Why is Thai Fried Chicken So Irresistible?

This is going to be a challenging video, from a hosting perspective, because it's such a hard thing to explain what makes one fried chicken better than another. There's only so many ways that I can say, oh, the skin's crispy, the meat's tender, and it has a lot of flavor. You've had it as a late night snack, from fast food restaurants and roadside vendors. But if you haven't had it in Thailand, you're missing out. How many ways can I say crispy skin, tender, juicy? This is the story of Thai fried chicken, a local obsession with origins going all the way back to the creation of the dish. And the other creation. And the other one. Here you'll find it served in a hundred different ways in a thousand different cities and villages, from the humblest of street carts to the trendiest spots in town. And no matter where you find it, well, you know what you're going to get. This is a theme today. It's crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and it has nice seasoning. When you walk around Bangkok at 8.30 in the morning, the first thing you notice, just like in any big city, is the traffic and the crowds pushing their way to work and school. This is a city on the go, and at any time, large numbers of the 15 million residents are heading from somewhere to somewhere else. And just like dropping a line into a big school of fish, here, when you're hunting for fried chicken, it means going where the people are. At its core, Thai fried chicken is a breakfast food, most often found servicing the morning rush hour. Vendors packing crispy deep-fried legs and wings cut into pieces and sold for a dollar, with a packet of sticky rice and some sweet Thai chili, which incidentally in Thai is known as chicken dipping sauce. The smell of seasoned chicken is as much a part of Bangkok in the morning as monks receiving alms and backpackers staggering home from Khao San Road. And finding the best stuff in this city, well, that would be almost impossible. But finding something awesome, well, that's always around the corner. It's so addictive. I'm gonna need a shower, I'm so covered in sauce right now. Now if you're watching this from overseas, I know what you might be thinking. Like it's fried chicken, why is this any different in Thailand than wherever you might be? I mean, I guess that's what you're thinking because that's what I thought when I first came here, so I never really paid attention to it for a very long time. Like I come from Virginia, I didn't go all the way to the other side of the world for something that's so good back home. And it's true that this is not a dish with ancient Thai origins, but that's actually the reason why it's worth exploring, and why it tastes so unique and vibrant. See, Thailand is a country with a thousand different culinary influences. Where things like Chinese noodles mix with local ingredients, or where Indian spices meet Malay techniques and Mon-Khmer traditions, and everything combines to become something truly incredible. Now what about when all those countries that have a history of trade and migration here all bring their own versions of the same thing? When the comfort food of a dozen cultures turns into one maybe-not-so-simple snack, and over a few generations, that snack evolves into a platform for pretty much everything. Now before KFC, before Five Star and Jollibee, there was the American South, all the way back in the 18th century. Now it's well known that the founders of modern fried chicken were the slaves and freedmen from West Africa, who brought their own traditions and spice blends across the Atlantic. And it is true that as far back as ancient days, fried chicken cooked in palm oil was a holiday meal from Senegal to Cameroon. But that's only half the story. Because the batter for the chicken, well, that came from across the Atlantic too, just a bit further north. The oldest use of egg and flour as a chicken breading dates to the 1600s in Scotland. It was known as a popular meal as chickens were in abundance, and within a generation it had found its way both to London and to the American colonies. The first written recipe for battered fried chicken was from 1747, in a cookbook by a British woman named Hannah Glasse. And it was in the Southern American plantation kitchens, owned by British aristocrats, where the flavorless but well-coated English chicken mixed with the vibrant seasonings of West Africa. And from the American South, the technique would sweep the planet. From 1940 to 1970, the U.S. fought three wars and built bases around the world where soldiers brought their fried chicken. And in that same time period, a chain called KFC would grow massively, and American fried chicken would take over the world. But again, that's not the whole story. Because while American fried chicken might be ubiquitous, there were other ways the dish spread. While African Americans were creating their version, the British expanded their empire and their fried chicken recipe to places with their own endemic spices, like Malaysia and India. In China, multiple cultures developed their own fried chicken dishes, in places like Sichuan and Xi'an. And in Japan, karaage would first