We love foreign food! You name it, we eat it! Chinese, Thai, Indian, Mexican, African … we are willing to try just about anything. But Asian food is hands down our favorite. We rarely try an Asian dish that we don’t love!
But this is not how I (Cherie) was raised. Even though I lived 6 of my growing up years in Haiti, my cultural palate was very limited. We ate lots of the local food, because we had a Haitian cook who was amazing! We also ate a lot of American, some Mexican (tacos), and every once in awhile my mom would sneak in an African dish. She was a missionary kid in Africa, but my dad wasn’t a huge fan of spicy food. One meal that really stuck out to me growing up was the one time we ate an Indian meal at one of our friend’s home. Oh my goodness!!!! It was so spicy!!!! I cried as I ate it and I am not sure I even ate very much of it. The best part of the meal was the yogurt milk at the end of the meal to cool our burning tongues. Although I did not like that experience at all, the heat intrigued me! How did people in other countries eat spice like that all of the time??!!!
Outside of that experience, my familiarity with Asian food was limited to a Chinese buffet that we occasionally went to on a Sunday afternoon. I only ate the few dishes that I was familiar with and that I knew were not spicy.
Bland food was my comfort zone…until he came along.
He, being my husband.
Our first date was to a Chinese restaurant. Not a buffet. A restaurant. One you sit down in and have to order from a menu. So I made him order something for me and I even tried a little spice. He made me eat with chop sticks and taught me how to use them properly. And thus my introduction to foods of the world began!
On one of my first visits to Ben’s parents’ home, his dad made one of their favorites: Spicy Fish. I felt like my mouth was on fire!!! But I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the flavor!
On one of my next visits, Pop made Thai Chicken Basil. I had tasted a few Thai dishes during a
mission’s conference at my home church. It was very yummy, but was not spicy. This dish was spicy, but delicious. Of course I avoided the spicy sauce that they had to put on top of it.
Since being married to Ben, I have continued to be introduced to all kinds of food from all over the world. And as the years have passed, I have grown to love spicy food. I even crave it when I am pregnant! Ben’s dad loves to try a new dish at a restaurant and then work to duplicate or improve on it to make it as authentic as possible. We love being his guinea pigs as he experiments! But Thai Basil Chicken is still one of my favorite dishes that he has introduced to me.
One of the main ingredients in Thai Basil Chicken is Thai basil leaves. You can buy these leaves at many international stores, especially ones that sell Asian food. Because we love this dish so much, we
decided to grow it this year. Thai Basil grows very well in North Carolina and is fairly low maintenance. Other than watering and weeding around it, the only other thing you need to do is keep the flowers picked off it so that it keeps growing leaves.
I decided that if we were going to grow it, then I needed to learn to make Thai Basil Chicken. I had watched Pop make it a few times and I had written some notes down, but when I looked at those notes, they were indecipherable. So I called Pop. He sent me two recipes that he used as guides and then he walked me through how he makes it. I found all three to be pretty different. I also knew I needed to tame the heat down for my kids. So I came up with my own version of this recipe.
From Plant…
The first step of course is harvesting the leaves from the Thai basil plant. The first time I made this dish from our leaves, our plants were very small so we just picked individual leaves from the 4 plants that we have. Now that they are big and have lots of leaves, we pick whole stems off of the plants and pull the leaves off later. I always rinse them off before I use them to make sure there is no dirt on them.
Then I prep all the food and get everything out that I need. I like to let the chicken marinate as long as I can, so I do that first.
After I have everything prepped, I fry some basil leaves for garnish and just to add a little crunch to each plate. I love the way that the leaves look after they are fried. Pop likes to garnish with cilantro and raw basil leaves. We don’t have cilantro in the house very often, so I usually don’t. In future years, we may grow our own cilantro and then it will become an essential to this recipe for us.
The easiest way to cook this recipe is in a wok. We did not have one of these growing up, but I can’t imagine trying to cook this recipe or any other Asian food in anything else! It makes it so much easier!
While the chicken cooks, I prepare the Spicy Sauce. We always serve the Spicy Sauce with this dish, because my husband and I like the spice. We also like the added flavor of fish sauce and lemon juice. Some recipes call for fish sauce in the main dish. I tried this once, but it made the dish too salty. I also wanted to keep this recipe very basic so it was easy to make and not complicated.
When I triple or quadruple this recipe (remember, we have a big family and we like to entertain!) I cook the chicken in batches. It is important to remember that you are stir-frying the chicken, not deep frying it. If you are like me, you don’t measure the oil when you put it in the wok, so make sure you don’t put too much in.
This picture includes the Spicy Sauce
I have mixed the oyster sauce and sugar right before I put it into the wok, but it is much better to mix it at the beginning and let it sit while you do everything else. It helps make sure the sugar is completely dissolved before adding it to the chicken.
Before I even start cooking in the wok, I start the rice cooker. I used to just cook my rice on the stove, but it takes a lot of attention and it is hard to get it perfect. I was so excited to get my rice cooker! All I have to do is measure the rice and water and turn it on. 20 minutes later, Voila! Perfectly cooked rice. Every time! Jasmine rice is the preferred rice for Asian food. Once you start using it, it is very likely that you will never use white rice again. It is so much better!
To Plate!
Once you are done cooking, it is time to serve the food. I like to make everyone’s plate, because I like to make it pretty! I start with a bed of rice, then I put the Thai basil chicken over it. I arrange a few leaves on top and there you have it: a beautiful plate of Kid-Friendly Thai Basil Chicken! I let everyone add their own Spicy Sauce!
This popular Thai recipe that uses the flavorful Thai Basil leaves is typically a spicy dish. This recipe removes the heat without losing the flavor that makes this dish so amazing!
- 1 lb. Chicken breast ground or chopped small
- 2 tbsp. White cooking wine
- 4 cloves Garlic minced
- 2-3 tbsp. Oil peanut or vegetable
- 1 bunch Thai basil leaves
- 1 Carrot thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp. Oyster sauce
- 1/2 tsp. Sugar
- 1 Lemon
- Fish sauce
- 3-6 Thai chili peppers sliced into circles
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Mix chicken, white wine, and 1 clove minced garlic and let marinate while prepping everything else.
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Mix oyster sauce and sugar together in a small bowl and set aside.
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Rinse Thai basil leaves and remove from stalks. Dry thoroughly with a paper towel.
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Heat oil over medium heat in a wok. To test that the oil is hot enough, put a small piece of bread in the oil. If it is hot enough, the bread will start to brown right away.
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Place desired amount of basil leaves in oil to fry for garnish. I usually do 15 to 20 leaves. This step is optional, but we like the look and extra crunch. Fry for only 2-3 minutes. Remove the leaves and set to the side.
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Place the remaining garlic, the chicken and the carrots in the wok. Cook until chicken is no longer pink on the inside and carrots are soft.
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Add oyster sauce mixture and stir to coat chicken.
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Add remainder of Thai basil leaves. Cook for a few more minutes. Remove from heat.
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Mix equal parts lemon juice and fish sauce.
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Add sliced Thai chili peppers.
Serve over Jasmine rice. Garnish with fried Thai basil leaves. To add spice, serve with Spicy Sauce. We love this dish so much that I usually triple this recipe for my family of 7. I quadruple it if my eldest son is visiting!
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