The "Original" Thai Basil Stir Fry (Pad Kra Pao)

Sawaddee Ka

welcome to hot Thai Kitchen so a lot of people talk about Pad Thai being the national dish of

Thailand but I am here to tell you that there's no other dish more deserving of that title than what

we're gonna make today Pad Gaprao or holy basil stir fry with the fried egg on top of course it's

ubiquitous in Thailand we eat it way more than Pad Thai and I don't know a single Thai person that

doesn't love this dish now I have made this dish before but that recipe is sort of like a modern

day version of it today I'm going to show you the original the old school version that's actually

simpler but just as tasty let's get started Pad Gaprao is spicy so the first thing we're going

to deal with is Thai chilies now you can add as many as you can tolerate but this should be

spicy okay so I'm gonna get this pounded into a fine paste so there are no big surprising chunks

and try not to look at it when you're doing this in case it jumps into your eye

just like that chili Skin's totally okay but no big chunks lots of garlic going in and also some

milder chilies I'm adding two different types of chilies because pad kaprow is a dish with a lot

of chili flavor in it now if you don't tolerate a lot of spice that's a problem because you can only

add a little bit then there's really no chili flavor coming through so by adding two types

A milder one and a spicy one we can get around that I'm just gonna get this into a rough paste

thank you okay just like that this is the base of our stir fry right there

so we're making pad kaprao, kaprow means holy basil which I can't find here in Vancouver yeah

but you probably can't find it either unless you live in Thailand so I'm going to show you two good

options if you want to use a Thai ingredient you can use Thai Basil which is much more available

the thing is the flavor of Thai Basil isn't that close to holy basil your regular old Italian basil

that you can find anywhere is going to have a closer flavor to pad kaprao so I generally go

with this one it's also much easier to find but if you do use Thai Basil it'll be delicious and your

local Thai restaurant is probably using Thai Basil in their padka pow all right let's get cooking I

am making pad gaprao neua today and neua means beef now with beef I have a bit of a different

technique to pull out that beefy flavor that is different from when I made pad gaprao with chicken

so I'm gonna get the wok really really hot the wok is starting to smoke I'm gonna add the beef

thin that sizzle is exactly what I want to hear and what I'm trying to do is develop some

Browning on this beef because if I just cook it until it's cooked then you have sort of an

equivalent of foiled beef right and that's not good beefy flavor so you want to get it browned

you get that nice hamburger flavor it'll make a big difference okay I'm gonna give this a flip

definitely has more to go so I'm going to give it a toss and then re-spread it and let it sear

again what's going to happen halfway through is the beef is going to start releasing liquid and

as soon as that liquid comes out you're not going to get any Browning okay don't worry

it's totally normal we're just going to let it cook until all that water evaporates and

then the beef can start searing again so it'll sear in the beginning and it won't

stare in the middle and it'll sear again at the end yeah give it a stir every once in a while

you can see my beef is getting a little wet now so at this moment I'm not worried about it searing I

just need it to dry the sound is going to start to change from sort of simmering to sizzling