30-Minute Thai Roast Chicken Rice | Crispy Garlic Rice & Spicy Sauce

This is the kind of meal I make when I want comfort fast. Crispy chicken, no deep fryer here, just your oven, fluffy garlicky rice and my go-to Thai sauce that's salty, spicy and a little funky and so addictive. It all comes together in 30 minutes and honestly, it's one of my favourite things to eat. Yes, yes, yes. Asian chicken rice is one of those dishes I crave when I'm back in Australia. I love a street food version of this. But this is my solution to making it any night of the week. Now, the first thing I'll do when I get home is put my oven on, get that preheating. That's the key to this particular version of chicken rice. And then the second thing I do is make my rice while the oven's preheating. It's all about organisation, my friends. Okay, so we get in here in the pot. To start the rice, I get a bit of oil in here. And look, I did say this is my version, not a traditional version. So there are some shortcuts that I'm taking here. I'm going to pop in some ginger and some garlic. So normally, a lot of the flavour here would come from chicken fat that you've rendered, that you've taken the time to extract from your whole chicken that you're going to boil on the stove. It's going to take 90 minutes. You get the drift, right? So this is my shortcut version for sure. But I love that I can get this vibe any night of the week. So we're going to go with it today. Now, this is my jasmine rice. I just washed it and drained it. I have trouble for not washing my rice often. I'm a serial non-washer of rice. Okay, so that's already smelling really good. Anytime ginger or garlic hits hot oil, I'm like, yes, smells so good. Chicken stock's going in. Don't be a hero. Store-bought is fine. Make sure all those rice grains are in that liquid. Turn the heat up. Let it come to a little bubble. Then turn it down. Lid goes on. And we let that steam for about 10 or 12 minutes. Now for the chicken. So I'm using thighs. Do you need me to say it? I'm a legs and thighs girl. That's what we're doing here, my friends. And why? Because the chicken skin gets really crispy and golden. Particularly with this cooking method that I'm going to use. But the inside stays nice and juicy. It's a no-brainer. Okay, now a bit of oil. Salt. Give that a little rub. I mentioned technique. What we're going to do here is roast super high temperature. 250 Celsius. That's what my oven's been preheating at. That means this will get cooked in about 18 minutes. The top should crisp up beautifully. Now we're doing sauce. The key differentiator for what kind of chicken rice you're making, or the provenance of your chicken rice, all comes down to the sauce. If you're in Singapore, or you're in Malaysia, or you're in Thailand, or you're in Hainan in China, you are making a different type of sauce. I'm half Thai. So I'm going to do the Thai version. I'm going to make a spicy like Nam Jim style. We start with some of these coriander roots. So that's going in here. Some garlic. A little salt here. I find the salt helps to kind of break down the ingredients when I'm using the mortar and pestle. And some ginger. Now there's just a few sauces here that you might need to head to your Asian grocery store for. But this is a really important one. It's a Thai yellow soybean paste. And this gives you so much like salty umami kind of flavour. And it's a real secret ingredient in a lot of your chicken rice stall sauces that you'll find in Thailand. So there we go. It's kind of like a bit soybean-y, lumpy. I tell you what, it doesn't look Instagram-friendly. But it will taste Instagram-friendly by the time I'm done with it. A little vinegar. Some sugar. Thai soy sauce. Now not essential to have the Thai soy sauce. You could just use your regular Japanese or Chinese soy sauce. But the thing is that I find that with the Thai soy sauce, it has a lighter colour. And it's a little less astringent than like a Chinese light soy sauce. So it is my preference when I'm going for a really authentic flavour. And now just a little bit of dark sweet soy sauce. I'm using Ketchup Manis. You can use a black Thai soy sauce as well. Just mainly for colour and a little bit of that kind of molasses flavour. It's starting to look dark and mysterious and yum in there. But we need the spiciness. So got some chillies. Okay. Now obviously you can tailor that to however you'd like it. I like it hot. I'm going to just slice up a little bit of this coriander here as well. See how I'm slicing up the stems? I love to use the stems in this kind of sauce. And then save the leaves for a garnish. Oh okay look at that. I mean to me that is the ultimate. It looks spicy. It looks delicious. It tastes really salty and spicy. Yum. Perfect. All right let's bring it all together. Okay the rice first of all. Oh that steam. So nice. Now I had this cooking and then I just let it rest with the lid on for about 10 minutes or so. Just so like the rice kind of like the steam gets all through the rice and it all fluffs up beautifully. So if you have a look, that rice is just so perfectly cooked and fluffy. The smell of the garlic and the chicken stock and the ginger. It's getting me. All right let's do the chicken. Oh yeah. This. Foggy glasses as usual. Okay this chicken. Oh my goodness. I mean this is what I'm talking about right? Like that crackly skin. We've just had it roasting. So we've not had to babysit it on the stovetop. You know regular chicken rice. You're boiling the chicken for like 60 minutes, 90 minutes. Okay let's stop talking and just get into this chicken. Love this. Love. Love that. Roast chicken meets Asian chicken rice. I love it. It's so me. A little bit Asian. A little bit Australian. Now let's serve this up street food style. Okay I'm gonna get my rice here. Now this I am so excited about. I wish you were here and you could smell the sauce and the chicken and everything. Oh my goodness. Okay I'm gonna get a bit of my sauce. Get that on some of our chicken here. Some rice. That is a massive mouthful. It's gonna look ugly but good for me. Okay so the chicken is so juicy but it's like got that crispy skin crunch which is so good. The sauce is the soul of this dish. It's spicy, salty. It's got that umami flavor. The rice is fluffy. The cucumbers are crunching. Nailed it. Just love it. You guys are gonna love this. Save this for a weeknight please. So good.