Garlic Chives with Sliced Chicken
Pad Dok Mai Gui Chai
Thin-sliced chicken stir-fried briefly with garlic and flowering garlic chives
- Prep
- 3 min
- Cook
- 5 min
- Serves
- 4
- Heat
- mild
With only five ingredients, this dish depends entirely on getting the timing right. Chicken slivers cook fast in garlicky oil before a simple fish sauce and sugar mixture turns glossy, and then long pieces of garlic chive go in for only as long as it takes them to soften slightly. Pulled from the heat while the chives are still bright green and a little crisp, the dish reads almost like a warm salad rather than a typical stir-fry, delicate enough to eat on its own or alongside rice.
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup Chicken breast, thinly sliced (cut across the grain)
- 1 large bunch, plus a little extra Garlic chives (cut into 4-5 inch lengths)
- 4 Garlic, large cloves (roughly crushed)
- 2 3/4 teaspoons Fish sauce
- 1 1/3 teaspoons Sugar
Directions
- Slice the chicken thin across the grain. Cut the garlic chives into 4-5 inch lengths. Roughly crush the garlic.
- Heat oil in a hot wok and fry the garlic for about 30 seconds, until fragrant.
- Add the chicken and fry in the garlic oil for 2 to 3 minutes, until nearly cooked through.
- Add the fish sauce and sugar. Fry until the sugar melts fully into a light brown sauce.
- Add the garlic chives with a splash of water. Toss until the chives start to wilt.
- Turn off the heat as soon as the chives soften slightly but stay crisp and bright green — don't let them go limp.
- Serve arranged on a plate, either on its own or alongside steamed rice as a one-dish meal.
Notes
Pull the chives off the heat the moment they start to soften — they should stay bright green and crisp, closer to a wilted salad than a fully cooked vegetable.
Substitutions
Pork or shrimp can replace the chicken with no other changes to the method. For a vegetarian version, swap in soy sauce for the fish sauce and add cubed tofu.