Tasty Thai Chicken

At the request of a friend, today's post will be short and sweet, but feature a very popular recipe of Tom's - smoked Thai chicken. Well, actually I'm leaving out the smoked chicken part, because the whole world hasn't jumped on the smoker bandwagon with us yet (but really, you should).... so if there are any requests for the brine recipe or smoking techniques leave a comment and I'll update this post. We of course do brine a whole chicken overnight then smoke it for about 4 hours the next day and pull it before mixing in this amazing Thai sauce from Tom's favorite cookbook.

Thai Sweet and Spicy Garlic Sauce

Makes about 1 cup (we always double it!)

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup water

6 garlic cloves, peeled and grated

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon dried crushed red-pepper flakes

Combine the sugar, vinegar, water, garlic, and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat.

Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking continuously.

Reduce heat to low and simmer the sauce until it has thickened to the consistency of runny syrup (20-25 minutes).

Remove from heat.

Stir in the dried crushed red pepper flakes.

Let the sauce stand at room temperature for 1 hour before serving to allow the flavors to meld.

Store, refrigerated, for up to two days.

Yes, you have to prepare this ahead of time to get the best flavor, so it's not a throw together last minute kind of recipe. But, the beauty of the sauce is that you could really use this for a variety of foods. Would probably be all sorts of fantastic over stir fry, drizzled over a rice side dish, with both chicken and shrimp, and I'd even venture to say I'd happily eat an asian salad using a touch of this as dressing.

Sadly, no picture today... we tend to finish this one off quickly every time we make it.