Phat kaphrao

Profile#

This recipe brings you the authentic taste of Thai cuisine. It is best to use a wok on a gas flame. This makes it easier to achieve the required heat. If you don’t have a wok yet, I can recommend this one. Just contact me if you need tips on seasoning the wok. If done correctly you will have a perfect cooking utensil that will be a lot of fun.
Crucial to the flavor in this recipe is the use of Holy Basil from India. It tastes different than the ‘normal’ Thai basil that is widely used here. You can buy Holy Basil sometimes (they don’t have it all the time) e.g. in the Asia market in Olching. You can find it here:

If you can’t get Holy Basil, you can also use ‘normal’ Thai basil that you can get in any Asia market, but then some of the authenticity is lost. Gas burners are also not very expensive. You can get them in every bigger Asia market (unfortunately not in Olching).
One more thing: Prepare everything before you start cooking and put the ingredients in the order you need them. It all goes very quickly and you have to stir a lot.

Ingredients#

• 1 bunch Holy Basil, alternatively Thai Basil
• 1 bunch of long beans
• 2-5 chili as you like it
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 1 onion
• 400g chicken breast, if there is more the amount of sauce has to be adjusted as well

For the sauce#

• 1 TBSP Light soy sauce
• 1 TBSP Dark soy sauce
• 1,5 TBSP Oyster sauce
• 2 TBSP Fish sauce
• 2 TBSP Water
• 1,5 TBSP Sugar

Let’s go#

The ingredients:

Cut the chicken into thin strips and then cut them again into small columns. Everything must be very small and if that takes too long you can use minced chicken instead.

Pluck the leaves from the Holy Basil, wash and spin dry.

Wash the long beans and cut them into small pieces, dice the onion. You will need the two ingredients separately later but you can put them together (separately) on a plate.

Roughly chop the chilli and garlic and then process into a paste in a mortar.

Finally, mix the sauce together and dissolve the sugar. Prepare all ingredients right beside the wok.

Here we go and it will be very quick. Bring the wok to high heat, add a little oil and stir-fry the long beans for about 2 minutes.

Remove the long beans from the wok, briefly turning off the flame. Now fry the chili garlic mixture under medium heat for 30 seconds to 1 minute until the garlic is lightly browned. Always stir vigorously so that it does not burn.

Add the chicken. Since I had more chicken I sauteed the chili garlic mixture and the meat in two portions. Otherwise, the temperature goes down too far. Stir constantly.

Then put both portions back together in the wok and add the sauce to it.

Stir the meat several times. It should be coated all around by the sauce.

Now add the onions and the beans. As you will probably already guess, it is stirred vigorously again.

Last but not least, turn off the flame and mix in the Holy Basil.

Ready is a really good dish that so far everyone has tasted fantastic.

The dish goes well with sautéed Chinese spinach.