Grilled Chicken with Vietnamese Pesto

This dish has been bouncing around in my head for a while. The Vietnamese pesto in my cookbook is one of my favorite creations, but the recipe it’s a part of is also likely the most complicated in the book. Instead of using the pesto with udon noodles and claypot pork, this little appetizer simply slathers it over grilled chicken skewers, making it much simpler to get to that delicious flavor. Paired with the lime-ginger dipping sauce from the salad rolls recipe, you have a whole new dish made simply by recombining a couple of favorites.

We recently hosted a four-course forest feast to celebrate the anniversary of a couple of our bus friends. They have traveled a great deal in Southeast Asia, so this dish made an excellent first course. They not only described it as “perfect,” they even went so far as to shoot the remainder of their lime-ginger sauce after they’d finished the chicken. Praise doesn’t come much higher than that.

If you have the cookbook at home already, you can find the Vietnamese pesto recipe on page 119, and the lime-ginger dipping sauce on page 113. If not, why don’t you buy a copy in the shop? And, if you still can’t be enticed, just follow the links in the ingredients list.

Grilled Chicken with Vietnamese Pesto

Ingredients:
2 lbs. Boneless, skinless chicken thighs
fish sauce
water

½ recipe Vietnamese Pesto (page 119)
Lime-Ginger Dipping Sauce (page 113)

Directions:
Make a sauce of equal parts fish sauce and water and use it to marinate the chicken for a few hours. Once marinated, slice the chicken into ¾“ cubes, skewer on soaked bamboo skewers, and grill over medium heat until cooked through and lightly charred on the outside. Once cooked, remove from heat and allow to rest a few minutes.

Before serving, slather with Vietnamese pesto. Serve with Lime-ginger dipping sauce.

Enjoy!