Khao Man Gai

So there's a restaurant near work that does great Khao Man Gai, which is a Thai stewed chicken dish (better known from Singapore as Chicken Rice). I kinda had my own notions about how to make it, checked a couple recipes online, did some trial and error, and have finally settled on this. It's definitely become one of my favourite recipes since it's easy, cheap, and fast.

Ready to stew

After stewing, skins removed

Frying skins

Broth filled to water line

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless chicken thighs
• 2 cloves diced garlic
• 1/2 inch diced ginger
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups uncooked rice
• cilantro for garnish

Method

Add chicken, salt, sugar, garlic, ginger and water to a pressure cooker and cook at pressure for about 30 minutes. If you don't have a pressure cooker, a regular stew pot or slow cooker will work fine just extend the cooking time accordingly. 2 hours at low heat should be plenty.

After stewing, remove the chicken from the pot and let it cool. Once it's cool enough to handle, remove the skins and slice in quarter inch sections. The skin can be discarded or diced and fried as a garnish.

Add the rice to your rice cooker and use the leftover liquid from stewing the chicken to fill the cooker to the water line. If you don't have a rice cooker simply use whatever method you normally would, substituting the chicken broth for water. The leftover broth can be spiced and served as soup, or can be used as stock for other recipes (I like to make Japanese curry with it).

Once the rice is cooked, spoon a portion onto a plate, top with chicken and, optionally, garnish with cilantro and fried skin. For sauce I generally use a sweet Thai chili sauce that is commonly available at most grocery stores, but you can make your own if you like.

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