Thai Style Spicy Basil Fried Minced Beef (Phat Kaphrao)
During our recent trip to Phuket, I got really inspired to bring the local ingredients and flavours back home. As I have mentioned, Thai food is all about using colourful fresh spices and herbs to create bold spicy/sweet/sour flavours. One ingredient that is extremely popular in south east Asian food, but not so much in Chinese food, is fish sauce. So after I came home, I went out and got my first bottle of fish sauce from City’super. This brand of fish sauce is made purely from fermented anchovies without flavour enhancers or preservatives. It tastes quite salty, a tad bit sour, with lots of umami flavour, and smells like aged, salted, and dried fish (but not at all in a bad overwhelmingly fishy way). Now I know this may not sound the most appealing, but trust me it can bring your Southeast Asian soup bases, dips, and stir fries to a whole new level of depth. I tried using this to make soup noodles and it tasted like I had spent hours cooking the soup base with an assortment of shellfish and herbs. In fact, many Thai style sauces start off with a base of fish sauce, lime juice, chilli, garlic, and sugar.
I have a kind of obsession with anything minced. I don’t know why, somehow I like the little bits and how the flavours seem to be so much more blended this way. So when I sat down for my first meal at Naka Island Resort, this basil leaf fried minced beef with a fried egg over rice immediately caught my eye. It is made from all the Thai seasoning essentials I mentioned above plus fresh basil leaves. It is aromatic and spicy, and the fried egg with runny yolk helps to add that extra creaminess to blend the mince with the rice. So I was determined to bring this dish back home to share with y’all. This is perfect weekday food that you would just want to pile into a bowl and tuck into on the couch while watching your favorite TV show.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Difficulty Level: 1/3
Cost: ~160 HKD (organic)
Ingredients:
300g of minced beef
80g French beans
1 lime
1/2 purple onion
25 g fresh basil leaves
6 cloves garlic
3 pieces red chilli
1-inch piece of ginger
dark soy sauce
oyster sauce
fish sauce
sesame oil
ground black pepper
salt
brown sugar
corn starch
2 eggs
rice
*You can replace 1/3 of the minced beef with minced pork for a fluffier texture because beef and chicken meat have less fat than pork, so the bit of pork fat can help to “smooth” out the texture.
Timer: 0 minutes
1. Marinate the minced meat in the order of:
a) 1/2 tablespoon: water, grated ginger, sugar, soy sauce, and pinch of salt/pepper, mix
b) 1 teaspoon corn starch, mix
c) 1 teaspoon sesame oil, mix
*meat will absorb the water and become softer
*The order of marinating meat actually matters because what corn starch does is absorb moisture and adhere to any wet surfaces, creating a thin “skin” around the meat so that when you cook it, you can brown the corn starch and seal the juice inside the meat. Meat is actually like a sponge and is very good at absorbing moisture. So what you want to do is add all the water/seasoning first so that the meat can absorb all of it, and THEN add the corn starch in right before cooking so that it won’t absorb all the moisture/seasoning away from the meat. And finally, oil should be the last in because it coats the surface of the meat, which if you add earlier would prevent the water/seasoning from being absorbed. I know this all sounds excessive, so all you have to remember is to marinate your meat as usual, except corn starch and then oil go in last right before cooking.
2. Prepare the veggies
French beans: Remove the tips and diagonally slice into 1-inch pieces
Red chilli: Remove the seeds from 2 out of the 3 for medium spice, and slice thinly (reserve a bit for garnishing)
Garlic: Chop moderately (I didn’t use the garlic press because it gets too finely minced and will burn really easily)
Onion: Vertically slice the onions along their fibres thinly (Keeping the fibres intact will prevent them from going too soggy)
Lime: Cut in quarters (Reserve two quarters for garnishing)
*The spiciest part of the chilli is in the seeds, so remove more or less to your liking
Timer: 10 minutes
3. Heat a pan with 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat and lightly fry the garlic and chilli
4. Add the minced meat into the pan evenly and avoid breaking up/turning the meat until it has gotten browned and crusty, then flip over and let the second side brown before breaking it up finely.
*High heat will brown (extra flavour) and lock in the juice of the meat. But when we keep tossing the meat, the meat in contact with the pan’s surface won’t be able to get hot enough to do that, letting the meat juices run out and have less caramelization.
*be careful not to let the garlic burn
Timer: 20 minutes
5. Add the onions, french beans, 1 tablespoon each: oyster sauce, fish sauce, water, and 1 teaspoon brown sugar, toss and cover with lid for ~2 minutes until the onions and beans have softened a bit.
*I like having crunchier onions and beans to chew on so I didn’t cook them for too long
6. Taste and see if the flavours are OK. Squeeze in half the lime to balance the rich sweetness of the sugar and oyster sauce. Lastly toss in the basil leaves (leave a few for garnishing), lightly fry just until they have wilted and turn off the heat.
