Basil Fried Rice with Beef
October 3, 2011 § Leave a comment
I have been on a Thai-kick lately! I mean, really, what’s more satisfying than a plate of spicy, delicious, rice/noodles/curry?
I used my creative thinking cap the other day to come up with this dish. Do you ever feel strangely proud when you’re able to use your imagination, past the age of 10? I remember when I was little, I could literally spend hours creating this magical world with my friends or by myself, and only recently realized that it is much harder than it seems! Whenever I babysit or look after little kids and they ask to play or tell them a story, I start getting a little nervous because nothing seems quite as cool or fun as the stories I used to make up. So HUGE kudos to the parents and nannies that have to do it every day. 🙂
Notes:
1. You don’t have to use an expensive cut of beef. I think the one I used was just chuck/stew meat, but the KEY THING IS to cut it as thinly as possible AGAINST THE GRAIN. Then it’ll be nice and tender and easy to chew. To make it easier to slice, you can freeze the beef a little for 1 hour before use.
2. I like a lot of egg in my fried rice, but if you don’t like it as much, you can cut down the number of eggs.
3. Depending on how spicy you like your rice, adjust the hot chili peppers accordingly. I put 3 in, with the seeds, but it wasn’t spicy at all! I think next time I will put in 5.
4. Use day-old rice, preferably chilled. It will be easier to mix.
Basil Fried Rice with Beef Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb chuck stew meat, sliced thinly against the grain
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 6 cloves of garlic, minced finely
- 3-5 jalapeno peppers, sliced thinly
- 1/2 onion, sliced thinly
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 tablespoon Golden Mountain seasoning sauce (or substitute 1 tablespoon soy sauce)
- 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 4-5 cups of day-old cooked rice
- 1 cup of loosely packed basil leaves, rinsed
- 2-3 eggs, scrambled with 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- Sriracha *optional
Directions
- Heat oil in a large wok on medium heat. Add garlic and chili peppers and cook until fragrant and lightly browned, about 30 seconds. Add onions. Cook 30 seconds.
- Increase heat to high. Add the beef, and stir until it is well mixed with the garlic, onions, and chili peppers. Then add the fish sauce, seasoning sauce, black pepper and oyster sauce, and cook until beef is cooked through, about 3-5 minutes.
- After the beef is cooked through, add the rice and break apart clumps and incorporate well into the beef and onions.
- Scramble the eggs in a separate saucepan and mix into the rice after they are just-cooked through.
- After the rice is well mixed and hot, turn off the stove and immediately add your basil leaves. Mix well, and serve! Enjoy. You can add sriracha on top if it’s not that spicy.
Thai-style Chicken with Coconut Milk Sauce – Iron Chef-Style!
July 1, 2011 § 3 Comments
Have you ever opened up the pantry and refrigerator, simply at a loss of what to make or eat? And then, reach into that very-same pantry, and pull out a package of ramyun and resign yourself to an extremely satisfying but unhealthy supper?
I grabbed that package of ramyun, and I heat the water for it. I was actually really looking forward to savoring those delicious, al dente noodles while reading THE HUNGER GAMES (freaking…AMAZING!!!) and having a relaxing night in. But then, I thought, “Stephanie, let’s have a challenge. Let’s try to make something interesting using the ingredients you have on hand.” I shut off the heat for my boiling water and looked inside my pantry and refrigerator again.
I found: a can of coconut milk, some chicken bouillon, S&B Curry, chicken breasts, garlic, green onion, an onion, leftover napa cabbage-hearts, ginger, sriracha, and peanut butter. I started to think, what could I possibly make using these, and the answer was pretty obvious – a Thai-inspired coconut chicken curry!
Then I got really excited. Challenges are good.
I was a little disappointed that I didn’t have any Thai red-curry or green-curry paste on hand (come on, doesn’t EVERYONE have this in their pantry? ;)) so I was a little wary of using my go to curry-rice S&B cubes. I decided I would save those for the very last, and only put them in if everything else turned out horribly. But this was my only “set-back”.
And after a mixture of this, and a little bit of that, I ended up with a chicken coconut “curry” (no “curry” went into the final dish, but it just sounds better) that was really delicious. I WILL TOTALLY MAKE THIS AGAIN! And perhaps I’ll even pick up some red or green curry paste next time, but I’m happy knowing that I don’t need them to make this taste phenonemal.
