Vietnamese-style roast chicken and green onion dirty rice

You are getting two recipes out of this one dish. For the other part of the dish, you will need to cook some plain rice – regular white, parboiled or brown rice, just as long as it is cooked plain. The rice will be turned into the side dish to accompany the chicken.

In order to get the full flavour of the seasoning ingredients, the chicken will need to be marinated overnight. No skipping on this part of the recipe.

For the green onions, I suggest getting the purple-head shallots instead of the white-head ones, they have more flavour.

The two-step cooking of this chicken requires that it starts on the stovetop and then finishes in the oven. Therefore, you want to use a large frying pan that can go from the stovetop to the oven. However, if you don’t have such a pan, you can cook the chicken in your regular pan and then transfer it to a heated baking dish to cook in the oven.

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT

Large zip bag

INGREDIENTS

For Roast chicken:

1 ½ teaspoons white or brown sugar

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 ½ tablespoons soy sauce

1 ½ tablespoons fish sauce

1 ½ tablespoons canola oil, plus extra to cook chicken

4 – 5 garlic cloves, very finely minced or grated to a paste

6 chicken thighs bone-in and skin on, rinsed and patted dry

For Green Onion Dirty Rice:

4 cups cooked rice

¾ cup thinly sliced green onions (purple/white and green parts)

2 tablespoons water or chicken stock

DIRECTIONS

For Roast chicken:

1. Mix together the sugar, black pepper, soy sauce, fish sauce, garlic and oil.
2. Place chicken into zip bag. Pour marinade into bag with chicken, close bag and press to remove excess air. Shake things around to ensure that the marinade gets all over the chicken. Put the bag on a plate and put in fridge to marinate overnight 12 – 16 hours. It can marinate for as much as 24 hours.
3. Remove marinated chicken at least ½ hour before you’re ready to cook it and let it come up to room temperature.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
5. On medium heat, heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a pan and add chicken (shake off excess marinade), skin side down. Let cook for 6 – 8 minutes. Turn chicken over and cook for 2 – 3 minutes (Reduce heat a little if you think it is too high).
6. Drain off excess oil from pan-frying of chicken leaving just a thin film of oil. Arrange the chicken skin-side up in the pan, transfer to the oven and cook for 30 – 40 minutes or until the chicken is done.
7. Remove from the pan from the oven, transfer the chicken to a platter and set aside in a warm place.

For Green onion Dirty Rice:

1. Once the chicken has been removed from the pan, remove any pieces of burnt garlic that you see and drain any excess grease, leaving just a little bit to lightly coat the bottom of the pan.
2. Put the pan on medium heat and add green onions, sauté for 2 – 3 minutes.
3. De-glaze pan with 2 tablespoons water or chicken stock and heat through, let it bubble and thicken a little.
4. Add rice and salt and pepper to taste and fold in with green onions
5. Remove from heat and serve with chicken.

NOTES

1. Salt for the dish comes from the soy sauce and fish sauce, however, if you do not have fish sauce, add regular table salt to taste. Taste the marinade anyway before adding the chicken and adjust as you find necessary.
2. You can use a whole chicken cut up for this recipe but be sure to increase the amount of ingredients for the marinade and let the chicken marinate for 24 hours.
3. If your pan is not large, work in batches when cooking the chicken. If you do not have a pan that goes from the stovetop to the oven, simply put your oven proof dish to heat while the chicken is cooking on the stovetop. Carefully remove the hot pan and add the chicken then return the pan to the oven for the chicken to cook through.