show up as far back as the 1600s, using batter developed by the Portuguese. So to bring this back to Thai fried chicken, when you look at all the culinary cultures that combined into Thai food, you find paths to all the old-school versions of this dish. Americans who served here on military bases, British who colonized Malaysia and Myanmar, Indian traders, Portuguese merchants, Chinese, Japanese, and everyone bringing their versions of fried chicken. Which combined with local ingredients and with the benefit of a few dozen years to marinate, no pun intended, creates a simple dish with a flavor that's not simple at all. We have now been eating fried chicken since we woke up this morning, and I'm not tired of it yet. And somehow, I uh, I just can't stop myself from eating this. It's so good. I don't think I've ever done a show like this where the food is so good and yet I have such a hard time describing why. Again, how many different ways can you say crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and full of flavor? The truth is, there is no one single spice blend or marinade that defines Thai fried chicken. It's more like every region, even every city has its own techniques and specialties, which does make sense since fried chicken came here through so many different ways. Here in Bangkok, the local signature uses a thick breading and Chinese-style ingredients, stuff like soy sauce, garlic, and black pepper. In the south of Thailand, you'll see heavy use of fish sauce and even, in some places, coconut milk. Near the Burmese border, you'll find fried chicken made with turmeric and black pepper, and in Isan, it's heavy on garlic and chili. There are versions made with egg in the batter like in the US, and without egg like in India or the Middle East. All throughout the country, you can find fried chicken cooked in local ways. But if we want to get at least a baseline understanding of what goes into some of the best stuff… well, we know who to turn to. The same chef who we visit so often here on the channel and who has a Michelin background but today, focuses on comfort food. And what could be more comforting than Thai Fried Chicken? We have our own recipe, every family, like other Thai dishes. Like for my fried chicken, this reminds me of my childhood. My mom always made this fried chicken for me, when I was like, okay, I want something like good, like filled up, a little bit spicy, aromatic, and this is the dish. So this is a very simple mixing for the marination. We just add some of the red curry paste, some of the sauce base that we have, or some family that use the sugar or the palm sugar, a little bit of the soy sauce, salt, and the oyster sauce, and also the tempura flour and cold water. Mix it up. A little bit of the kaffir leaves sliced julienne, and then mix, marinate for a few hours, or even like can be quick marination. Yeah, and then we just like toss into the hot cooking oil, and it's just ready for you. Another key for the fried chicken is, should be hot and keep it crunchy outside. Well, speaking of that, I guess we should taste it. Cheers. You know this is good. You don't need me to tell you this is good. It depends on the family recipe. Some people, they like, prefer like more spicy, like more sweet, more salty, or something like that. You know, Thai food, it depends, the family recipe. Yeah. Like, my family, they eat some kind of like, a little bit like spicy. Even deep fried chicken, make it more spicy. Now, alright, sometimes every once in a while when we start to research a dish or an ingredient, we find something that we did not expect. But, as we looked at all the paths that fried chicken took to get to Thailand, then kept going back in time, and back some more, well, where we found ourselves at the very beginning was where we least expected. Right here, in Thailand. Today, fried chicken is a dish found almost everywhere, from Japan, to India, to Nicaragua. But none of it, no fried chicken dish at all, would exist if we didn't have chickens. And we owe that to the prehistoric Thais, who first domesticated a bird called the red jungle fowl more than 8,000 years ago. Now, we don't know this for sure, but it probably wasn't for eating. The natives raised the birds to fight, and as sacrifices to the ancient gods. There were other early species of jungle fowl across eastern Asia, but the Thai breed had one unique and critical characteristic. In the wild, it fed on the seeds of the bamboo tree. And those seeds are rare and hard to find. So the chickens developed an instinct that would make them attractive to farmers for the rest of time. They never stopped eating. So, in captivity, when provided with lots of seeds and grains, they would grow big, and they would grow fast. The chicken would spread through trade, first to the Chinese who believed that roosters could predict the future because they'd always announce the sunrise. Then from China, over the water to Taiwan and the Philippines, and then on to Polynesia in the South Pacific. By the first millennium BC, we find chickens spreading along the path of the Silk Road to India in the Middle East. And from there, the story gets impossible to follow because everyone traded