Thai Chicken Coconut Curry-less Curry
From my very own mind
Approximate cooking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 1.5-2 lbs chicken breast, sliced into 1-inch pieces
- 1 TB mirin (rice wine)
- 1/2 TB grated ginger
- 1/2 TB coarse sea salt
- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
- 2 TB Golden Mountain sauce
- 1 TB soy sauce
- 4 TB minced garlic
- 2 TB vegetable oil
- 1 TB sesame oil
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- Any vegetables you want, thinly sliced (*recommended: bell pepper, bok choy, mushrooms, broccoli, napa cabbage, etc)
- 2 TB Sriracha sauce
- 1 13.5 ounce-can coconut milk
- 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
- 1 cup chicken broth/stock
- 1/2 TB grated ginger
- 3 green onion stalks, thinly sliced
- Curry paste or 1/4 S&B curry cube * COMPLETELY OPTIONAL, in fact, only put it in if you don’t like how everything above tastes at the end
- Juice of 1 lemon * Also optional, cuts through the richness of the sauce a little
Directions
- Marinate chicken in rice wine, salt, pepper, ginger, Golden Mountain sauce, soy sauce for 15 minutes.
- Heat large pan with vegetable and sesame oil on high heat, add 2 TB of garlic and saute until fragrant (5-10 seconds). Add chicken and cook until golden brown.
- Remove chicken from the pan, and set aside in a bowl. Add more oil if necessary, turn the heat to medium, and add the onions and other vegetables. Cook until tender, and then add the chicken back into the pan. Stir to mix all the ingredients together, and add the sriracha. Turn off the heat.
- In a bowl, mix together the coconut milk, chicken broth, ginger, 2 TB garlic, and pepper. Whisk together.
- Turn the heat back on to medium, and carefully add the coconut-milk mixture. Mix together, and then taste. Add salt if necessary. If you’d like, you can add about 1/4 of one of the cubes of curry, but again, completely optional.
- Add green onion to the sauce, and turn off the heat. Serve with rice. Garnish with a wedge of lemon or lime.
- ENJOY!
Phat Kee Mao Gai (Thai stir-fried spicy chicken with basil)
March 24, 2011 § 1 Comment
I don’t know about you, but Thai food is an addiction of mine that I succumb to several times a week. I also have attempted to make Thai-dishes in my kitchen that have been ultimate fails, I can’t seem to recreate that amazing restaurant-flavor at home! That is…until I found this recipe and tinkered around with it, and came up with something really delicious a few days ago.
I love basil, and even moreso I love Thai-basil, which feels like basil taken up a few notches. I’m sure that this recipe could be done with American basil if you can’t find Thai-basil in your Asian supermarket, but perhaps add more of it than the recipe calls for because of the milder properties of American basil. But definitely try to find and use Thai basil.
The prik-khing paste can be found in the curry/wasabi aisle of the grocery store and I’ve added a picture of it so that you won’t be completely lost looking for this Thai-product.
Also, I added eggplant to this dish because I seriously love eggplant. I am sure you can add or not put in any vegetables in this dish, but it’s up to you really. I wish I put in more eggplant, as I only put in one, so next time I am definitely going to add more.
I also used two green serrano peppers and three red chili peppers which weren’t that spicy…but I know I have an abnormal spice-resistance so only start with a little and add more if you can handle the heat.
Phat kee mao gai (Thai stir-fried spicy chicken with chili and basil)
Adapted from Cooking with Kai
Ingredients
- 1 lb of boneless chicken thigh-meat, minced and sliced into tiny pieces
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon prik khing paste
- 2 Chinese eggplants, washed and sliced in half and then into diagonal slices
- 1/4 cup of water
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce (use 1/2 tablespoon if you don’t really like it)
- 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 cup of packed Thai basil leaves
- green and red chili peppers (according to how spicy you want it) sliced into diagonal pieces
Directions
Heat oil in large wok or pan in medium-high heat. Add the prik khing paste and stir until fragrant, around 20-30 seconds.
Add the chicken and cook for around 5 minutes until almost done, and then add the eggplants. Cook together until the eggplant is cooked through, another 4-5 minutes.
Add water, fish sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar, and stir until well-mixed and coated over the chicken and eggplant. Stir for another 30 seconds.
Add the basil, red and green chili peppers, and stir for 15 seconds. Then take off the heat and serve with rice.
Enjoy this super quick, easy, and delicious recipe!
my golden hour 