THAI BASIL CHICKEN & FRIED EGG

Most Thai recipes called for duck eggs. Why? Because chickens were scarce and considered precious. Today chicken eggs are found everywhere and can be substituted in any Thai recipe provided that they are large!

There are some ingredients that are essential to Thai cooking and one of them is Thai basil. The thing is that there are three different kinds.

The first is Thai sweet basil, which is sweet and fragrant and is used in their famous Green curry.

The second is holy basil which is spicy and peppery and is used in jungle curry and stir-fries.

The third one is lemon-mint basil which is the most fragrant of all the basils and is used with fermented rice noodles, with fish curry, and spicy vegetable soup.

I wish I could tell you that I use the second one, but the truth is that unless you live in Asia you can’t really find them, so I just use whichever I find, it will give my dish a taste of Thailand!

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon minced bird’s eye chillies
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 500grams minced chicken
• 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 2 long red chillies, sliced
• 2 handfuls of Thai basil leaves
• Cooked Jasmine rice to serve

Method

• In a small frying pan put the vegetable oil on a medium heat. Fry one handful of the fresh Thai basil. Drain the leaves on a paper towel. Keep aside until they are ready to be used.
• Put the vegetable oil, which now has the flavour of the Thai basil, into the wok or a frying pan at high heat and add the chillies and the minced garlic. Stir fry for 40 seconds.
• Reduce the heat to medium and add the chicken. Stir-fry for 40 seconds, or until the minced chicken is not pink anymore.
• Then add the oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar, and chicken stock. Mix well and cook until the chicken is cooked, but not dry.
• Add the sliced red chillies and the remaining handfull of the fresh Thai basil and stir-fry for 1 minute before removing from the heat.

• Break one egg into a bowl, then gently pour into a wok with oil at high heat, fry until the egg is cooked but has a soft yolk. Repeat the same method with the other eggs. Set them aside to serve.
• Top each fried egg with the chicken mixture and place the fried Thai basil on top.
• Serve the Jasmine rice on the side in a small bowl.

Tips

• In most Asian countries a fried egg is deep fried. The result is wonderful. The egg is crispy and soft in the middle.
• Do have all your ingredients ready. Cooking the chicken and all the ingredients is a fast process, otherwise the chicken will be dry and loose it moisture.