Thai food is one of my favorite cuisines and never fails to whet the appetite due to all the amazing aroma of herbs and spices added to each dish. Ingredients of most dishes may not be complicated but e smell is just wonderful if cooked right. One such dish is the thai basil chicken.

Ingredients

1. 2 tablespoon Peanut oil or a light oil (I used light olive oil)
2. Thai basil (not sweet basil)
3. 1 – 2 kaffir lime leaves lightly bruised or muddled
4. 5 – 6 cloves of garlic – chopped or crushed
5. 1 or 2 very spicy chili padi or birds eye chili (I removed all seeds and still had the spicy kick). Serrano or cayenne pepper with most seeds removed can be used for a less spicy dish. Roughly chop chilies 
6. 200g chicken breast or thigh sliced to 0.5 cm thickness
7. 3 tablespoons oyster sauce
8. 1 – 2 tablespoons Fish sauce
9. A few tablespoons of water if needed
10. Coriander to garnish if preferred
11. Eggs if desired

Directions

• Heat oil in pan
• Add garlic and chili, quickly stir fry them to release aroma
• Add chicken and when half cooked
• Mix oyster sauce and fish sauce together then add to the pan of chicken
• If the dish is too dry, add a little water if desired 
• When the chicken is cooked through, about 3 more minutes, add the kaffir lime leaves and Thai basil, turn off heat immediately. 
• Toss a few times to let the residual heat release the aromas of the herbs.
• serve and garnish 

I like my Thai basil chicken rice with a sunny side up as the runny yolk adds the right touch to this dish. 

For the eggplant version, the same ingredients and steps were used except chicken was replaced with eggplant. The eggplant should be sliced to about 2cm thickness and soaked in salt water for at least 5min then drained before cooking. The eggplant should be cooked till they look wilted/ limp. My version was not cooked long enough therefore they still maintained their firmness.