Spending last 4years in Thailand (Bangkok) really helped me discover thai cuisine on a very basic and regional level. Before moving to Bangkok, thai cuisine was typically defined by thai green curry or thai red curry in a fancy thai restaurant back in India and the curries too were slightly modified and tempered to suit Indian palates.

When we moved to Bangkok, the foodie in me was like a kid in candy store. Since then, I’ve treated my taste buds to many hidden thai dishes like som tam soup noodles, tom yum, larb kai, kai yang and my favourite Krapow Kai i.e. stir fried chicken with basil leaves.

It’s one of the most popular food here and is available easily with lots of local and even street vendors. It’s so easily available whenever I crave for it that I never thought of learning how to cook this dish until the lockdown deprived me of my favourite restaurant foods.

It’s now that I’m trying my hands on all my favourite foods and turns out the recipe for this particular dish is quite easy and requires very few ingredients.

It basically needs minced or finely chopped boneless chicken, garlic, thai hot chillies, lots of thai basil ( dont confuse these with italian basil used in pastas) and one basic sauce: black soy sauce. Now this particular soy sauce is different from what we use in other stir fry or our very own hakka noodles. This one has a thick consistency and gives dark color to the final dish and also a distinct flavour which you wont get from regular thinner soy sauce.

Also, lots of vendors use MSG in their cooking to get an extra zing, I would recommend against that.

RECIPE:

INGREDIENTS:

• Boneless chicken ( minced or finely chopped): 100gms
• Thai basil: a bunch
• Garlic: 3 cloves
• Thai chili: 3-5 (or more as per taste)
• Oil: 4 tbsp
• Black soy sauce: 1 1/2 tbsp

METHOD:

• Heat a pan on high heat. Add oil when pan is really hot. Roll around oil in pan to make it nonstick. Add meat and cook for 2-3mins or till cooked.
• Take it out. Add more oil in hot pan and add minced garlic and chili and stir for a minute. Add cooked meat, soy sauce and cook for a minute. Add basil leaves and let cook.
• Once leaves are cooked remove from flame, it should be 1-2 mins max.
• Serve immediately with steamed jasmine rice and fried egg ( optional)
• Garnish with few crisp fried basil leaves for extra touch.