Recipes below.

Back in college, I spent a semester in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  I was studying sustainable development and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), and the semester gave me a global context for the work I went on to do in the nonprofit world.  I met a lot of fantastic people, learned some Thai, and found myself at home on the other side of the world from where I’d always lived.

And, of course, I ate a lot of really good food.  Thailand destroyed my vegetarianism with a stroke of gai yang, the rotisserie chicken we’d buy in the market and eat with sticky rice, dipping sauce, and a salad called som tam.  There was kao soi, the Chiang Mai specialty, a red curry soup with egg noodles.  There was the sweetest pineapple I’d ever tasted.  There were the roasted sticks of kao lam, bamboo stuffed with sticky rice and red bean.  And then there was grapao gai, basil chicken.

My fellow student Jane was so enamored of basil chicken, we started calling her Grapao Gai.  She was addicted, sometimes eating it for several different meals a day.  It’s a simple dish: ground chicken, chilis, onion, garlic, fish sauce and a lot of basil, served over rice.  If you’re lucky, you can get it with a fried sunny-side-up egg.

There was just one problem.  I cook some Thai food and enjoy a few local Thai restaurants, but these days I try to avoid fried food in most restaurants because of bad oils.  A lot of Thai food is cooked in ‘vegetable’ oil like soybean or canola, which you’ve probably figured out I think is poison.  It’s highly processed, full of the wrong kinds of fats, and heavy on the omega-6 instead of omega-3 fatty acids.  But what to substitute?  Olive oil gives Thai food entirely the wrong taste. 

Then it hit me: unrefined coconut oil.  I love this oil.  It’s a natural, saturated fat historically eaten by a number of healthy traditionally-living cultures.  Plus, the flavor goes well with Thai food, which already uses generous amount of coconut milk in many dishes.  I pulled out some coconut oil and got to work.

Here is my take on basil chicken with fried egg, and basil chicken fried rice you can make with any leftovers the next day.

Basil Chicken (grapao gai) w/ fried egg (kai dao)

1 pound ground chicken, preferably dark meat

1 large bunch basil, preferably Thai basil or “holy basil”

Several small, hot Thai chilis to taste

Fish sauce to taste

Garlic

Shallot or onion

Lime juice - at least one lime, to taste

Coconut oil

1 egg per person

Jasmine rice, 1/4 to 1/3 cup per person

Optional: Other vegetables chopped small, like green beans, broccoli or mushrooms

Update: I’ve since been adding diced carrot and find the sweetness goes really well in this dish.

Soak jasmine rice for 12-24 hours, rinsing once if you’re soaking the full 24.  Chop any vegetables you’re using in small pieces.  In a pan or wok, heat coconut oil and add onion or shallot.  Cook for a few minutes, and add garlic, other vegetables, and dashes of fish sauce and chopped chilis.  Add ground chicken and more fish sauce, and a little more coconut oil if needed too.  Cook until chicken is browned and starting to form a sauce with the fish sauce.  Stir in basil leaves and let leaves wilt.  Add lime juice, stir and taste.  Adjust seasonings, and serve.

For kai dao/fried egg:  This name means “star egg” because of the cheerful appearance of the puffy, sunny side up egg.  In a wok or small pan, heat a thick pool of coconut oil.  When oil is hot, add the egg and a few dashes of fish sauce onto the egg.  As the egg cooks, use a spatula to push the sides in slightly, causing them to puff.  You can also spoon some hot oil over the egg.  The result should be a just-barely-cooked yolk with puffy white all around it.  Spoon it onto the top of basil chicken with rice, or other Thai dish, and serve.

Basil Chicken Fried Rice (Kao pad grapao gai)

Leftover basil chicken and rice

1-2 eggs per person

coconut oil

lime juice

a few hot chilis

Optional: chopped carrot, onion and tomato

If you make it through a round of basil chicken with leftovers of both chicken and rice, you can turn the leftovers into fried rice the next day in a matter of minutes.  Fried rice works much better with day-old rice than with fresh rice.

Version without carrot, onion and tomato:

Heat coconut oil on high heat in a wok or frying pan.  Crack in eggs and shake in some fish sauce.  Stir the eggs until they’re just starting to cook.  Add all your leftovers and fry, letting the rice brown in some spots.  Add lime juice and serve with a bowl of fish sauce with a few chopped hot chilis floating in it.

Version with carrot, onion and tomato:

Slice onion and tomato and dice carrots.  Follow recipe above, but begin with onions, carrots and wok in the pan.  Add fish sauce and, after a few moments, the egg.  Add chopped tomatoes a few minutes after adding the leftovers. 

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