Session 69 — Thai Grilled Chicken (Gai Yang)
← Block 23–24: Poultry Overview
Skill: Two-zone grilling with a marinated bird. The chicken is butterflied (spatchcocked and split in half), threaded onto skewers for easy flipping, and cooked low on the cool side until nearly done, then finished skin-side down on the hot side for crisp, charred skin. The sugar in the marinade means the skin burns easily — you have to manage this with patience and positioning, not constant flipping.
- Read (before you cook): Serious Eats — Thai-Style Grilled Chicken (Gai Yang)
- Marinate the chicken at least 2 hours, preferably overnight: garlic, cilantro stems, palm sugar, white pepper, coriander, fish sauce, dark soy sauce
- Set up a two-zone fire — all coals on one side. Chicken goes on the cool side, legs toward the heat.
Full Meal: Gai yang with Thai-style sweet chile dipping sauce + steamed jasmine rice + raw cabbage wedges, cucumber slices, and long beans on the side — the traditional vegetable accompaniment for Isan-style grilled chicken
Skill note: This is the second time you've spatchcocked a bird (Session 63 was the first). Notice how much more confident the backbone removal feels the second time. The marinade here has sugar in it — that's the variable that makes grilling trickier than Session 63. Learn to read char vs. burn.
🎥 Compare Notes: Pailin's Kitchen — Gai Yang (Thai Grilled Chicken) — Pailin shows the traditional Thai technique including the bamboo skewer method and the correct dipping sauce balance.