Pad Horapha Moo Grob Gwang Tung Kai Dao (Deep Fried Pork with Sweet Basil and Choi Sum with a Fried Egg)

What's not to love, crispy sticky deep fried pork, a crispy but runny fried egg, fragrant anise flavoured basil and some crunchy fresh greens over rice. It's a quick (mostly unhealthy, yes) but very satisfying one plate meal. Speaking one one plate dishes or ahaan jan diew (lit. one dish food) in Thai, they're some of my favourite things to cook and exactly what I want to eat when I don't want to cook anything elaborate or time consuming. They're the classic type of food you expect to find for lunch at a street food stall (usually served on the omnipresent plastic pastel- coloured plate. By the way if you know of anywhere in the UK that sells those thick melamine plates used in South East Asia, do let me know, I've been after them for years!!

This recipe is in essence a combination of three of my earlier recipes- 

Pad Grapao Gai (Chicken fried with holy basil), Pad Horapha Bhet Yang (Roasted duck fried with sweet basil) and Moo Grob Pad Pak Got Shangai (deep fried pork fried with pak choi). It combines the best of everything in one dish.

For two portions use:

• 300g of pork shoulder, rind and excess fat trimmed off, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 2 eggs
• a large double handful of choi sum (or pak choi/gai lan etc,) cut into 2 inch pieces
• a handful of Thai sweet basil leaves
• 3/4 small red chillies, roughly chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• a big splash of oyster sauce
• a big splash of light soy sauce
• a small pinch of sugar
• vegetable oil for deep frying and for stir frying
• Freshly cooked rice

Boil water and get the rice cooking before starting.

Heat the deep frying oil and when hot, carefully drop in the pork. Deep fry until dark golden brown and crispy (roughly 6-7 minutes) before draining onto kitchen paper.

In a pestle a mortar, lightly pound the chopped chillies and garlic into to rough paste, leave for a moment.

Heat a splash of oil in a wok and when hot, throw in the garlic chilli paste, stir for a few seconds before adding in the crispy pork, stir frying for 20//30 seconds. Tip in the vegetables and stir fry for about 1 minute, no more as you want some crunch to be retained.

Pour in the sauces and pinch of sugar, coating everything well before turning off the heat and lightly toss through the sweet basil leaves.

Heat a separate frying pan/wok (or decant your stir fry into a dish) and keep warm somewhere while you quickly do the fried eggs. Heat a large splash of oil in a clean wok/ frying pan and when very hot crack in an egg, let the bottom get crispy and spoon hot oil over the yolk until it's reached your desired crispy/runniness. Briefly blot on kitchen paper.

Drain the rice, plate up with the stir fry and place the fried egg over the top. 

Jobs a good'un!