For unquoted search terms, use prefix matching. So chi will match chicken. It's not the same as a LIKE '%chi%', in that it's still using the stemmed indexed lexemes to match on, and it's prefix-only. More concretely, chi will not match enchiladas, because the search is not a prefix as it is with chicken. So better, but perhaps not sufficient.
For unquoted search terms, use prefix matching. So
chiwill matchchicken. It's not the same as aLIKE '%chi%', in that it's still using the stemmed indexed lexemes to match on, and it's prefix-only. More concretely,chiwill not matchenchiladas, because the search is not a prefix as it is withchicken. So better, but perhaps not sufficient.