For boxing day I had some friends over and decided to do an alternative Christmas feast by whipping up a bit of a Thai banquet. This was the main course and I have posted this out of "course order' as it occurred to me that this dish would work really well with leftover turkey minced up instead of the pork. I'm probably too late and you may well have eaten it all by now......next year maybe!
You really
have to go to town here with the quality of the meat. Get the best quality free range pork you
can afford, preferably dry aged for a week or two. If necessary buy some good pork steaks and
get your butcher to coarsely mince them for you. Thai basil has a wonderful aniseed flavour
but Italian basil works well if you cannot find. I use the big chillies in this as they are
not so potent and you need a lot of chilli for the flavour, but feel free to
use the thai birds eye ones if you are a chilli fiend. Serves 4:
Ingredients:
2 large skinless chicken breasts
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 large cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 fat red chillies, seeds in or out, finely
chopped
10 green beans, finely chopped
500g course pork mince
1 tbsp thai chilli sauce – the smooth one, not the one with bits in
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp sugar
1 lime
3 very large handfuls thai sweet basil or 1
handful of italian basil, leaves only.
Method:
Blitz the
chicken breasts in a food processor until roughly chopped and add to the pork
mince – the mix of chicken and pork works really well.
Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan until very hot. Stir fry the garlic, beans and chilli until the garlic starts to turn golden at the edges. Throw in the pork and chicken mince and fry until the meat is cooked through - approx 4 to 5 mins. Add the sugar, fish sauce and chilli sauce, and the juice of the lime and mix well.
Throw in the basil leaves and bubble for a further minute until the basil has wilted. Taste and season by adding more fish sauce, lime juice and sugar if necessary. Serve with steamed rice.
Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan until very hot. Stir fry the garlic, beans and chilli until the garlic starts to turn golden at the edges. Throw in the pork and chicken mince and fry until the meat is cooked through - approx 4 to 5 mins. Add the sugar, fish sauce and chilli sauce, and the juice of the lime and mix well.
Throw in the basil leaves and bubble for a further minute until the basil has wilted. Taste and season by adding more fish sauce, lime juice and sugar if necessary. Serve with steamed rice.
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