Gà Nướng Sả (Lemongrass Chicken)

Name: Gà Nướng Sả
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Vietnam
Ingredients: 3 lb (1.4 kg) bone-in skin-on chicken thighs; 3 stalks lemongrass, tender core minced; 6 garlic cloves, minced; 3 shallots, minced; 3 tbsp fish sauce; 2 tbsp light brown sugar; 2 tbsp honey; 2 tbsp neutral oil; 1 tbsp Maggi seasoning sauce; 1 tbsp light soy sauce; 1 tbsp fresh lime juice; 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper; 1 tsp ground turmeric; 2 tbsp neutral oil (for basting); 1 tsp honey (for basting); 1 lime, cut in wedges; 1 English cucumber, sliced; Steamed jasmine rice, to serve

Vietnamese · Easy · Serves 4

Gà nướng sả — lemongrass chicken — is the Vietnamese grill's workhorse: chicken marinated in pounded lemongrass, garlic, and fish sauce, cooked hard until charred at the edges. It is the filling of a hundred rice plates and bánh mì, the recipe half this site's Vietnamese dishes quietly reference, and the simplest possible argument that lemongrass plus fire is one of the world's great flavor pairings.

Quantities live in the recipe card.

The marinade

To cook and serve

- **Marinate 2 hours (or overnight).** The lemongrass needs time to perfume the meat, and the fish sauce to season through. Score boneless thighs deeply in a crosshatch so the marinade reaches and the edges char. - **The bridge:** lemongrass paste (sold in tubes) is a genuine weeknight bridge at a small loss of the fresh stalk's brightness; the minced fresh stalk is worth the five minutes when you can. Turmeric is color and earth; leave it and the dish is paler but not wrong.

Step 1. **Cook hard, char real (12–15 minutes).** Grill over medium coals or under a hot broiler, or in a ripping cast-iron pan, starting skin-side down. Turn once, cooking until the skin is crisp and charred in patches and the thigh meat reaches 74 °C (boneless) — about 6–7 minutes a side. Checkpoint — the edges should blacken slightly and the skin render to crisp — the marinade's honey wants to burn, and a little burning is the flavor. Move the pieces to cooler spots if the char outruns the cook. Pale, steamed-looking chicken is the failure mode.

Step 2. **Rest, then chop or serve whole.** Rest 5 minutes; boneless thighs slice into strips (the bánh mì and rice-plate format), bone-in serves whole. Checkpoint — slice one piece: the interior should be juicy and seasoned to the bone, not just painted. If the inside is bland, the marination was short — the sauce at the table is the remedy, and next time the fridge overnight is the fix.

Step 3. **Serve over rice or noodles, sharp alongside.** Nuoc cham or lime at the table, cucumber and herbs beside. Checkpoint — eating test: char and lemongrass first, the chicken's richness, then the sauce's sour-salt cutting through. Over rice the marinade's drippings are the seasoning; in a bánh mì (#25) this chicken is a classic filling. Two dishes from one marinade — make extra. Chef’s Note — this marinade is the site's Vietnamese master marinade — the same base (lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce, sugar) runs the pork in bún chả (#3), the chops in cơm tấm (#27), and this chicken, with ratios nudged. Learn it once as a formula and every grill night is a variation. The pounded-paste version (a mortar, a pinch of salt, the aromatics) is the freshest; the minced version is the honest everyday.