Thai food recipes: Pad kaprao moo (stir-fried holy basil with pork)

If you’ve been to Thailand before, you’re probably familiar with pad kaprao. While the official national dish of Thailand is pad Thai, the classic and simple street food dish of pad kaprao can lay claim to the unofficial title. Our guest Thai food expert, Gary Butler (aka The Roaming Cook) is more familiar with this spicy dish than most. He’s chomped through more than his fair share of pad kaprao on his travels around Thailand and shares this recipe for you to try at home. 

Pad kaprao is Thailand’s unofficial national dish. It is the nation’s answer to the UK’s humble sandwich. Pad kaprao is unquestionably the most popular quick dish you’ll find in Thailand. You’ll find it on every menu from back-alley street carts to food courts to upmarket hotel restaurants; it’s that popular. There are many different English spellings for this dish — pad graprao, pad kapao, pad kapow, pad krapow — the list goes on. One thing that is not up for debate, however,  is the main ingredient: kaprao leaves (bai kaprao, ใบกะเพรา), known in English as Holy Basil.  So pad kaprao literally translates to stir-fried holy basil. But as holy basil can be hard to source in the UK, most Thai restaurants here will substitute the kaprao leaves for Thai basil. This essentially makes the dish pad horapha . . . which isn’t a thing in Thailand!

If you are going to make pad kaprao, please do your best to find holy basil. You can try searching in the UK and Ireland for ‘tulsi’, which is the name for holy basil in India as there are often whole plants on offer if you’re lucky.

Now we’ve got the leaves out of the way, it’s on to the meat. You can find pad kaprao stir-fried with absolutely anything in Thailand. We’ve had it with pork, chicken, beef, squid, seafood and even crocodile! So while there are no set rules as to what meat you should use in pad kaprao, we’re going with the most popular choice in Thailand which is moo sap or minced pork. If you don’t eat pork, feel free to substitute beef or chicken for this recipe. Another must is a crispy fried egg (khai dao) with a runny yolk on top of your kaprao . We will be using duck eggs, which add an extra richness to the dish that we just can’t live without. Just remember; when cooking your egg, don’t scrimp on the cooking oil. In Thailand, eggs are almost deep-fried!

We will also be making a simple Thai dipping sauce to put on the fried egg called prik nam pla, which translates to chilli fish sauce. You won’t find a stall or restaurant in Thailand selling pad kaprao that doesn’t serve it with prik nam pla. One final word of warning for this recipe. We’ll be cooking this Thai style, i.e. spicy. You’ll want to use four cloves of garlic for one person and we’re using one Thai chilli per person as well as dried chilli for extra flavour. This will result in a medium to hot final dish. If you want your kaprao milder, start with half a chilli per four cloves of garlic. If you are a chilli fanatic like me, maybe try two to four chillies per four cloves of garlic.

Pad kaprao is best cooked one at a time in a wok. You can get away with cooking two portions at once if your heat is high enough but that’s as far as we’d recommend you go. Cooking any more in one pan and you’ll be steaming, not frying, which will result in a soggy, wet kaprao. Don’t worry, it’s such a quick dish to make once you have the ingredients set out that even if you need to make a few portions, you won’t have to worry about them getting cold. Let’s get cooking . . .

Pad kaprao moo sap recipe

Serves: 2 people
Preparation time: 10 minutes (not including rice)
Cooking time: 10 minutes (including the egg)

Ingredients

For the pad kaprao

• 300 grams of fatty pork mince (preferably 20% fat and go no lower than 10%)
• 8 cloves of garlic, peeled 
• 4-16 Thai red chillies 
• 4 long dried red chillies, cut thinly with scissors and seeds removed
• 1 tbsp Thai oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp Golden Mountain soy sauce (sub for regular light soy if unavailable)
• 1 tsp black soy sauce 
• 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 handful of holy basil (tulsi, bai kaprao)
• Flavourless oil for frying (vegetable, soy, sustainable palm oil)
• Steamed jasmine rice to serve

For the egg

• 2 large duck eggs
• Flavourless oil for frying (vegetable, soy, sustainable palm oil)

For the prik nam pla dipping sauce

• 4 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp lime juice (plus small lime slices)
• 3-4 green Thai bird’s eye chillies (thinly sliced)
• 1 clove of garlic (peeled and thinly sliced)

Method

• Start with making the prik nam pla dipping sauce by mixing all of the ingredients and set aside.
• Next, heat enough oil to cover the white part of an egg wok or frying pan and drop in your egg (cook one at a time). 
• Fry the egg until the white puffs up, the bottom is crispy and the yolk is just cooked. 
• Drain on kitchen paper and repeat with the second egg and set aside.

• In a pestle and mortar, pound your chilli and garlic into a coarse paste or blitz in a mini food processor. Add the chopped dried chilli and set aside.
• Heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil in a wok or large frying pan and add the chilli and garlic. Fry for a few seconds until fragrant (don’t let it burn) and then add in your pork.
• Stir fry over high heat until the pork is broken up and there are no big lumps of mince (1-2 minutes).
• Add the sauces and the sugar and fry until the pork is cooked through. 
• Turn off the heat and add the holy basil. Mix through the mince and let the residual heat wilt the leaves.
• Add a pile of jasmine rice onto each plate and top with the fried duck egg. 
• Divide the pad kaprao into two portions and serve next to the rice and egg. 
• Top with the prik nam pla dipping sauce and enjoy!

Let us know if you try Gary’s pad kaprao recipe. Share your photos and feedback on Facebook or drop us a line. Check out more of Gary’s Thai food recipes and follow his Thai food adventures on YouTube.

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