Thai Basil Pork

I love Thai food. All Thai food. From the Americanized Pad Thai to the more traditional Green Mango Salad. I love it so much that we grew Thai chilies and Thai basil (aka Holy Basil) in our garden this year. When I came across this Thai Basil Pork recipe on the Leite's Culinaria website I knew it would be great! It had all the components of Thai food that I love...it was sweet, spicy, savory...fabulous! The recipe says you can substitute the pork with ground chicken or turkey and even shrimp, scallops, mussels and salmon. I plan on trying this next week with salmon!

Thai Basil Pork

Ingredients:

2 T. vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c. shallots, thinly sliced
1 1/2 lbs. ground pork
6 red Thai chiles, cut into rounds
2 T. oyster sauce
2 T. fish sauce
1 t. soy sauce
1 t. brown sugar
1 1/2 c. packed Thai basil leaves
pinch of black or white pepper

Directions:

Preheat a large wok or skillet over high heat for 1 minute. Swirl in the oil and heat until it becomes runny and starts to shimmer. Reduce the heat to medium. Add the garlic and shallots and cook until the garlic is light golden and fragrant, 15 to 30 seconds.

Raise the heat to high and stir in the pork, breaking up clumps with the edge of your spatula. Stir and cook until the meat has just lost its blush, 1 to 2 minutes.

Reduce the heat to medium and throw in the chiles. Add the oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, and sugar and stir to coat the meat evenly. Stir in the basil and cook until the basil is wilted and the pork is cooked through, another 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with pepper. Serve hot with freshly steamed rice.