Hubby and I really love Thai food, so once settled down we searched all over for ingredients for some of our favorite Thai dishes. Given the absence of herbs like Thai basil leaves (has purplish stalk, sharper fragrance and spicy flavor in comparison to the sweet basil) as well as my wok, I think we made out okay although it could have been better.
Here's my recipe for Thai Basil Chicken (or beef, your choice).
Ingredients:
- Chicken, 1 lb. dark meat
- Garlic, 1 large clove, chopped
- Bell peppers, 1/2 green, 1/2 red, sliced
- Onion, 1/2 large, sliced
- Bamboo shoots, fresh sliced, or 1 can of pre-sliced strips
- Thai basil, a handful, rinsed and pat dry. If Thai basil is not available, in a pinch you can substitute with sweet basil. I had to use sweet basil for the dish pictured. The flavor is weaker but it still tasted pretty good. I'd rather substitute with sweet basil than having no basil at all in the dish.
- Optional: fresh chili peppers, chopped
Seasonings:
- Southeast Asian soy sauce, preferably Golden Mountain brand, 1-2 Tablespoons, to taste.
***Picture from Amazon.com.
Please note that the Golden Mountain bottle says "Seasoning Sauce" and not "Soy Sauce." Growing up, "seasoning sauce" (nước tương - a colloquial Southern Vietnamese term) and "soy sauce" (xì dầu, a more generally used term derived from the Cantonese pronunciation of 豉油) are both synonymous in the Vietnamese language. This is why I call the Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce "soy sauce." Taste and ingredients wise, there's a difference in most Southeast Asian soy sauce and the more well known Kikkoman soy sauce, and many Southeast Asian soy sauce contain ingredients other than fermented soy beans and salt. This is the reason I caution you to check the ingredients of your soy sauce bottle to make sure it is vegetarian. Sometimes it's not just Southeast Asian soy sauces that contain non-vegetarian ingredients, and the innocent-looking Kikkoman soy sauce may contain fish extract (dashi) as well!
- Thai fish sauce, preferably Squid brand, 2-4 Tablespoons, to taste. The ratio is 1soy:2fish, so if you add 2 Tablespoons of soy sauce, then you must use 4 Tablespoons of fish sauce.
***Picture from squidbrand.com.
- Sugar, preferable dark brown, but regular sugar is fine too, 1 teaspoon, add more if you use more soy and fish sauce.
Steps:
- Heat oil in wok, quickly brown garlic
- Add onions and small amount of sauce, stir fry for a couple minutes
- Add bamboo shoots, red, green bell peppers, and another small amount of sauce, stir fry for a couple more minutes
- Add chicken (and chopped chili peppers if use) and the rest of the sauce, stir fry until chicken is done
- Turn off heat, throw in basil and mix them in with the dish
- Serve hot on Jasmine rice.
Yes, I know the dish I made doesn't look very appetizing being in a metal pot and lack some coloring from the red bell peppers. But hey, at least it doesn't taste bad :P
Hubby and I have only 1 favorite Thai restaurant of all time, and it's not even a restaurant but rather a small, hole-in-the-wall-ish stand in a college town food court! We've known about this place since our undergrad days and we discovered it by following a bunch of Thai international students to see where they hang out and have lunch LOL! And what a gem we found because to date, we have not eaten better Thai food than at Thai Avenue! No matter where we go, no other places could compare to the food we had at here and we never miss a visit (or 2, or 3, or 4 visits) whenever we are in town.
If you are ever in Boulder and need a quick and cheap lunch, you must check this place out!Thai Avenue is located in the basement food court on The Hill, across from the CU Bookstore at the College Avenue and Broadway intersection. The owner Kim is some of the nicest people we know!
Thai Avenue
1310 College Ave
Boulder, CO 80302-7394
(303) 443-1737
Dishes I recommend:
- Red Curry with chicken (no picture, sorry!)
- Tom yum koong
They can make your dish as spicy or as mild as you wish. And I do not recommend asking for "Thai spicy." The last time I did that, they added an equivalent of half a cup of chopped fresh chili peppers and all I could take was 3 bites - and if you know me in person, you'd know that I'm very tolerant when it comes to spicy food. So spare yourself some pain and just don't ask for it.
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