Recipe — Thai-style minced chicken

Totally inspired by Thai Orchid’s minced chicken salad (a wee bit too spicy for me, but otherwise a-fucking-mazing), I needed to be able to reproduce it at home because I cannae go to Glasgow every time I fancy it.

Neil, brutally honest when it comes to my food preparation skills (because I don’t really cook), says this is better than Thai Orchid’s. I rock!

1. For two people, get two chicken breasts (free range is bigger and nicer) and slice them into pieces that are as small as pieces. I suppose if you had a mincer you could do that, but I like some slight irregularities in size.
2. Chop up the following into teeny bits and mix it through the chicken: half a red onion, garlic, and one or two chillies (what kind of chilli and how many depends on how much you like hot food).
3. Add a dash of dark soy sauce and sesame oil. Mix everything together as well as possible, then cover and leave it to marinade in the fridge for a couple of hours.
4. When you’re ready to cook the chicken, get some coriander and shred it roughly. Throw it into the wok when you’re cooking the chicken.
5. (Oh yeah. We have a real wok, the kind without a flat bottom.)
6. Just before the chicken is completely cooked, add half a tablespoon of fish sauce and stir it through.
7. We serve it with rice.

We’ve done this with lamb mince, and I reckon you can also do it with firm tofu (tau kwa) as the main ingredient. And you could probably also use light soy sauce if you want to avoid fish sauce.

• 13 Jul 2008

• Thinking