Thai Basil Fried Rice for The Lazy-at-heart

I am a lazy bum, which is why I rarely cook for myself despite my undeniable love for cooking. Occasionally, my ridiculously regular food cravings and limited budget drive me to the corner of having to cook my own food. Occasionally, I actually would whip up something good.

This is one of those times.

Ever since I’ve had the Thai Basil Fried Rice at Plant Love House a week ago, I’ve been craving it constantly day and night. It’s savory and sweet, with a wonderful basil fragrance that makes every bite a roller-coaster ride of flavors. But at $9.90 a plate, I can barely afford to have it every day for the rest of the month *insert desperate female sobbing*

So, I decided to make my own Basil Fried Rice, borrowing the concept here and there and fix it up a bit to accommodate my limited pantry. Most of the recipes I came across make use of a combination of fish sauce, light and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, and green thai chili. That’s a whole lot of funky ingredients even for a full Asian like me, so I decided to substitute oyster sauce with sugar, and green chili with the regular neither-spicy-nor-green chili powder.  It would have tasted a lot better with them, but I just didn’t have the time.

LAZY THAI BASIL PORK FRIED RICE

Servings: 3 (small)
Time: 30-45 minutes
Difficulty: Easy (aka if you can hold a spatula, you’re good)

Ingredients

• 1.5 cup of cooked white rice ( I bought mine at a local china takeaway for 1$)
• 2 cups of green beans
• 1/2 lb of minced pork
• 1/2 cup of fresh thai (or regular) basil leaves
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Sauce mix: 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce, 1 tbsp chinese dark soy sauce, 1 tsp fish sauce and 1 tbsp sugar (or oyster sauce)
• 1/2 tbsp of red chili powder (mine’s not spicy so I tend to add a ton!)
• Cooking oil

Instructions

1. Wash and cut the green beans into 1.5 – 2 inch pieces ( I like it a bit longer since smaller pieces tend to get too soft during cooking). Coarsely chop the basil to release their aromatics. Finely chop the garlic.

2. Mix the sauce as described above. You can add or remove some ingredients if they’re not available in your pantry, though I’d recommend having at least both fish and soy sauce.

3. Under high heat, grease the pan with 1 tbsp of cooking oil (I use sunflower oil, but any other non-aromatic oil is fine) and add the beautifully chopped garlic.

4.Once the garlic’s turning slightly brown, add the minced pork and showed off your mad stir-fry skills

5. Once the meat is cooked, pour the sauce mixture into the pan and give it a quick toss

6. Add the green beans

7. And rice, don’t forget the rice!

8. Gently breaking it down 🙂 Doesn’t hurt to be gentle with your rice for once

9. Once’s everything is well mixed, add the chili powder & chopped basil and stir well. Turn off the heat after 2 minutes.

10. Taste & season with salt and pepper to your liking. Mine’s pretty well-seasoned the way it is 🙂

This recipe makes 3 small boxes of fried rice ( only 2 now ’cause I ate 1 lol). You can pack these for lunch and just reheat them for 2 mins in the microwave. Now I won’t have to worry about lunch for the next 2 days 😀

Happy Cookin’ !
-This is an auto-generated recipe from ChiBot-