Underwater Chicken ไก่ใต้นำ้
Hot Thai Kitchen recipe - Pan-Asian/Thai
- Prep time
- 14 min
- Cook time
- 31 min
- Yield
- 2 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
- 1/2 chicken, bone in, skin on, chopped into chunks right through the bones (see note)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1-2 stalk lemongrass, cut into 2-inch pieces, smashed until broken and fibrous
- 6 rounds galangal, smashed until broken
- 6 kaffir lime leaves, roughly torn
- 4 clove garlic, smashed until broken
- Dried chilies, to taste, smashed until broken,
- 2 heads shallots, roughly chopped.
Instructions
- 1
If you accidentally let the water boil or get very hot, do not lift the bowl or the built up steam inside the pot may come rushing out and burn you. If the water does boil, it will not ruin the dish, so don't worry! Just turn off the heat, scoop out the hot water from the bowl and add cold water back in. Then turn the heat back on and keep cooking until it's done. See explanation below for why it's important to keep the water cool.
- 2
It's also wise not to lift the bowl of water while it's completely full; it's safer to scoop out some of the water first so you won't spill it!
- 3
If there are gaps between the bowl and the pot (and there often will be, especially for older dented bowls or slightly wonky pots), then the steam will just escape through these gaps, and then you will start losing the liquid which we need to keep the chicken stewing.
- 4
If there are no gaps at all between the bowl and the pot, the steam will just keep building up inside, and THAT is when you create a pressure cooker! Now, we don't want this, not so much because the chicken won't cook properly, but because it is unsafe, as discussed above. Theoretically, if you let the water boil away for long enough time, eventually the bowl will become light enough that it can get pushed up by the pressure inside. I say theoretically because I don't know for a fact that the amount of steam in this recipe will be powerful enough to blow out the bowl, especially if it's a heavy bowl, but I just wanted to get across the idea that uncontrolled built up pressure inside a pot is not something you wanna mess around with!