Stir Fried Holy Basil (กะเพรา) with Pork
Pad Krapow Moo
Pad Gra Pao Moo
Pad Grapow Moo
Pad Kra Pao Moo
There are a lot of ways of spelling / saying it, only one real way to cook it. Side note, it always makes me chuckle inside that Pork in Thai is Moo.
See how I cook my version of this exquisite Thai dish, scroll on!
Thanks to taste.com.au for this fantastic image of a Pad Krapow. Though those leaves do look like Sweet Thai Basil Queenette to me, making it a "Pad Holapa". Delicious all the same.
Ingredients and method, for perhaps the most sensational dish you will ever consume ... Pad Krapow Moo.
Replace meat with minced Quorn if desired, grated cauliflower works well too.
Ingredients:
500g Minced Pork 10% fat
20g to 30g Fresh Holy Basil Leaves (Rama Basil)
1 Red Pepper
100 to 150g Green Beans
3 Spring / Green Onion
1 White Onion
2 to 3 tbsp Oyster Sauce
2 to 3 tsp Fish Sauce
1/2 tsp Thai Black Soy
3 to 4 tsp Palm Sugar
Pinch Ground White Pepper
1 tbsp Fresh Green Peppercorns (if you can find them)
4 to 5 cloves of garlic
2 to 8 red and green Thai birdeye chili peppers
2 to 4 dried red chili peppers
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 to 3 tbsp water, for thinning sauce
1 Cup of Thai Hom Mali Rice (Best Jasmine Rice)
1.25 cups water for cooking the rice
Mise en place:
Pound the fresh Chili, dried Chili, garlic and a third of the white onion in a M&P to a rough paste, leave a couple of fresh chilies for slicing / garnish. Use tbsp water to help emulsify.
Combine Oyster Sauce, Fish Sauce, Black Soy, Palm Sugar. Stir until palm sugar dissolved.
Slice Pepper in to mouth sized strips. Slice onion quite fine. Chop Spring onion into 1 to 2cm chunks, with diagonal cuts (increases surface area, cooks quicker, looks nicer). Same cut, cut green beans into 2 to 3cm long pieces.
Method:
Rice to pan, no rinsing, cover with 1.25 cups water. Bring to simmer, reduce heat. Add lid when rice breaks through water level. Cook for 12 to 14 minutes, heat off, let it rest with the lid on, steaming, whilst you cook the stir fry. NEVER STIR THAI RICE!
Oil in a hot woky wok (Sneaky Amazon affiliate link for good quality Yosukata Carbon Woks)
Add chili, garlic & onion paste, cook until fragrant or you cough.
Add minced pork, half at a time (keep pan temperature high).
As 2nd half of the pork is pork browning, add half the sauce and massage into the meat, no, not with your hands!
Add green beans and tbsp of water, fry 2 mins.
Add remaining Onion, fry till wilted/sweated.
Add red pepper.
Add remaining sauce and pinch of pepper.
Stir fry few minutes.
Add Spring Onion and fresh green pepper corns, fry one minute.
Heat off, add Holy Basil leaves, stir into hot sauce immersing them all, leave to wilt and flavour the dish.
Water can be added at any point in the cooking, to create a sauce that coats the back of a spoon. You'll need enough sauce to moisten all the Basil leaves well.
How about a perfectly crispy but oozy fried egg for on top?
250ml of hot oil in pan, almost smoking.
Separate yolk from whites, pour in whites into center of pan.
Fry for a minute or two, until edges start to become crispy and a natural "well" forms in the middle of the egg white.
Add yolk to middle of the cooked whites, and baste a couple of times with hot oil from a spoon or ladle, drain and place on top of your stir fry.
DIVINE! To upgrade this recipe, use Duck Eggs instead of Chook Chook eggs, very much richer yolks that add to the Umami of the dish.
ENJOY MY FRIENDS!
Interested to see how Thai Basils thrive? Check my article just starting on propagating Thai basil, in The Grow Room.
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