Stir-Fried Pork With Basil Leave

Stir-fried Pork with Basil Leave (Pad Gra Prao) is one of the most common street/household food in Thailand. It’s usually served as a quick one-dish meal eaten with white rice and usually topped with an extra fried egg. And since I have some Thai Sweet Basil left over from preparing the Thai Green Curry (recipe HERE), I decided use them for this stir-fried pork with basil leave to go with the curry.

These are the ingredients and steps on preparing the minced pork with basil leaves:-

Ingredients: (serves 2)
300g Ground Pork
1 Cup Thai Sweet Basil Leaves
4 Cloves Garlic, finely chopped
2 - 3 shallots, finely slices
2 Tablespoon Cooking Oil
2 Tablespoon Thai Fish Sauce
2 Teaspoon Dark Soy Sauce
1/2 Teaspoon Sugar
2 - 3 Tablespoon Water
2 Small Chili, roughly chopped
Dash of Pepper

Note:

~ You can get Thai basil leave from certain supermarket or vegetables stall in the wet market but if you cannot find you can consider to replace it with the sweet basil for.
~ You can always substitute pork with either chicken or beef depending on your preference.
~ Add more chopped chillies for a spicier taste or to reduce the spiciness, remove the seeds from the chillies or substitute with red capsicum.

With all the essential ingredients to prepare this dish, you can always whipped up this easy one dish meal in less than 15 minutes and serve it with some steam rice and the traditional Thai-style of having a fried egg on the side.

Method:
1. Pick the clean leaves from the basil stalks and discard the hard stems, rinse and set aside.
2. Heat up the wok with oil till hot, throw in chopped garlic, shallot and chillies and stir-fry for a few second till light brown.
3. Add the ground pork and stir-fry until the pork changes colour (try to loosen the pork while cooking to prevent lumps) then add sugar, dark soy sauce and fish sauce; continue to stir and mix well to allow the pork to absorb the seasoning.
4. Next add is water and basil leaves, stir-fry for a few seconds or until the leaves are wilted then sprinkle with dash of pepper.
5. Serve this with steam white rice and a fried egg on top.

Basil is more than just a herb for cooking as it has numerous heath benefits which often recommended by herbalists for use to treat nausea and motion sickness. Or you can even try basil leaf tea which is said to be good for people who suffered from fatigue, insomnia or painful menstruation. So with all these positive benefits of this herb I suppose it could be a good idea to incorporate it into some of our dishes to benefit our health in a way or two.