What is khao pad gai?
Khao means rice, pad means to fry, gai means chicken. In Thailand, street kitchens fry the rice to order, one portion at a time, and serve it with cucumber and lime. Besides chicken, there is a pork version called khao pad moo, and versions with shrimp or crab meat. Spellings such as kao pad gai or khao phat kai mean the same dish. On menus it usually appears as chicken fried rice.
The right ingredients
- Rice from the day before: For 400 g of cooked rice, cook about 160 g of jasmine rice. Put it in the refrigerator covered overnight. Fresh, warm rice clumps together and turns mushy in the pan. For loosely cooked rice, follow the instructions for cooking jasmine rice.
- Chicken: Breast cooks in 3 to 4 minutes. Thigh meat takes a minute longer and stays juicier. Cut the meat into thin strips of about 1 cm.
- Sauces: Thai cooks season with light soy sauce, oyster sauce and often a splash of fish sauce. If you swap 1 tbsp of soy sauce for fish sauce, the rice tastes more Thai. What to look for when buying is covered under oyster sauce.
- Vegetables: The card uses carrot for color and bite. In Thailand, tomato wedges and Chinese broccoli (kai lan) are more likely to end up in the wok.
How to get khao pad gai right
Hot wok, uncrowded pan
Heat the oil until it shimmers. Fry the garlic and onion until the onion is translucent and the garlic hasn't browned. Fry two portions at most at a time. With four portions the wok cools down, and the rice steams in its own vapor.
Break up the rice and toss it
Put the cold rice in the wok and break up the clumps with the back of the spatula. Then toss it with sweeping motions from the bottom to the top so the grains touch the hot metal.
Sauces at the edge
Pour the soy sauce and oyster sauce down the hot side of the wok instead of onto the rice. The sauce sizzles, caramelizes briefly and spreads more evenly as you toss.
Egg in the middle
The card pours the eggs over the rice. Many Thai cooks push the rice aside, crack the eggs into the empty spot and let them set for 20 seconds before mixing everything together. This gives you larger pieces of egg and a drier rice. Both ways work.
Common mistakes
- Too much sauce: The rice turns brown and damp. Khao pad gai stays pale, and you can adjust the seasoning at the table.
- Thick pieces of meat: They take longer than the rice, and you fry the rice dry while the chicken cooks.
- Herbs too early: Cilantro goes on the plate only at the end. In the wok it loses its aroma.
What to serve with it
Lay cucumber slices and a lime wedge beside the rice and put out a small bowl of prik nam pla: fish sauce with chopped bird's eye chilies and a little lime juice, which you drizzle over the rice to taste. Fried rice gets hotter as khao pad kra pao with Thai basil, and fruitier as khao pad sapparod with pineapple. You can find the basic recipe with variations for other add-ins under khao pad.
