AUTHENTIC THAI BASIL CHICKEN

AUTHENTIC THAI BASIL CHICKEN

By Sandra Djohan | November 11, 2020

Thai food have always been our family favorite, especially my mom. Since young I have been intrigue in learning how to cook Thai food and I have become quite obsessed. Learning other country dish have becoming my greatest challenge as a chef.

THAI BASIL CHICKEN, famous as one of Thai favorite street food, better known in Thai as pad kra pao gai. it is quite a contender

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INGREDIENTS

For the basil chicken

  • 400 gr chicken thigh without bone (or any other cut of boneless chicken)
  • corn flour for coating
  • 5 cloves of garlic
  • 4 – 10 Thai chilies – when you fry the chilies, they aren’t as spicy
  • 2 tablespoon oil for frying
  • 2 teaspoon of oyster sauce
  • 1 teaspoon light soy sauce
  • 1 splash of dark sweet soy sauce (you can use Indonesian kecap manis)
  • 1/2  teaspoon sugar (adjust if necessary)
  • 1 teaspoon crushed black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dried chili
  • 1 handful of Thai holy basil leaves (really try to get holy basil)

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Instructions

Basil chicken
  1. Cut the chicken into small bite sized pieces.
  2. pat dry and lightly coat them with cornflour set aside
  3. deep fry the chicken, set aside (on the street usually they don't do this, they use straight cut chicken, I prefer coating them because I like the crunch texture)
  4. Rinse and peel the garlic and chilies, and pound them in a mortar and pestle (alternatively you can just mince them with a knife). They don't need to be super fine, you just want to bring out the oils and flavors from the garlic and chilies.
  5. Pluck a good sized handful of holy basil leaves off the stems.
  6. Now it's time to start cooking. Heat your wok on high heat, and add about 1 tablespoon of oil to the pan.
  7. When the oil is hot, add the chilies and garlic. Stir fry them for about 20 seconds or so until they get really fragrant, but don't let them burn or get too dry.
  8. Toss in your chicken. Keep stir frying continuously. At this stage you want to continue to stir and cook your chicken until it's just about fully cooked all the way through (depending on the size pieces of chicken and how hot your fire is, it should take about 2 - 3 minutes). If it starts to get dry, add just a tiny splash of water.
  9. mix on a small bowl, add  teaspoon of oyster sauce, teaspoon light soy sauce,  teaspoon sugar, and finally a splash of dark soy sauce. then add this mixture to the chicken, Keep stir frying for about another 30 seconds.
  10. Grab a handful of holy basil, toss it into the pan, fold it into the chicken, and then immediately turn off the heat (if you're using an electric stove, you'll want to remove the pan from the burner). The holy basil really only needs to cook for about 5 seconds, and it will continue to wilt and cook from the existing heat of the chicken. This step is important because if you cook the basil for too long, it loses some of its glorious flavor and gets slightly chewy.

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