The Lao market grill standard: whole butterflied chickens rubbed with lemongrass, garlic, coriander root, and fish sauce, clamped flat in split-bamboo tongs and slow-grilled beside sticky rice and jaew bong dipping paste; 'ping sin' extends the same treatment to skewered beef strips. The bamboo-clamp press is Laos's native answer to the skewer.
Also known as: ping kai, ping gai, ping kai laos, lao grilled chicken, ping sin, ping sin lao, ping moo
Watch it made
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken (1.4 kg), butterflied, or 8 bone-in thighs
- 1 stalk lemongrass, minced
- 6 garlic cloves
- 4 coriander roots (or stems), pounded
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 1 tbsp sticky rice soaked and pounded in (optional Lao touch)
- sticky rice and jeow bong or jeow som, to serve
How to make it
- 1
Pound the lemongrass, garlic, coriander roots and white pepper to a rough paste, mix with fish and oyster sauce, and work it under the skin and over the bird; marinate overnight.
- 2
Clamp the butterflied chicken flat in a split-bamboo grill clamp or between two racks tied with wire.
- 3
Cook far above modest coals, 20-25 minutes per side, sweating the fat out slowly — Lao market birds are patience, not sear.
- 4
Move closer to the heat for a final 5 minutes each side to bronze and crisp the skin.
- 5
Chop through the bone into strips and serve with sticky rice and jeow.
Pro tip: Coriander root, not leaf, is the marinade's engine — leaves burn to nothing while the root's flavor is built for the long grill.
