Thai food recipes: Crispy Thai omelette with basil leaves

A Thai omelette (khai jiao) is a staple Thai dish that is quick and easy to make. Although this is a basic dish, there are different ways to make it and when you are in Thailand you may see street vendors cooking Thai omelettes with a range of fillings like vegetables, mussels or seafood. For this classic version of one of the ultimate Thai comfort foods, we keep it deliciously simple and only include sweet basil and chillies.

Health benefits
In addition to the nutrition and protein from the eggs, there are health benefits to eating chillies and sweet basil. Chillies help relieve cold and flu symptoms, reduce mucus and phlegm and are good for the metabolism. Sweet basil contains caffeic acid which has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects and can help the immune system.

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 5g sweet basil leaves
• 2g sliced red chilli
• 10g (2 teaspoons) fish sauce
• 10g (2 teaspoons) vegetable oil

Method

• Crack the eggs in a bowl
• Beat the eggs well (until they run smoothly) and flavour with fish sauce
• Roughly chop the sweet basil leaves and add them together with the sliced red chillies to the egg mixture
• Heat the oil in the pan
• Once the oil is hot, pour egg mixture into the pan
• Fry the egg mixture until cooked (takes approximately 3-4 minutes; turn heat down to medium to stop burning)
• Flip when the egg mixture is golden brown on the underside (use spatula to check)
• Cook for another 3 minutes
• Turn off heat and shake off excess oil
• Garnish with sliced chilli and serve
• Serve with hot jasmine rice

Tips

• Original hot Sriracha sauce or chilli fish sauce (prik nam pla) can be used as a condiment to serve with the omelette
• Room-temperature eggs work best because the temperature of the oil remains high when the eggs are added
• Soy sauce, oyster sauce or white pepper can be used as an alternative to fish sauce
• Use a round-bottom wok (not a flat-bottom wok) or a small sauté pan; this stops the eggs from spreading out too much
• Oil should be hot
• 4 or 5 drops of lime juice (or a little water) can be added to help the egg whites hold more and make them more crispy

Recipe from Thai Taste Therapy

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