Some of my favourite food memories are from my first travels to Southeast Asia, a true voyage of discovery after years of poring over cookbooks and attempting to recreate classic dishes at home. Needless to say, nothing quite compares to sitting on plastic stools on the roadside shoulder to shoulder with the locals eating bun cha with smokey fatty pork over noodles in Hanoi or guzzling down down spicy som tum papaya salad on the streets of Bangkok. However I do my best to recreate elements of those experiences back home, with slightly more limited ingredients. This dish encapsulates some of my favourite aspects of South East Asian cuisine, that heady combination of salty, sweet, sour, spicy and bitter ingredients brought to life in the form of caramel roast chicken rich in a fish sauce caramel, served alongside a vibrant herb laden fresh cabbage salad with plenty of bite.
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3 tbsp dark brown sugar
8 small chicken thighs, skin on, bone in, trimmed of excess fat
6 garlic cloves, finely sliced
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, julienned
1 red chilli, finely sliced
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
Coriander leaves and thinly sliced spring onion, to serve
For the Vietnamese salad:
Juice of 1 lime
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp dark brown sugar
½ head savoy cabbage, thinly sliced on mandolin
100g bean sprouts
6 spring onions, finely sliced
1 red chilli
Small bunch each of coriander, thai basil & mint, leaves picked
100g of roasted peanuts, crushed in a pestle and mortar