You may mistaken the green bits in the photo for kale or spinach but they're mint leaves. About 1 ½ cups of them went into this easy Thai-style dish, which I've been making and riffing off of since the early 1990s, when I first had it in Bangkok. Pad krapow gai comes together with little hassle. You just need handful of ingredients.

Hand-chopped dark meat chicken (e.g., chicken thigh) would hone true to the original, but ground chicken is fine. I think ground dark-meat turkey would be great as well, since the bold seasonings would go well. I've prepared this dish with recipes such as Andy Ricker's from the Pok Pok cookbook. I've also done a vegan version with tofu.

This past week, I combined chicken thigh with king oyster mushroom. It wasn't genius creativity but rather I had a 6-ounce boneless skinless chicken thigh and 6 ounces of king oyster mushroom in the fridge. King oyster mushroom isn't super flavorful but it has a firm texture that's reminiscent of chicken. In Vietnamese, we call it nấm đùi gà (chicken drumstick mushroom).

Combining the chicken with mushroom for this dish not only allowed me to use up leftovers, but it also enabled me to cook a low-meat dish. The mushroom nearly disappeared into the dish, as if it were chicken. It also lent a chew that mimicked hand-chopped chicken, even though I use my small processor for prepping the chicken. A few pointers for this versatile recipe are below to send you on your way!

How Big to Chop the Mushroom

During cooking, King oyster mushroom shrink by about 50 percent. That means you can get away with cutting them into biggish ½-inch pieces. Some will be smaller and that's okay because the point is to have the mushroom blend in with the ground chicken.

I like to use a vegetable cleaver for the prep work because it's super sharp. Also, its broad flat blade is fantastic for gathering large amounts of prepped ingredients and transferring it elsewhere. This is a carbon steel Chinese vegetable cleaver and it's super light too. I have others in my kitchen that I rotate. But if you wonder about the knife I'm using, it's a CCK 1303 small cleaver made in Hong Kong.

Asian Basil or Mint?

The true version of this dish features holy basil (krapow in Thai) but it's hard to obtain for many cooks. If you happen to shop at a farmers' market with Southeast Asian vendors, they may be selling holy basil this time of year. It has a warm, earthy, menthol flavor that goes well with the big flavors of this dish. Ocimum tenuiflorum is also very good for you, including helping to reduce stress and anxiety. You may have seen it in herb teas as tulsi. Holy basil grows quite easily, if you want to grow it yourself. Mine reseeded last year!

Earlier this week when I made this recipe, I had a bounty of springtime mint in my garden so I used that. Mint offers many health benefits too. At our farmer's market, a Hmong vendor had a wealth of Asian basil: Lemon, Cinnamon ("Thai"), and Holy -- as pictured in this photo:

Any one of these basil varieties would be excellent too! And look at the huge bunches! You'd need just one bunch for this recipe. With this much a basil on hand, I'll me making this recipe and pho (there's a lot of pho knowledge on this site so here's a VWK pho page for you to glean your options).

Fresh and Dry Chile Options

It's a rare recipe that requires both fresh and dry chiles but this one does. The fresh adds a bright heat while the dry lends a nutty, toasty heat. Together, they make what's arguably a simple dish much more complex. I use dried puya chiles from Mexico but you may use dried Japones, Thai, or a Chinese variety. They each have different kinds of fruity heat to lend extra intrigue to the dish.

You may use serrano chiles instead of Thai but choose little ones. Some serrano chiles approach the size of jalapeños!

Thai-style Chicken and Basil/Mint Video

This is a fairly easy recipe, but if you'd like to watch it made in my kitchen, I'll walk you through it! The stir-frying was sped so you'd catch the highlights!

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5 from 1 vote

Thai-style Chicken and Mushroom with Basil

This recipe is modeled after pad krapow gai, a popular preparation in the Thai repertoire that's prepared with chicken and basil. Use ground turkey thigh, if you like. Add a fried egg for each person for extra richness and fun. Serve with lots of rice to absorb all the punchy flavors.

Servings: 2

Ingredients

6 ounces boneless skinless chicken thigh or ground dark meat chicken
6 ounces King oyster mushroom, stems and caps chopped
Scant 2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon Thai black soy sauce, or 1 tablespoon regular soy sauce plus 1 teaspoon dark molasses
2 teaspoons water
6 garlic cloves, halved lengthwise and gently crushed with the flat side of a knife
½ cup thinly sliced green beans (any kind or chopped celery
½ cup thinly sliced yellow onion
2 to 5 Thai or small serrano chiles, thinly sliced
1 ½ cups lightly packed holy basil, lemon basil, or mint leaves
3 or 4 dried Thai, Mexican puya, or Japones chilies
2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola or peanut

Instructions

If starting from boneless, skinless thigh, cut it into chunks the size of cherries. Keep any fat for succulence. Using a small or regular size food processor, pulse the chicken to a coarse, chopped texture. Transfer to a bowl and set aside near the mushroom. If starting from ground chicken, break it up into chunks, then set aside
For the seasoning sauce, stir together the fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar (or molasses), and water. Taste and adjust for a salty-sweet flavor. Set near the stove with the remaining ingredients.
In a large wok or skillet, heat the whole dried chiles and oil over medium-low heat, cooking for several minutes, stirring, until dark-brown and fragrant. Leaving the oil in the pan, use a slotted spoon to transfer the chilies to a paper-towel-lined plate. Once cool, break the stem, shake out the seeds, then coarsely crumble chilies, dropping them into the seasoning sauce.
Reheat the skillet over medium heat. When barely shimmering, add the garlic, stirring until light golden, about 45 seconds. Increase the heat to medium-high, then add the mushroom, stirring, until glistening and slightly softened, about 2 minutes.
Add the chicken, beans, onions, and fresh chiles. Stir constantly, breaking up chicken, until it’s just barely cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the seasoning sauce and cook until the liquid is absorbed and no longer visible, 4 to 5 minutes.
Turn off the heat and stir in the herb leaves, cooking for about 15 seconds, until wilted and fragrant. Transfer to a shallow bowl and serve.