them everywhere. Soon, chickens could be found across Europe and Africa, in South and Central America, and as they developed new characteristics through selective breeding, they were even re-imported right here in Southeast Asia. It's crazy to think about, but thousands of years ago, right here, literally right here, the ancestors of every piece of fried chicken we've ever eaten anywhere once walked the Thai jungles. If only they knew what was coming. It was the middle of the afternoon when we left Kate's place and started wandering again through downtown Bangkok. Now, fried chicken, at least in its classic form, well, that's a breakfast dish. And until the carts all across town start frying up their batches for the workers heading home, well, there's not much to see when the sun's at its peak. But just because we won't find as many vendors selling wings or legs with sticky rice doesn't mean we can't find the stuff. We just have to look a little deeper. The truth is, fried chicken is everywhere, hiding on the menus at just about every single restaurant. You can find it at cow gang counters, deep fried and then tossed with crispy basil, at Michelin restaurants, cleaved into pieces and topped with fried garlic, or in the countryside, simply seasoned with salt. And that's it. There are Thai people who prefer their fried chicken served with Kanom Jeen rice noodles, included as a component for Khao Mok, or Thai-style biryani, on top of Khao Klook Kapi, the ancient Mon rice dish, and even as a form of Lab, that Lao Isan specialty which honestly with fried chicken might be inauthentic, but man, it's really good. And considering that Thailand is a melting pot where some of the world's best dishes and cuisines have come together, could there be anything that would elevate something any more than topping it with some fried chicken? It's no wonder that here, even something subtle, the elegant Hainan Chicken Rice gets a dose of crispy, battered heaven. And when it looks like this, well you kind of have to order a portion. I know there are those who would say, why would you change something like Hainan Chicken Rice, which cannot be improved upon. And then there are others who would say, just deep fry anything and it's automatically an improvement. I'm not going to tell you which camp that I'm in, but I am American. It's unbelievably good. Now, alright. So far in just this short video, we've seen about a thousand forms of fried chicken. Even if we only talk about the stuff we've eaten ourselves, it still runs the spectrum from the mildly seasoned local classic to the spicy marinades of Isan. We've had it garnished with fried batter, topped with toasted lemongrass, and even served with Hainan Chicken Rice. It might seem like Thai Fried Chicken is less of a single dish and more of a broad and massively diverse category, and that is true to an extent, but maybe not as much as you'd think. Because, within the last generation, one form of Thai Fried Chicken has caught on above the rest. One specific style that was, until not that long ago, just another regional variation of this fantastic dish. But from one corner of Thailand to another, it's become the unofficial national favorite. And to find its story, we have to look to the south. All the way to a city called Hat Yai. In a province called Songkhla on the Malaysian border, you'll find Hat Yai, home to about 400,000 people, 40% of them Thai-Malay Muslims. Now, the Muslims across this region have been serving fried chicken since the early days of modern Thailand, but this specific version would be the one that would catch fire. According to legend, at a Hat Yai wet market sometime around 1970, and this is just a guess because nobody agrees on the date, an old couple named Mrs. Wan and Mr. Tongkham had a stall selling fresh chicken. But they were losing money because if they didn't sell out, the meat would go bad. So Mr. Tongkham began to marinate and then fry the leftover chickens to sell after market hours. At first, he followed the standard local recipe. But then one day, he had some unexpected good luck. Basically, the story is a vegetable seller at the same market had to leave work early so he gave his expiring vegetables to the other vendors, including Mr. Tongkham, who got a few pounds of shallots. Now, just like the chicken, the shallots were going bad, so Mr. Tongkham sliced them up and fried them too. And in no time, a few shoppers rushed to the stall and asked what it was that smelled so good. He agreed to give them some fried shallots if they'd buy his fried chicken. A few days later, the same customers came back and asked for that awesome fried chicken with those addictive crispy shallots. So Mr. Tongkham would start making it that way all the time, and from then on, it was a rocket ship to the big time. Newspapers and magazines would write about the famous Hat Yai fried chicken. Tourists came from Bangkok just to try it, and a legend was born. Now, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't point out that a lot of Southern Thai historians think that that story is bulls**t. After all, the Muslim vendors who sold fried chicken typically also served biryani, which is almost always topped