The other night I made chicken strips for dinner. Not any kind of fancy recipe, just chicken breasts cut into strips, breaded, and fried (in half lard, half canola). Because I can’t resist messing with stuff, I did brine half of the chicken and left the other half unbrined, to see if we could tell the difference. Then I lost track of which strips were brined, and they all ended up tasting great anyway. I think Iris ate as many strips as I did.

I love commercial barbecue sauce, but it got me thinking that chicken strips would be excellent served with the dipping sauces that typically accompany *gai yang,* Thai grilled chicken. There’s a thin and spicy sauce, a thick and spicy sauce (thickened with tamarind), and sometimes a third sauce that I can’t remember. Something like the Vietnamese *nuoc cham*, which fish sauce, vinegar or lime juice, sugar, and chiles, would be good. I’ll try this next time.