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Caramel-Braised Chicken with Ginger and Lime
Vietnamese caramel chicken is a dish with multiple layers of flavors: salty, sweet, smoky, bitter and meaty. For our take, we used coconut water as the cooking liquid; it added a subtle salty-sweet richness that brought even more complexity to the dish. The generous amount of ginger, cut into matchsticks, mellows and softens as it cooks, and it adds a brightness that perks up the deeper flavors.
4
Servings
Tip
Don’t get distracted once you begin cooking the caramel. Have the fish sauce measured out and at hand so that when the caramel turns mahogany in color, it can be added immediately to stop the cooking.
45 minutes
Ingredients
-
½
cup plus 1 tablespoon coconut water, divided
-
¼
cup white sugar
Directions
-
01In a 12-inch skillet over medium-high, combine the 1 tablespoon coconut water and the sugar. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture turns golden at the edges, about 3 minutes. Reduce to medium and continue to cook, swirling the pan but without stirring, until the caramel is mahogany in color and smokes lightly, another 4 to 5 minutes.
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November 13, 2022
Too salty
I really like the flavors and techniques in this recipe, but it was far too salty. Must be 2x too much fish sauce, at least.
This is a super popular dish in our house with four kids, commonly referred to as "stinky chicken" for the smell when you add the fish sauce to the hot sugar. (Turning the vent fan on high before that step helps.) I typically make a 2x or 2.5x batch split across two Dutch ovens. If you try to cook that much chicken in a single pot it is hard to evaporate all of the liquid in step 3. I use more shallots than the recipe calls for to add a bit more veg, and have successfully subbed red onion when I don't have shallots on hand. I shred the ginger on a ceramic ginger grater rather than cutting it into matchsticks. For me that's faster, and I prefer having the ginger dispersed in the food. I threw some scallions into my last batch since I didn't have any cilantro on hand and thought that was another fine substitution.
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I don't recall seeing this dish on a menu on any Vietnamese restaurant in Houston where I spent most of my adult life, (GREAT city for amazing Vietnamese food), and have not yet had the chance to travel to Vietnam, so I don't know how authentic the flavor is, but it definitely tasted Vietnamese, and I love that it uses ingredients I always have in my kitchen and uses an inexpensive meat! I will add into the rotation. I actually used chicken breast tenders cut into the same size chunks as indicated (hubby not a dark meat) and it was still very tender, although I do think thigh meat would be tastier, myself with thigh meat. I think this could easily be done vegetarian, although you won't get exactly the same effect, for my husband's family with pan-fried tofu cubes (done ahead or while developing the first stages of sauce and drained a bit on paper towels before adding in), and using a good vegetarian fish sauce substitute, although I would probably reduce the sauce down half of the way or so before throwing it in the pan instead of while it is still full liquid as in the recipe with raw chicken so it has some time to absorb the sauce, but does not become soggy and lose the crispiness. I am a becoming a big fan of this resource, and had a lot of fun making this easy weeknight dish that was not small on flavor! Thank you!!