Hello hi everyone! Wesley here. Today we’re adding to our growing series dedicated to the Bay Area restaurant scene with a shot at a Thai basil fried rice found at the Woo Can Cook fried rice pop up here in Oakland, CA. I can include myself in this series right? idunno. The point is, for the Bay Area locals, this particular fried rice is the newest addition to our pop up’s menu, meaning that you can come order this at one of our weekly pop ups, which is very exciting (more about this below, for folks interested). Pretty much by requirement, we’ll be doing our fried rice today with a bit of fish sauce, Thai chiles, and Thai basil, all three of which are just about the most iconically Thai ingredients that you can put in any Thai dish.

As you might guess, though, fried rice occurs throughout many different food cultures (Thai cuisine included), which means that the assembly of our dish today will look not too dissimilar to our Chinese, Korean, and Hawaiian inspired fried rices as well. Finally rounding this all out we’ll also be diving into what is by far the MOST challenging and most important element to our dish today, which is the rice itself (believe it or not), as we’ll have to we walk a fine line between mushy, overcooked, undercooked, soggy, chewy, and clumpy rice, all of which are challenges that come up when trying to reproduce the texture of leftover rice, without actually having…leftover rice. Hope you try it.

 

Serves 2-3

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 cloves garlic

  • 1 inch (about 1 tbsp) ginger

  • 4-6 Thai chiles

  • 1/4 cup Thai basil

  • 2 medium carrots

  • 1/4 cup cilantro

  • 3 eggs

  • 3 medium chicken thighs

  • 1 tbsp shaoxing wine

  • 1/2 tsp corn starch plus additional

  • 35oz cooked rice (about 3 cups raw)

  • kosher salt

  • peanut oil

  • lime

INGREDIENTS (marinade)

  • 4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)

  • 1/2 tsp corn starch

  • 1/2 tsp white pepper

INGREDIENTS (sauce)

  • 4 tbsp low sodium soy sauce (or 2 tbsp full sodium soy sauce)

  • 1 tbsp sesame oil

  • 2 tbsp oyster sauce

  • 3 tbsp fish sauce

PREP

  • CRUSH and mince the garlic, divide in half, and set aside

  • MINCE the ginger, divide in half, and set aside

  • DICE the carrots, set aside

  • DESTEM and slice the Thai chiles, set aside

  • DESTEM the Thai basil, set aside

  • DESTEM the cilantro, set aside

  • DICE the chicken, then combine with all marinade ingredients and set aside

  • WHISK the eggs with shaoxing wine, 1/2 tsp corn starch, and a pinch of kosher salt, set aside

  • COMBINE all sauce ingredients, set aside

  • ADD the cooked rice to a large mixing bowl, then dust with corn starch, toss to combine, and separate as many clumps of rice as possible

ON THE STOVE

  • HEAT a wok as hot as possible, then add 4 tbsp peanut oil to a wok and long yao

  • ADD the chicken to the wok and sear for 2 1/2 minutes, then toss, saute for an additional 1 minute, and remove

  • REHEAT the wok as hot as possible, then add an additional 4 tbsp of peanut oil and long yao

  • ADD the garlic, ginger, and Thai chiles, then toss until fragrant for about 15 seconds

  • ADD the carrots and saute for 2-3 minutes

  • MOVE everything to one side, then add the eggs to the wok, let set for 30 seconds, then toss to combine

  • ADD the chicken back to the wok, followed by the thai basil, rice, and sauce, then toss to combine, breaking up any remaining clumps of rice

  • FINISH with torn cilantro

 

tagged with woo can cook, thai fried rice, thai basil fried rice, thai food, thai cooking, fried rice

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