Friday, July 31, 2009

Wow with Kra Pow!

Thai food is tasty! It is also healthy and surprisingly very easy to make at home, if you have the ingredients. We were super excited to find a bag of thai basil in our CSA bag this week because the plants we are growing on the deck aren't growing and/or replenishing as fast as we'd like. If you didn't get any this week, there is a great thai grocery store next to the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse on Columbia Pike called Bangkok 54 (also a great thai restaurant) where you can get some for like .99 cents a bag as well as some of the other staples (fish sauce, thai chilis) to make many, many delicious thai dishes.

Here are simple directions to make a thai basil stir fry known at restaurants as Kra Pow or Gra Pow. You can also use the same recipe but add noodles and make Drunken Noodles. Bangkok 54 sells the fresh rice noodles on Fridays - they sell out fast because they rock. We love this dish because you can use any meat you want or even stick to vegetarian. We vary our vegetables with whatever we have - peppers/onions, broccoli, Chinese eggplant, cabbage, or _______ (insert your favorite here). We also vary the meat (tip - using ground chicken or pork saves cutting and cooking time.) It honestly tastes as good or better than at a restaurant and the great thing about this recipe is that you can control the amount of oil and the ratio of meat/vegetables to make it super healthy.

OK - you need: thai basil (1 bag picked and washed), fish sauce, soy sauce, chilis, meat, vegetables, garlic (1 or 2 cloves), sugar, water, vegetable oil. Chop vegetables, garlic and chilis (1-2, or more if you like spicy). Rice if you aren't using noodles.

First - Put rice on if you are making. Put a splash of oil in hot wok or pan, cook vegetables to desired consistency. Move to bowl. Then, put chilis and garlic in wok with another splash of oil and cook meat. When meat is cooked, throw in equal parts (2 tbs, but we now put 1/4 cup because we like sauce) of fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar and water (can go a little easy on the sugar if you want). Then mix vegetables back in to pan, put in basil. If you bought the rice noodles, cut and peel apart and put in pan. Mix til hot and covered in yumminess.

Thai basil stir fry - done!

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