Phat kaphrao

A two-minute stir fry where the basil goes in off the heat and must be holy basil.

Pork, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains fish sauce, oyster sauce, pork.

Ingredients

• 500 g minced pork
• 4 large handfuls holy basil leaves
• 8 garlic cloves
• 10 bird's eye chillies
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon palm sugar
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 4 tablespoons water
• 4 eggs, to fry

Method

1. HOLY BASIL, NOT THAI SWEET BASIL. They are different plants and they are not interchangeable: holy basil is peppery and faintly clove-like and is the entire flavour of the dish, where sweet basil is aniseed and makes something pleasant that is not this. If only sweet basil is available, the honest thing is to call it a different stir fry.
2. POUND THE GARLIC AND CHILLIES, do not chop them. A rough pounding breaks the cells and releases far more into the oil in the few seconds this dish spends in the pan.
3. Mix the sauces and sugar in a bowl before the pan is lit. There is no time to measure once it starts.
4. The pan as hot as it goes. Oil, then the pounded garlic and chilli for 15 seconds only -- it must not brown.
5. Pork in, pressed flat and left 30 seconds to catch, then broken up. 2 minutes total.
6. Sauces and water in, tossed, 30 seconds, until it just clings.
7. HEAT OFF, THEN THE BASIL, all of it at once, folded through in the residual heat until it has just wilted. On the heat it blackens in seconds and goes bitter.
8. It should look like far too much basil before it wilts and exactly enough after.
9. Fry the eggs separately in deep hot oil until the edges are brown and lacy and the yolk is still soft, and put one on each plate of rice.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Thailand · All recipes