Identify and prepare tod mun gai Thai chicken cakes

What tod mun gai is and when to make it

Tod mun gai (ทอดมันไก่ in Thai, romanized in several ways) is a fried chicken cake built on the same idea as Thai fried fish cakes. It is a seasoned paste of minced chicken and red curry paste, studded with sliced long beans and makrut lime leaves, shaped into flat rounds and fried. The Thai cook Pim presents her version as a chicken alternative to fish cakes, so it is a good choice if you want that familiar flavor profile but are cooking with chicken instead of fish.

Set your expectations for texture before you start. Pim describes her version, made only with chicken breast, as firmer and less springy than fish cakes. If you know the bouncy chew of fish cakes, a denser bite here is the intended result and not a mistake.

Ingredients

These amounts follow Pim's batch:

• 500 g skinless chicken breast
• 2 large eggs
• 75 g red curry paste
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• ½ tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 100 g long beans, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp makrut lime leaves, finely sliced
• About ½ liter oil for frying

Pim serves the cakes with a homemade sweet chili sauce. She cools it, then finishes it with cucumber, peanuts and cilantro. Her sauce quantities are not given here, so use your own sweet chili sauce recipe and add those three toppings.

Equipment

• Food processor (the mixture is processed in two batches)
• Mixing bowl and a cover for chilling
• Pan or pot deep enough to hold about ½ liter of frying oil
• Spatula or slotted spoon for turning and lifting the cakes
• An instant-read food thermometer with a probe thin enough to go into the side of a flat cake

Before you start: handling raw chicken

• Keep raw chicken at 40°F or below. Use it within 1–2 days of purchase, or freeze it.
• Do not wash the chicken. USDA advises against washing raw poultry.
• Keep raw chicken and its juices away from the beans, leaves, sauce garnishes and anything else that will be eaten without cooking.
• The mixture contains raw chicken and raw egg, so judge seasoning only from a cooked sample. Never taste the raw paste.

Method

• 1. Divide for processing. Split the chicken into two equal portions. Split the eggs, curry paste, fish sauce, sugar and cornstarch into two equal portions as well.
• 2. Process in two batches. Process each chicken portion with its share of the egg and seasoning mixture. Two smaller batches are easier for the processor to work evenly.
• 3. Combine, then fold. Put both batches in one bowl. Fold in all of the sliced long beans and makrut leaves by hand, so the vegetables stay as distinct pieces instead of being puréed.
• 4. Test-fry a sample. Fry a small piece of the mixture until it is cooked through (see the next section), then taste it. If it needs more salt, add fish sauce. If it needs more sweetness, add sugar. Fry another sample after each change.
• 5. Chill. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for about two hours.
• 6. Shape. Lightly oil your fingertips and press portions of the mixture into flat cakes. The oil keeps the sticky paste from clinging to your hands.
• 7. Fry. Heat the oil over medium heat. Fry the cakes, turning or moving them in the oil so both sides cook.
• 8. Check and drain. Confirm the center temperature (below), lift the cakes out, drain off excess oil and serve with the sauce.

Pim gives medium heat rather than an exact oil temperature or frying time. Because of that, the thermometer reading, not the clock, tells you when each cake is done.

Illustrative batch log: you can track a batch on a simple sheet. Note how the chicken and seasonings were divided between the two processor runs. Record any fish sauce or sugar you added after each test sample, the time the bowl went into the refrigerator, and the center temperature of each cake as it comes out of the oil.

How to judge progress and doneness

• Seasoning: the cooked test sample is your only reliable taste check. Adjust the bowl and test again until the sample tastes right.
• Texture: expect a firm, fairly dense cake. That fits Pim's description of the breast-only version.
• Doneness: a golden exterior does not prove the inside is cooked. Ground or minced poultry must reach 165°F (74°C).
• How to measure: insert the probe through the side of the cake, parallel to the flat surfaces, until the sensing area sits in the center. Check each cake, because flat cakes are too thin to probe accurately from the top.
• Correcting an underdone cake: if a cake reads below 165°F, return it to the oil and check again before serving.

Leftovers

• Refrigerate cooked cakes in shallow containers within two hours of cooking. If the air temperature is above 90°F, do it within one hour.
• Use refrigerated leftovers within 3–4 days.
• Reheat to 165°F, checked in the center the same way as when frying.