Chicken stir-fry with holy basil leaves
Thai basil chicken, better known in Thai as Gai Sub Gaprao, is a contender for the most popular Thai street food dish and is often eaten for lunch. It’s crazy quick to cook and is simply delicious!
Authentic Pad Thai served with lime, crushed peanuts and chilli flakes to taste
Chicken stir-fry with holy basil leaves Ingredients (Serves 2-3)
Although this recipe is most popular with chicken, you can make it with just about every kind of protein imaginable. Pork, beef, seafood, or even vegetarian version made with tofu and/or mushrooms. So if chicken isn’t your thing, feel free to change it up! I use ground meat in this recipe because it’s the most classic and the most “street” way you’ll find pad kra pao, but you can use thinly sliced pieces of meat instead. Although, I REALLY think it tastes better with ground meat, so give it a go!
5-10 Thai chillies
1 spur chilli
5 cloves of garlic
½ a small onion, diced
300g chicken, coarsely ground or minced
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp fish sauce
2 tbsp water
1 ½ cup holy basil leaves
1 ½ tsp sugar
Vegetable oil, as needed
An egg per person
Note: If you don’t have holy basil, you can use Thai basil but I have found that regular Italian basil is closer in flavour.
How to make Chicken stir-fry with holy basil leaves
Pound Thai chillies, garlic and spur chilli into a rough paste
In a wok or large pan, saute the garlic-chilli paste in a little vegetable oil over medium high heat until garlic start to turn golden.
Add the chicken and toss until no longer in big clumps.
Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, water, sugar and continue tossing until the chicken is almost cooked.
Add the onion and toss until chicken is done.
Remove from heat, and stir in the holy basil leaves
Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
For the Fried egg
Heat about 1 cm of vegetable oil in a small non-stick pan or wok over medium high heat.
Once the oil is hot, crack the egg directly into the pan and let it fry until the edges are browned.
Serve the stir-fry chicken over rice and top it with fried egg.