with crispy fried shallots. So it does stand to reason that the real origin would be from those stalls where both components were already available. But good marketing is good marketing, so that story would become canon. Anyway, no matter why the stuff became famous, what isn't debatable is that it stayed famous because it's absolutely delicious. To find our taste of authentic Hat Yai fried chicken, we've come to a market just off the Ramaphore Highway, across from Klong Doi wet market. Here, there's a stall operated by a family that moved to Bangkok from Hat Yai, where they used to sell this dish in the place it first started. The classic Hat Yai fried chicken is marinated in black and white pepper, garlic, cilantro, soy sauce, palm sugar, and fish sauce. Then it's all mixed with rice flour and fried, and then served either on top of biryani or along with sticky rice, deep fried shallots, and a bowl, of course, of chicken dipping sauce or sweet Thai chili. Alright, so we have the three components that make up a classic Hat Yai fried chicken here in Bangkok. We have the fried chicken, we have the sticky rice, and we have the egg noodles, which just bought us a table because there were no tables because it's always for takeaway. And the marinade is just so, absolutely like, every single millimeter of this chicken has been penetrated by the seasonings that they're using to marinate it. Crispy coating is great. Gonna dip that straight in the, we'll call it a not-so-sweet Thai chili sauce, it's a little bit spicy, in a good way. I'm about fried chickened out. I've had almost as much fried chicken as I think I'm capable of handling in one day. Not because I'm bored of it, but because I'm very full. As we reached the end of how much fried chicken one YouTube host can reasonably eat in a single day, we'd somehow, in just a small part of downtown Bangkok, managed to experience an enormous amount of the dish's history, culture, and diversity. But that did not mean that I was home free, at least not yet. Because, to really tell the story of a dish, we have to look at the future, too. And in the same way that chefs from across Thailand are reimagining classic dishes in dynamic new ways, so too is a generation raised on Hat Yai Fried Chicken moving the ball even further, creating the stuff that might come next, in an 8,000 year journey that started in the jungles right here. This is a place called Henry Fry, and it's the brainchild of two young Thai filmmakers who just wanted a place to relax with friends and family. They wanted to serve something comforting but in a modern and creative way, and of course, what could be more comforting than fried chicken? They drew inspiration from the street food all around the neighborhood, classic Southern American traditions, and the best local spices and seasonings, and their place would take off. Within a few months, Henry Fry would become one of the hottest tickets in town, and today to get a plate of their buttermilk brined, subtly seasoned chicken, you have to call weeks in advance. Or, you just walk in with a camera and beg for a portion and get really, really lucky. I want to open a restaurant that makes people feel like they're at a friend's place. I don't just want to sell food. I want to sell experiences, and the feeling that when you come to eat at a friend's place, you wait for the right time, and you can eat, and you can spend time together. The last thing I want to ask you, and I know better than to ask you for the secrets of your recipe. I know that. I'm not going to ask. That's fine. But what makes a good fried chicken? To you, when you taste something, you're like, oh, that's a really good fried chicken. I think it's patience. The patience. The patience for the juiciness, the patience for the spice to make it, give it time to work, to marinate with the chicken, the time, the patience that we have when we fried it, and we know exactly when we have to put, when we have to take out. I think the patience. And also the spice. Because, you know, we are Thai. So that's the story of Thai fried chicken. Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, full of flavor, history, and endless creativity. It's something both universal and deeply personal. A dish created by the Scots, perfected by West Africans in the United States, and adapted to the palates of just about everyone, everywhere. Because, at the end of the day, no matter how much cuisine changes and evolves, we all need a little bit of comfort food. And for that, there's still nothing better than fried chicken. It's good for anyone, right? Anytime. So you can have, like, fried chicken in the morning, lunch, even, like, dinner, late night. Why not? It's so simple. Subscribe to the channel for more from OTR. