Colm O'Gorman's twist on a stirfry favourite — Thai Pork and 'Unholy' Basil

This is a very quick and easy dish to make. Serve it with plain rice and a stir-fried green on the side

Pad Kra Pao — Pork with Holy Basil — is one of my favourite Thai stir-fry dishes. As the name suggests, holy basil is the key ingredient in this dish. This Asian variety of basil has a fabulous aniseed or liquorice flavour with a hint of mint. 

It is a fabulous herb but can be hard to source locally as a fresh herb here in Ireland. Larger Asian supermarkets will stock it, so I usually grab some whenever I visit one and make this dish.

I had a hankering for it recently, but could not get hold of any holy basil, so I decided to experiment and see if I could recreate it using some other herbs and spices. 

I settled on using regular European basil, some fresh mint leaves, and some star anise and fennel seed as substitutions for the holy basil. It worked beautifully. The star anise and fennel brought the lovely aniseed flavour that is so important for this dish, and the basil and mint brought lots of lovely herbaceous freshness.

All the ingredients in my recipe below, including the oyster sauce, are readily available in local supermarkets.

I cannot call this recipe Pork with Holy Basil for obvious reasons, pendants and purists will be all over me if I do, so instead I present to you my recipe for Thai Pork with Unholy Basil!

This is a very quick and easy dish to make. Serve it with plain rice and a stir-fried green on the side. Some Bok Choy would be perfect. 

Cook the Bok Choy immediately after you have finished making the stir-fried pork. It will only take a few minutes to prepare. Begin by washing the Bok Choy, just give it a quick rinse under a running tap. Cut each head into halves or quarters lengthwise depending on their size. Peel and thinly slice a few plump cloves of garlic. Heat a wok over a high heat and add a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil. Pop the Bok Choy and the sliced garlic into the wok and stir fry for two to three minutes, taking care not to burn the garlic or it will become bitter. Reduce the heat to medium and add a splash of soy sauce. Stir fry for just one more minute to coat the greens and remove from the heat. Serve immediately.

Thai Pork and 'Unholy' Basil

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

Serve it with plain rice and a stir-fried green on the side.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 15 mins

Total Time

 25 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 3 shallots

• 2 cloves garlic

• 2 red chillies

• 2 tbsp toasted sesame oil

• 500g pork mince

• 1 star anise

• 1 tsp fennel seed

• 1 tbsp fish sauce

• 2 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp oyster sauce

• 1 tsp caster sugar

• 80ml water

• 20g fresh basil leaves

• A small handful of fresh mint leaves

Method

1. Peel and slice the shallots. Peel and thinly slice or chop the garlic. Wash and slice the chillies. I like this dish to be quite hot and spicy, so I use the whole chillies. If you prefer less heat, deseed the chillis before you slice them. Wash the herbs, discarding the stalks.

2. Heat a wok over a high heat and add the sesame oil. Reduce the heat to medium and add the sliced shallots. Stir fry for two minutes and add the garlic. Str fry for two more minutes, making sure not to burn the garlic. Add the star anise and fennel seed and fry for one more minute.

3. Next, add the minced pork. Turn the heat back up to high. Stir fry the pork, breaking it down into small pieces and cook until it starts to crisp up a little.

4. Add the fish sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce and sugar. Stir-fry for another minute before adding the water to deglaze the pan. Deglazing the pan with some liquid helps to ensure that all the fabulous, caramelised flavours that have developed as you have stir fried are fully incorporated into the dish rather than remaining stuck to the bottom of the pan. It is a very simple technique and takes just moments. Because your wok is over a high heat, the water will cook off very quickly lifting all those lovely flavours off the surface of the wok and adding them into your dish.

5. Finally, roughly chop the basil and mint leaves and add those to the pan. Stir fry until the herbs have wilted, just a minute is all that you will need, and remove the wok from the heat.

6. Serve immediately in a warm dish with some fresh shredded basil and mint and a little thinly sliced red chilli scattered over the top, with plain boiled rice and a stir-fried green vegetable on the side.