The other day I scored at the grocery store. I mean scored.
I found a massive package of Thai chilies for $1.00. I stood there stunned. It’s not like chilies are expensive, but we don’t normally have Thai chilies in our grocery store. So, I threw those babies in my cart and drove home with a lead foot on the accelerator.
I was excited to make Thai chicken with basil.
We have a very small kitchen, but we happily sacrifice a big part of our counter to our basil plant. We left it alone over the winter and spring except for occasional pruning, because we get so little light in our north facing window that it’s sensitive to over picking. We didn’t want to shock it and kill it.
But it had started to become unruly and I knew that it would yield at least a cup of basil.
Thai Chicken and Basil (loosely based on the recipe from Food and Wine)
- 4 cooked chicken breasts
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 3 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- 4 large chopped scallions
- 7 chopped Thai chilies (Wear gloves while chopping them!)
- 1 ½ cup basil leaves
Mix together the fish sauce, soy sauce, water and honey. Heat the oil and chop chicken into one-inch pieces. Add the chicken to the pan with the chilies, scallions, sauce and half of the basil. Saute until the scallions and chilies are soft. Serve on rice and top with remaining basil.
The reason I said this was loosely based on the recipe from Food and Wine is that I omitted garlic – (I know, I know, but what can I say? I dislike it.) – added 7 peppers instead of 3, and I used pre-cooked chicken. The marinade time was only for a few minutes and I had left-over chicken breasts, so why be a slave to a recipe? And the chicken didn’t lack for the marinade time. In fact, my husband who can eat nails and then delicately belch butterflies, started sweating. But it wasn’t a dumb heat, it was a layered heat with a ton of flavor.
It was a fantastic meal, especially for a $1.00 investment.
