Pad Gra Prao

Sep 22

Pad Gra Prao (stir fried holy basil) is my favourite dish from Pai, one of the best Thai restaurants In Toronto. If you're in the area I recommend going for Chef Nuit's dish, but if that's not in the cards this is a dope home version. Easy to make and so damned good. Millions of cave rescue survivors can’t be wrong!

quickie

• Make the dipping sauce (nam prik pla)
• Mix the stir fry sauce
• Smash the veg
• Cook the rice
• Fry the veg and ground pork
• Fry the eggs
• Use chopsticks then blame them for being too slippery and revert to fork. Feel shame.

Serves:

• 2-3. I thought this would make enough for leftovers but it's so damned good that two of us cleaned house. Then we sat in pain for a bit.

Nutritional information:

• This dish provides 100% of your recommended daily intake of pad gra prao

Serves well with:

• An easy slaw (cabbage, carrot, cilantro, red pepper, a simple sesame oil and rice vinegar dressing, bit of honey)

Grocery List:

• 1 lb ground pork (or chicken, beef, tofu, seafood)
• 1 cup packed holy basil. *I have a hard time finding holy basil. While it's not the same, Thai or sweet basil still make for an incredible dish.
• 6-8 Thai red chillies (adjust to your heat appreciation) + 1 for the dipping sauce
• 5 cloves garlic + 1 for dipping sauce
• 2 shallots
• 1/2 lime
• Cilantro
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tsp light soy sauce
• 2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tsp fish sauce + 2 tsp for dipping sauce
• 1 tsp sugar + 1 tsp for dipping sauce
• 1 cup jasmine rice
• 2-4 eggs (1 egg per person)

Optional:
• Handful of greenbeans, cut into 1” pieces

Soy sauce differences: If you don't have both light and dark soy sauce you are ok to use one or the other. There are many types of soy sauce but the Coles notes for light and dark are that light is saltier and thinner, dark is sweeter and more rich, and if you have one and it doesn't say, it's most likely light.
You can adjust for saltiness/sweetness if you like, but in a dish like this I don't think it'll be overly noticeable.
*readily awaits getting torn apart in the comments by soy sauce purists*
Read more about the many different soy sauces here:

LESS quickie

Keys to the game:

• Use way more basil than you think is right. Use an uncomfortable amount of basil.
• Things come together quickly at the end. To avoid being a total stressbag, I recommend prepping the dipping sauce and any slaw or other side you're making ahead of time.

Process:

Make the nam prik nam pla (chilli lime fish sauce). This is a drizzle-over condiment, if that’s a term (and it definitely isn’t) and should be done to taste, but a rough starting point is:
• Juice of half a lime
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 red chilli, seeded and finely sliced
• Minced cilantro
Taste it and see if you want it more sweet, sour, fishy, spicy, uh.. cilantro-ey…. I prefer it a bit sour with this meal since pad gra prao is a very full flavoured sweet and salty dish.

Stir fry sauce: Mix the soy sauces, fish sauce, oyster sauce and sugar into a small bowl to give the sugar time to dissolve. Set aside.

Smash up the shallots, garlic and chillies. You can either mince them with a knife or pound them into a paste in a mortar and pestle. I like to do half minced and half pounded but one or the other works just fine.

I use this rice method but have adjusted the amount for this recipe as follows:
Rinse 1 cup of jasmine rice in cold water. Bring the rice and 1-1/3 cups water to a boil, then cover and turn down to a simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and leave covered for 5 minutes or until you're ready to serve it.

While the rice is cooking, heat a glug of vegetable oil in a wok or skillet on medium. Add the smashed up veg and fry for about 2-3 minutes, until it's starting to turn golden.

Turn it up to med/high, toss in the ground pork and break it up. Fry it for about 8-10 minutes until it's starting to turn brown and crispy in spots, then add in the stir fry sauce. If you’re using greenbeans toss them in now as well.

While the pork is cooking, heat up a few heavy glugs of vegetable oil in a small pan on med/high to fry the eggs. To get a proper crispy egg you need a fair amount of oil, roughly 1/4" in the pan. When the pork is nearly done fry the eggs for about 1 minute, until the edges are turning brown and crispy but the yolk is still soft.

Depending on the fat content of the pork the pan can get a bit dry, in which case you can add a splash of water. When the pork is as cooked or crispy as you want it turn the heat off and toss in the basil. Mix it up and let the basil wilt for a minute.