'Tis the season for cooking Thai!
Of course you can cook Thai food all year round but some important herbs are noticeably seasonal in New Zealand so the menu of possible dishes increases markedly during summer. The two main seasonal things I use are lemongrass and basil. Lemongrass you can get away with because there are frozen stalks available all year and they'll do for a lot of things. But basil...
Thai Basil is one of the essential tastes of Thai cooking and it absolutely has to be fresh. Actually Thai cooking uses two main types of basil:
Thai Basil is the one that tastes of aniseed; it is quite widely available and you can grow your own during summer. Katikati's Liberty Growers sell it at the Tauranga Farmers Market and you can find it at Gilmours and good herb suppliers.
Holy Basil leaves have a slightly "furrier" surface and look "rougher" around the edges; it is damn near impossible to obtain unless you grow your own and has a slightly bitter, "dirty" taste.
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| Thai Basil |
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| Holy Basil |
Because Holy Basil is relatively rare, many Thai dishes you find in New Zealand use Thai Basil for what should authentically be Holy Basil. This is one of them. But I must confess I don't actually like Holy Basil that much so I'm more than happy to make the switch.
Bottom line, there's a long winter when quite a few Thai dishes aren't really worth cooking (unless you have a greenhouse and year-round supply of these groovy herbs...).
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But now summer is here! Last week I found a bag of Thai Basil at Gilmours, so I immediately made two of my absolutely favourite dishes. Or at least my Not-At-All-Authentic versions of them. Both are incredibly simple. And absolutely delicious.
I'll start with the chicken one. You will - as the name suggests - need Chilli Jam. It is available from all Asian stores under several names, sometimes Roast Chilli Paste and this particular one Chili Paste With Soya Bean Oil. It is cheap and lasts forever.
- 400g boneless chicken thighs
1/2 red capsicum- 1/2 carrot
- 1/2 red onion
- 3 Tbs cooking oil
- 2 Tbs garlic, chopped
- 2 Tbs Chilli jam
- Big handful Thai Basil
Sauce
2tsp Fish Sauce- 2 Tbs Oyster Sauce
- 60ml coconut milk
- 1 tsp white sugar
- Mix the sauce ingredients.
- Slice chicken and vegetables.
- Get a frying pan quite hot.
- Add oil and fry garlic and chilli jam until garlic starts to brown, a minute maybe.
- Add chicken, fry for 2 or 3 minutes till it changes colour, stirring.
- Add vegetables, fry for another minute or 2 until just starting to soften.
- Add sauce, stir in, cook for about 30 seconds till it's reduced and coating everything.
- Quickly stir in basil, maybe save a few leaves to garnish.
- Serve with rice.
NOTE: The uncooked mixed sauce smells quite unpleasant to some noses. That'll be the fish sauce. I once gave some premixed sauce to a friend so she could cook this and she threw it away because she thought it was "off". Don't worry - the smell disappears with cooking.
ANOTHER NOTE: Thai cuisine is one of the few to cook garlic to a "nutty" brown stage. Here, as soon as you see the garlic get a hint of brown when frying, add the chicken.
MOST IMPORTANT NOTE: Neither of these two Basils are much like the Basil you use in Italian food, often called Sweet or Genovese Basil. It is not a good substitute. Save that one for tomatoes and mozzarella.
FINAL NOTE: Success here comes from cutting the vegetables into slices of a size at which they all cook evenly. I find cutting carrots into thin oval slices on the diagonal and then in half works well (see the pic). Other veges can be added or substituted - if adding broccoli, beans, green capsicum or slower-cooking veges, give them a quick fry or blanch in advance.
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