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. It makes a massive difference. And thank you to everyone who does. Find the links below for our social media, and we'll see you next time. This is going to be a challenging video, from a hosting perspective. Because it's such a hard thing to explain, what makes one fried chicken better than another. There's only so many ways that I can say, oh, the skin's crispy, the meat's tender, and it has a lot of flavor. You've had it as a late night snack. From fast food restaurants and roadside vendors. But if you haven't had it in Thailand, you're missing out. How many ways can I say, crispy skin, tender, juicy? This is the story of Thai fried chicken. A local obsession with origins going all the way back to the creation of the dish. And the other creation. And the other one. Here, you'll find it served in a hundred different ways in a thousand different cities and villages. From the humblest of street carts to the trendiest spots in town. And no matter where you find it, well you know what you're going to get. This is a theme today. It's crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and it has nice seasoning. When you walk around Bangkok at 8.30 in the morning, the first thing you notice, just like in any big city, is the traffic and the crowds pushing their way to work and school. This is a city on the go, and at any time, large numbers of the 15 million residents are heading from somewhere to somewhere else. And just like dropping a line into a big school of fish, here, when you're hunting for fried chicken, it means going where the people are. At its core, Thai fried chicken is a breakfast food, most often found servicing the morning rush hour, vendors packing crispy deep-fried legs and wings cut into pieces and sold for a dollar, with a packet of sticky rice and some sweet Thai chili, which, incidentally in Thai, is known as chicken dipping sauce. The smell of seasoned chicken is as much a part of Bangkok in the morning as monks receiving alms and backpackers staggering home from Khao San Road. And finding the best stuff in this city, well, that would be almost impossible. But finding something awesome, well, that's always around the corner. We have deep-fried chicken, wings, drumsticks, and sticky rice. This one is crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. The meat is tender. Here, try it. It's so addictive. I'm gonna need a shower. I'm so covered in sauce right now. Now, if you're watching this from overseas, I know what you might be thinking. Like, it's fried chicken, why is this any different in Thailand than wherever you might be? I mean, I guess that's what you're thinking because that's what I thought when I first came here so I never really paid attention to it for a very long time. Like, I come from Virginia, I didn't go all the way to the other side of the world for something that's so good back home. And it's true that this is not a dish with ancient Thai origins, but that's actually the reason why it's worth exploring and why it tastes so unique and vibrant. See, Thailand is a country with a thousand different culinary influences. Where things like Chinese noodles mix with local ingredients or where Indian spices meet Malay techniques and Mon-Khmer traditions and everything combines to become something truly incredible. Now, what about when all those countries that have a history of trade and migration here all bring their own versions of the same thing? When the comfort food of a dozen cultures turns into one maybe not-so-simple snack and over a few generations that snack evolves into a platform for pretty much everything. Now, before KFC, before Five Star and Jollibee, there was the American South, all the way back in the 18th century. Now, it's well known that the founders of modern fried chicken were the slaves and freedmen from West Africa who brought their own traditions and spice blends across the Atlantic. And it is true that as far back as ancient days, fried chicken cooked in palm oil was a holiday meal from Senegal to Cameroon. But that's only half the story. Because the batter for the chicken, well, that came from across the Atlantic too, just a bit further north. The oldest use of egg and flour as a chicken breading dates to the 1600s in Scotland. It was known as a popular meal as chickens were in abundance and within a generation it had found its way both to London and to the American colonies. The first written recipe for battered fried chicken was from 1747 in a cookbook by a British woman named Hannah Glasse. And it was in the Southern American plantation kitchens owned by British aristocrats where the flavorless but well-coated English chicken mixed with the vibrant seasonings of West Africa. And from the American South, the technique would sweep the planet. From 1940 to 1970, the U.S. fought three wars and built bases around the world where soldiers brought their fried chicken. And in that same time period, a chain called KFC would grow massively and American fried chicken would take over the world. But again, that's not the whole story because while American fried chicken might be ubiquitous, there were other ways the dish spread. While African Americans were creating their version, the British expanded their empire and their fried chicken recipe to places with their own endemic spices like Malaysia and India. In China, multiple cultures developed their own fried chicken dishes in places like Sichuan and Xi'an. And in Japan, karaage would first show up as far back as the 1600s using batter developed by the Portuguese. So to bring this back to Thai fried chicken, when you look at all