*soft herbs like basil will lose their scent if cooked for a long time, so they must be added in last
7. Serve over rice with a fried egg, garnish with fresh basil leaves, chilli, and a lime wedge.
Timer: 25 minutes
I hope you enjoy this and that I was able to transport you on a little journey to Phuket with me. If you ever make this, don’t forget to share a photo with me! Also, subscribe below to get notified automatically of new recipes 🙂
Stay in love with life,
CC
Coming soon: green tea matcha molten lava cake for Valentine’s day!
Perfect. Have ground beef that I have to use up
Awesome! I hope u like it and pls share a pic with me!! :))))
Simply amazing! Sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and savory…. Everything is in perfect balance! I am a cilantro junkie so i substituted it for the basil. Also, if you can get the ground meatloaf blend (Pork, veal, beef) from your butcher/grocery store, it adds another layer of depth.
Thanks Crystal!
Hi Wes! I’m so glad you enjoyed it and thank you for your suggestion, I’ll ask my butcher about that next time 😀
Crystal
Got hubbie to cook this last night to use up some mince beef we had – totally amazing! When we try new recipes, hubbie will usually say “you can make this again” if he likes it. After trying his, he said with “yeah, I’m down with this”. Two bites later “I’m totally down with this”. Another two bites – “F*** yeah, this is awesome”. And it was! Thank you for posting the recipe!
Hi Bexig,
aww thank you so much for your sweet words, I am so glad you and your hubbie enjoyed this!! 🙂 I will keep trying to post more delicious recipes 🙂
-Crystal
Found this recipe when my hubby requested for this dish, and I gotta say I absolutely adore how you took the time to explain the reasoning behind the need for things to be done in a certain way. Thanks for sharing the well written tips!
If you’re cooking Thai, you might want to look for Holy Basil. “kaphrao” refers to holy basil leaves. It’s much different than sweet basil and will give your dish a new complexity. It took a cooking class in Chiang Mai for me to discover this detail 😉
If you are cooking Thai, you might want to look for Holy Basil. “kaphrao” refers to holy basil leaves. It is much different than sweet basil and will add a new complexity to your dish. It took a cooking class in Chian Mai for me to discover this detail 😉
Hi Tracie! I didn’t know that, thanks so much for letting me know 😀
Yes. If you want to make the dish you named as “phat kaphrao (ผัดกะเพรา)” then by definition you need Thai HOLY basil leaves. Even if you use Thai basil – the more commonly found variety of Thai basil, or Thai sweet basil, instead of holy basil, you would then be making “Phat HORAPHA (ผัดโหระพา)”. You seem to be using the common Western type of sweet basil. This renders the dish, technically, NOT a Thai dish at all. By all means use sweet basil, or whatever basil youn like – but one should not call the dish “phat kaphrao” then. Perhaps call it a dish INSPIRED BY or BASED ON “phat kaphrao”, or simply describe it as you partially did – as a Thai-inspired “spicy basil” dish.
And if one substitutes cilantro for the basil, as someone in the comments here did, feel free to do so – but please DO NOT still call it “phat kaphrao” or any kind of spicy BASIL dish!!
Just made this and it was delicious! Thank you for the recipe.
Thank you so much for your kind words! 🙂
how long am i suppose to marinate the meat?
Hi Emily, sorry for the late reply, I usually marinate at least half an hour up to overnight!
how long am i supposed to marinate the meat?
Hi Emily! So sorry for the late reply, for this recipe I just marinated the meat for as long as it took me to prepare the rest of the ingredients (around 20-30 minutes). 🙂
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Thank you for sharing this! I tried a couple of recipes of this same dish before but your is still the best and your tips and extra info are really helpful – this dish tastes great every single time. I use thai basil instead of sweet basil.
Thank you Amelia! I’m so happy to hear that, thank you for leaving such a sweet comment!
Hi there, I just wanted to make a midnight snack from some leftover rice and mince, and found your recipe! 20 minutes later I’m eating deliciousness, thank you very much! I had no beans so I used capsicum, and no basil so I stuck in some baby kale:)
That sounds delicious!! I’m so glad you enjoyed it 🙂
very very very good! easy! straight forward recipe! just follow the recipe step by step and happy days! good portioning too. just right for two people or repeat dinner for yourself. I’m very happy with myself 🙂 Thanks a lot
Perfect recipe, thank you ever so much. 🙂
Thanks and no prob!
Hi, Having lived all over Asia (including Thailand), your recipe looks great. But it would be really helpful for busy/working people if, in the ingredients section, you could write in how they are to be prepared. Eg, onion – thinly sliced. Method should be simple and straightforward. Notes contain explanations and alternatives. Make sure you write in brackets (note 1, etc) on either ingredients of method parts.
S Quinn