chopped cilantro

• 1/3 cup crushed roasted peanuts

• A few slices of ginger
• 1 green onion (why buy from store? grow your own green onion)

Preparation Time:  10 minutes with overnight marinating
Cooking Time: 90 minutes
Servings: 4

Cooking Steps

1. Marinate 3 lb. chicken leg quarters with 2 % salt overnight for best result.

2. Add 5 cups of water to a large pot, add 1 teaspoon salt, add a few slices of ginger, 1 coarse chopped green onion, boil.

3. Rinse off the salt from the chicken legs, remove unwanted fat, once the stock boils, place the chicken legs in the pot, turn to lowest heat, cover the pot, let the chicken cook for about 90 minutes.

Tip:

• This is really the poaching style, let the stock be heated, but avoid boiling it, you can keep the lid with some gap to let the heat come out if the stock starts boiling. This cooking method will yield a very tender meat. Adjust the time accordingly to have just fully cooked meat, check there is no blooding coming out of the meat.

• You can adjust the chicken portion to suit you need, preparing 3 lb. Chicken gives you the convenience of having it ready for next meal if you cannot finish it with one meal, simply put in the fridge for a couple of days.

4. Prepare the following ingredients:

• 1/3 cup cucumber slices
• 1/3 cup red onion slices
• 1/3 cup cilantro
• 1/4 cup crushed roasted peanuts

5. Prepare the sauce:

• 2 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 fine chopped red chili

Mix the ingredients evenly, especially let the sugar fully dissolve.
Note the Thai red chili is very hot, adjust the portion to your taste.

6. Remove bones from chicken leg, cut the meat into thin slices, place on a large plate. I used 1 drumstick for the portion in this recipe photo. Adjust the portion accordingly to your need.

7. Place the cucumber slices, red onion slices, cilantro on top of the chicken, pour the sauce over the plate evenly, then spread the crushed peanuts onto the top of the vegetables.