the culinary cultures that combined into Thai food, you find paths to all the old-school versions of this dish. Americans who served here on military bases, British who colonized Malaysia and Myanmar, Indian traders, Portuguese merchants, Chinese, Japanese, and everyone bringing their versions of fried chicken. Which, combined with local ingredients and with the benefit of a few dozen years to marinate, no pun intended, creates a simple dish with a flavor that's not simple at all. We have now been eating fried chicken since we woke up this morning and I'm not tired of it yet. And somehow, I… I just can't stop myself from eating this. It's so good. I don't think I've ever done a show like this where the food is so good and yet I have such a hard time describing why. Again, how many different ways can you say crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and full of flavor? The truth is, there is no one single spice blend or marinade that defines Thai fried chicken. It's more like every region, even every city has its own techniques and specialties, which does make sense since fried chicken came here through so many different ways. Here in Bangkok, the local signature uses a thick breading and Chinese-style ingredients, stuff like soy sauce, garlic, and black pepper. In the south of Thailand, you'll see heavy use of fish sauce and even, in some places, coconut milk. Near the Burmese border, you'll find fried chicken made with turmeric and black pepper, and in Isan, it's heavy on garlic and chili. There are versions made with egg in the batter, like in the US, and without egg, like in India or the Middle East. All throughout the country, you can find fried chicken cooked in local ways. But if we want to get at least a baseline understanding of what goes into some of the best stuff, well, we know who to turn to. The same chef who we visit so often here on the channel and who has a Michelin background, but today focuses on comfort food. And what could be more comforting than Thai fried chicken? We have our own recipe, every family, like other Thai dishes. Like for my fried chicken, this reminds me of my childhood. My mom always made this fried chicken for me. I was like, OK, I want something good, filled up, a little bit spicy, aromatic, and this is the dish. So this is a very simple mixing for the marination. We just add some of the red curry paste, some of the sauce base that we have, or some family, they use the sugar or the palm sugar, a little bit of the soy sauce, salt, and the oyster sauce, and also the tempura flour and cold water, mix it up, a little bit of the kaffir leaves, sliced julienne, and then mix, marinate for a few hours, or even like can be quick marination. And then we just toss into the hot cooking oil, and it's just ready for you. Another key for the fried chicken is it should be hot, and keep it crunchy outside. Well, speaking of that, I guess we should taste it. Cheers. Cheers. You know this is good. You don't need me to tell you this is good. It depends on the family recipe. Some people prefer more spicy, more sweet, more salty, or something like that. Thai food, it depends. The family recipe. Like my family, they eat some kind of like, a little bit spicy. Even deep fried chicken, make it more spicy. Now, alright. Sometimes every once in a while, when we start to research a dish or an ingredient, we find something that we did not expect. But as we looked at all the paths that fried chicken took to get to Thailand, then kept going back in time, and back some more. Well, where we found ourselves at the very beginning was where we least expected. Right here, in Thailand. Today, fried chicken is a dish found almost everywhere, from Japan to India to Nicaragua. But none of it, no fried chicken dish at all, would exist if we didn't have chickens. And we owe that to the prehistoric Thais, who first domesticated a bird called the red jungle fowl, more than 8,000 years ago. Now, we don't know this for sure, but it probably wasn't for eating. The natives raised the birds to fight, and as sacrifices to the ancient gods. There were other early species of jungle fowl across eastern Asia, but the Thai breed had one unique and critical characteristic. In the wild, it fed on the seeds of the bamboo tree. And those seeds are rare and hard to find. So the chickens developed an instinct that would make them attractive to farmers for the rest of time. They never stopped eating. So in captivity, when provided with lots of seeds and grains, they would grow big, and they would grow fast. The chicken would spread through trade, first to the Chinese who believed that roosters could predict the future because they'd always announce the sunrise. Then from China, over the water to Taiwan and the Philippines, and then on to Polynesia in the South Pacific. By the first millennium BC, we find chickens spreading along the path of the Silk Road to India in the Middle East. And from there, the story gets impossible to follow because everyone traded them everywhere. Soon, chickens could be found across Europe and Africa, in South and Central America, and as they developed new characteristics through selective breeding, they were even re-imported right