Thai basil chicken
Thursday, November 9th, 2006
Carrying on with the weeks epicurean delights is our recipe for Thai basil chicken. It’s from a great cookbook on thai food we have had for some time, but slightly adapted. Yes, yes I know…but trust me you don’t want this with the 6 serrano peppers the recipe advises. Not if you value your life anyway.
This recipe is quick, easy, incredibly aromtic and very tasty.
For this recipe you will need:
1lb of chicken cut into thin 1 inch max strips.
3-4 tbsp vegetable or canola oil
2 serrano (standard green) chillis roughly chopped
1 tsp finely minced garlic
1 red pepper cut into inch squares
1 medium onion cut into 1 inch chunks
1 can of shredded (substitue for carrots/green pepper if you like)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp good quality fish sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp corn flour
4 tbsp water
40 basil leaves (yes 40)
First of all fry the chicken in the oil at a high heat.
Dont let the chicken cook too long, it shouldn’t brown (then its overcooked), just cook through. If you chop the meat into nice 1 inch long strips it will cook pretty darned fast, easily within 5 minutes.
Now chuck the chillis and garlic in with the chicken. Stir fry for two minutes.
Next add the fish sauce, soy, sauce, and sugar. After stirring this in your kitchen should start to coime to life with the aroma of South East Asia.
Good quality fish sauce is important, a local asian supermarket probably has some. Don’t worry if you think the fish sauce smell is overpowering. It is a key ingredient in the subtle layered flavours of thai food. You won’t taste what you smell in the final dish. Trust me ;)
The liquids with the oil should nicely emulsify into a quickly thickening sauce:
Now add vegetables (except the basil). The original recipe called for only red peppersm but we found this and just chicken a little boring. Based on having the dish many times in different restaurants anything crunchy goes well. Green peppers, onions, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, shredded carrot and so on.
The trick is not to overcook the veggies. They really only need heating and coating in the sauce. You want to retain as much crunch as possible for your plate!
Stir fry for another minute or two, let the sauce coat all the vegetables evenly.
Once coated add the basil leaves.
Stir the leaves in well. Dissolve the flour with the water and add to the pan:
Continue stirring until the basil leaves have wilted nicely. That should look something like:
And there you have it. This recipe serves 3-4, but beware it is pretty spicy! We have tried a version with less chillis but the taste really does rely heavily on the chillis. If you have to go mild maybe try without the seeds and inner chilli flesh. But no skipping the chillis :)
C’est voila, serve with some fragrant jasmine rice (and in our case a nice red to hold up to the chilli kick):
