Stir fried basil – Phad Ga Prao – ผัดกะเพรา

What does a Thai person order when in doubt? Exactly, Phad Ga Prao. Often with minced pork, but as well with a myriad of other proteins like chicken, fish and shrimp.

It’s a really easy dish to prepare and really difficult to ruin.
You can find this dish in many different spellings on the English version of the menus in Thailand, like Pad Ka Prao, Phad Kra Pao and many more but the one most closely resembling the Thai pronunciation is probably the Pad Ga Prao.

Holy Basil

The main ingredient, holy basil or “Bai Ga Prao” is sometimes not easy to find in Western countries. However, due to it’s medicinal properties it gets more and more widely available. It’s possible to replace it with Thai sweet basil / purple basil but it’s just not the real thing. The flower is in appearance closer to the European basil than sweet basil and the most distinctive feature are the jagged edges of the leaves. It is home to tropical Asia and has been grown here for more than 3,000 years.

The recipe shown is the most popular version of this dish: Phad Ga Prao Moo with “moo” meaning pork in Thai.

Phad Ga Prao / Stir fry with basil leaves

Course

Main Dish

Cuisine

Thai

Servings

Ingredients

500 g porc or beef, sliced chicken, fish or tofu
5 Chillies
4 cloves garlic mashed
1 cup Thai basil also named holy basil, if not available 1 1/2 Cups sweet basil
1 Onion rough chopped
2 tblsp Soy sauce
1 tblsp Oyster sauce
1/2 tblsp Dark soy sauce
3 tblsp sugar
Cooking oil
Water

Course

Main Dish

Cuisine

Thai

Servings

Ingredients

500 g porc or beef, sliced chicken, fish or tofu
5 Chillies
4 cloves garlic mashed
1 cup Thai basil also named holy basil, if not available 1 1/2 Cups sweet basil
1 Onion rough chopped
2 tblsp Soy sauce
1 tblsp Oyster sauce
1/2 tblsp Dark soy sauce
3 tblsp sugar
Cooking oil
Water

Instructions

Ingredients for the dish
Heat the oil in a wok and add garlic and chillies
Add minced porc
Add soy sauce, dark soy sauce...
Phad Ga Prao is served with rice and often with a fried egg on top

Thai cooking course – Phad King Gai (ผัดขิงไก่)

Thai Ginger Chicken is a Chinese influenced Thai dish with high popularity all over the country and in Laos. Phad King is as well prepared with a variety of other meats like pork and beef or as well vegetarian with tofu. The most important ingredient is the Ginger which gives this Thai dish it’s unique characteristic taste. It is served with rice.

Thai Ginger Chicken

The pictures show a slight variation of the recipe with no mushrooms, but sweet corn and a few other amendments. Feel free to experiment yourself since ingredients for every recipe in the world are not written in stone, but a very important thing in good cooking is choosing the freshest ingredients.