here in Southeast Asia. It's crazy to think about, but thousands of years ago, right here, literally right here, the ancestors of every piece of fried chicken we've ever eaten anywhere, once walked the Thai jungles. If only they knew what was coming. It was the middle of the afternoon when we left Kate's place and started wandering again through downtown Bangkok. Now, fried chicken, at least in its classic form, well, that's a breakfast dish. And until the carts all across town start frying up their batches for the workers heading home, well, there's not much to see when the sun's at its peak. But just because we won't find as many vendors selling wings or legs with sticky rice doesn't mean we can't find the stuff. We just have to look a little deeper. The truth is, fried chicken is everywhere, hiding on the menus at just about every single restaurant. You can find it at Cao Gang counters, deep fried and then tossed with crispy basil. At Michelin restaurants, cleaved into pieces and topped with fried garlic. Or in the countryside, simply seasoned with salt. And that's it. There are Thai people who prefer their fried chicken served with Kanom Jeen rice noodles, included as a component for Kao Mok, or Thai-style biryani. On top of Khao Klook Krapi, the ancient Mon rice dish, and even as a form of Laab, that Lao Isan specialty which honestly with fried chicken might be inauthentic, but man, it's really good. And considering that Thailand is a melting pot where some of the world's best dishes and cuisines have come together, could there be anything that would elevate something any more than topping it with some fried chicken? It's no wonder that here, even something subtle, the elegant Hainan chicken rice gets a dose of crispy, battered heaven. And when it looks like this… well, you kind of have to order a portion. I know there are those who would say, why would you change something like Hainan chicken rice which cannot be improved upon? And then there are others who would say, just deep fry anything and it's automatically an improvement. I'm not going to tell you which camp that I'm in, but I am American. Unbelievably good. There's normal chicken, with flour and breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs, that's it. It's chicken breast, no breast meat. Now, alright. So far in just this short video, we've seen about a thousand forms of fried chicken. Even if we only talk about the stuff that we've eaten ourselves, it still runs the spectrum from the mildly seasoned local classic to the spicy marinades of Isan. We've had it garnished with fried batter, topped with toasted lemongrass, and even served with Hainan chicken rice. It might seem like Thai fried chicken is less of a single dish and more of a broad and massively diverse category, and that is true to an extent, but maybe not as much as you'd think. Because, within the last generation, one form of Thai fried chicken has caught on above the rest. One specific style that was, until not that long ago, just another regional variation of this fantastic dish. But, from one corner of Thailand to another, it's become the unofficial national favorite. And to find its story, we have to look to the south, all the way to a city called Hat Yai. In a province called Songkhla on the Malaysian border, you'll find Hat Yai, home to about 400,000 people, 40% of them Thai Malay Muslims. Now, the Muslims across this region have been serving fried chicken since the early days of modern Thailand, but this specific version would be the one that would catch fire. According to legend, at a Hat Yai wet market sometime around 1970, and this is just a guess because nobody agrees on the date, an old couple named Mrs. Wan and Mr. Tongkham had a stall selling fresh chicken. But they were losing money because if they didn't sell out, the meat would go bad. So Mr. Tongkham began to marinate and then fry the leftover chickens to sell after market hours. At first, he followed the standard local recipe, but then one day, he had some unexpected good luck. Basically, the story is a vegetable seller at the same market had to leave work early, so he gave his expiring vegetables to the other vendors, including Mr. Tongkham, who got a few pounds of shallots. Now just like the chicken, the shallots were going bad, so Mr. Tongkham sliced them up and fried them too. And in no time, a few shoppers rushed to the stall and asked what it was that smelled so good. He agreed to give them some fried shallots if they'd buy his fried chicken. A few days later, the same customers came back and asked for that awesome fried chicken with those addictive crispy shallots. So Mr. Tongkham would start making it that way all the time, and from then on, it was a rocket ship to the big time. Newspapers and magazines would write about the famous Hat Yai fried chicken. Tourists came from Bangkok just to try it, and a legend was born. Now, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't point out that a lot of Southern Thai historians think that story is bulls**t. After all, the Muslim vendors who sold fried chicken typically also served biryani, which is almost always topped with crispy fried shallots. So it does stand to reason that the