This is my favorite Thai takeout dish, so why not try to make it myself? Well, it’s been a long journey, hamstrung by a lack of certain ingredients, but I finally managed. Those ingredients, by the way, are:
- Chicken, minced, 2 pounds
- Bell peppers, 1-2
- Mushrooms, 1-2 cartons
- Onions, 1-2
- Jalapeno peppers, 3-12 (depending on how hot you want it!)
- Hot basil leaves, 2 cups
- Sugar, 4 tablespoons
- Fish sauce, 1/2 cup
- Oil
- Canned green peppercorns, 2 teaspoons
- Shallots, 8, minced
- Garlic, 12 cloves, minced
The ingredients.
The first one you may have trouble locating is canned green peppercorns. I had to go to an Asian market to obtain mine.
Peppercorns.
But the other was harder still – hot basil, otherwise known as holy basil, or tulsi. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I ultimately bought some seeds and grew my own. Which, you know, took a while, but the results were delicious.
Happy hot basil.
The prunings.
Once you’ve assembled your ingredients, the first step is to blend. Some recipes alternately call for mashing with a mortar and pestle, but I decided to blend instead. Blend what, you ask? The shallots, the hot peppers, the garlic, and the peppercorns.
Pre-blend.
When you do you’ll get a paste like this:
Post-blend.
Add that paste to your wok, after you’ve heated some oil.
In the wok.
After you’ve warmed the paste for a minute or so, add in the chicken, sugar, and fish sauce.
Adding the chicken.
Heat until the chicken is cooked.
Chicken, cooked.
Then add in the veggies you’ve prepared.
Veggies!
Veggies!
When they’ve cooked down to your desired level of tenderness, add the basil leaves.
So, so delicious.
Finally, serve over rice – with a fried egg on top, if you wish.
Still not as good as takeout – but yummy nonetheless.