Chicken with Snake Beans and Thai Basil - 5 stars

this is one of my most favorite thai dishes to make. it always tastes incredibly fresh and healthy, and it's really quite simple to make.

i may have talked about this before, but i'm going to say it again anyway. :-) one of the most important things to do that will make your stir-fry a tasty success is to prep all your ingredients before you even begin cooking. if you look at the recipe below, there's only a minute or two between each addition of ingredients, which means you wouldn't have time to chop them up as you go. i normally read through the recipe as i prep all the ingredients, and combine the ones that are added at the same time into a bowl. i line up all my ingredient bowls by the stove in the order that they're going to be added to the dish. then when i'm actually stir-frying, i just dump the right bowl of stuff into the wok at the right time and toss the empty bowls into the sink.

here is a picture from a couple years ago when my friend suraj and i made an incredible thai feast. as you can see, our prep bowls are all lined up and ready to be stir-fried together. :)



i doubled this chicken recipe so that we'd have lots of leftovers. to make it, i chopped up a couple pounds of chicken breast, stir-fried it in batches until lightly browned, and removed it from the wok. i then stir-fried together crushed garlic, sliced green onion, sliced snake beans and red chili pepper for a minute. then came some fresh basil and mint, and a mixture of fish sauce, oyster sauce, lime juice, palm sugar and water, cooked for another minute or two, and voila! all done. i served it with steamed rice. here it is in the wok. mmmmmmm. so fresh and tasty!




Chicken with Thai Basil
(Gai paht bai graproa)

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Total cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves 4

(I doubled these quantities below to make what you see in the above picture.)

1/4 c peanut oil
1 lb chicken breast fillets, cut into thin strips
1 clove garlic, crushed
4 spring onions, thinly sliced
5 oz snake beans, trimmed and cut into 5 cm lengths
2 small fresh red chillies, thinly sliced
3/4 c tightly packed fresh thai basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
2 teaspoons lime juice
1 tablespoon grated palm sugar
fresh thai basil, extra, to garnish

1. heat a wok over high heat, add 1 tbsp of the oil and swirl to coat. cook the chicken in batches for 3-5 minutes each batch, or until lightly browned and almost cooked - add more oil if needed. remove from the wok.

2. heat the remaining oil. add the garlic, onion, snake beans and chilli, and stir-fry for 1 minute, or until onion is tender. return the chicken to the work.

3. toss in the basil and mint, then add the combined fish sauce, oyster sauce, lime juice, palm sugar and 2 tablespoons of water and cook for 1 minute. garnish with the extra basil and serve with jasmine rice.