real origin would be from those stalls where both components were already available. But, good marketing is good marketing, so that story would become canon. Anyway, no matter why the stuff became famous, what isn't debatable is that it stayed famous because it's absolutely delicious. To find our taste of authentic Hat Yai fried chicken, we've come to a market just off the Ramaphore Highway, across from Klong Doi Wet Market. Here, there's a stall operated by a family that moved to Bangkok from Hat Yai, where they used to sell this dish in the place it first started. The classic Hat Yai fried chicken is marinated in black and white pepper, garlic, cilantro, soy sauce, palm sugar, and fish sauce. Then it's all mixed with rice flour and fried, and then served either on top of biryani or along with sticky rice, deep fried shallots, and a bowl, of course, of chicken dipping sauce or sweet Thai chili. Alright, so we have the three components that make up a classic Hat Yai fried chicken here in Bangkok. We have the fried chicken, we have the sticky rice, and we have the egg noodles, which just bought us a table because there were no tables because it's always for takeaway. And the marinade is just so absolutely like every single millimeter of this chicken has been penetrated by the seasonings that they're using to marinate it. Crispy coating is great. Gonna dip that straight in the we'll call it a not-so-sweet Thai chili sauce. It's a little bit spicy in a good way. I'm about fried chickened out. I've had almost as much fried chicken as I think I'm capable of handling in one day. Not because I'm bored of it, but because I'm very full. As we reached the end of how much fried chicken one YouTube host can reasonably eat in a single day, we'd somehow, in just a small part of downtown Bangkok, managed to experience an enormous amount of the dish's history, culture, and diversity. But that did not mean that I was home free, at least not yet. Because, to really tell the story of a dish, we have to look at the future, too. And in the same way that chefs from across Thailand are reimagining classic dishes in dynamic new ways, so too is a generation raised on Hat Yai fried chicken moving the ball even further, creating the stuff that might come next in an 8,000 year journey that started in the jungles right here. This is a place called Henry Fry and it's the brainchild of two young Thai filmmakers who just wanted a place to relax with friends and family. They wanted to serve something comforting but in a modern and creative way, and of course what could be more comforting than fried chicken? They drew inspiration from the street food all around the neighborhood, classic Southern American traditions, and the best local spices and seasonings. And their place would take off. Within a few months, Henry Fry would become one of the hottest tickets in town, and today to get a plate of their buttermilk-brined, subtly seasoned chicken, you have to call weeks in advance. Or, you just walk in with a camera and beg for a portion and get really, really lucky. The last thing I want to ask you, I know better than to ask you for the secrets of your recipe. I know that. I'm not going to ask. That's fine. But what makes a good fried chicken? To you, when you taste something, you're like, oh, that's a really good fried chicken. I think it's patience. The patience. The patience for the juiciness, the patience for the spice to make it, give it time to work, like to marinate with the chicken, the time, the patience that we have when we fry it, and we know exactly when we have to put, when we have to take out, I think the patience. And also the spice, because you know we are Thai. So that's the story of Thai fried chicken. Crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, full of flavor, history, and endless creativity. It's something both universal and deeply personal. A dish created by the Scots, perfected by West Africans in the United States, and adapted to the palates of just about everyone, everywhere. Because, at the end of the day, no matter how much cuisine changes and evolves, we all need a little bit of comfort food. And for that, there's still nothing better than fried chicken. It's good for anyone, anytime. You can have fried chicken in the morning, lunch, even dinner, late night, why not? Because it's easy to eat, and the flavor is already there. It's not too bland. The saltiness of the chicken and the crispiness of it, the customers will love it. Most people, depending on the customer, will always be able to sell it. There will be drumsticks, and thigh meat. Most customers, it depends on their choice. When I grew up, before I went to school, most Thai people were familiar with fried pork sticky rice, fried chicken sticky rice. It's so simple. So I feel like fried chicken has been around since I was a kid until I grew up, even as a father, a mother. So I feel like it's a comfort food. That's it. It's delicious. That's it. Simple. Subscribe to the channel for more from OTR. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. It makes a massive difference. And thank you to everyone who does. Find the links below for our social media, and we'll see you next time.