TLC: Trust, Love, Consistency

I just got back from a photoshoot for a client and I was faced with my absolute diet nemesis. You can wave chocolate at me all day and I won’t cave, but  the smell of coconut milk, lime and chilli will get me  every time. I almost rang  Stephen on the spot and called in a cheat dinner. Then I remembered, I’d already planned Thai food for dinner.

Tonight I’m cooking Kapoa Kai (Basil (chili) Chicken).
It’s so quick and tasty and isn’t hard to make a healthy version at home. It’s so easy in fact, that I did it on my cooking show, healthy helpings, a while back. Watch it here.

It’s a great reminder that Chicken and greens need not be boring!

You’ll need:

Chicken Breast fillet cut finely
Fresh chillis and garlic finely chopped
Fresh basil
Green Veg (green beans, steamed brocolli, or snow peas are nice, though traditional there are no greens added)
Fish Sauce (nouc man)
Oyster Sauce
Chicken Stock
A small amount of peanut oil

Heat a non-stick wok until very hot.
Spray/brush with oil.
Add in chilli and garlic (watch out for the fumes!)
Add in the chicken and stir fry until almost  cooked through
Splash in about 1-2 tablespoons of stock (for 1 breasts worth of chicken) and add the veggies.
Continue to sauté for a further minute.
Add about 1 tablespoon fish sauce and 1/2 tablespoon of oyster sauce (for 1 breast), simmer for 1 minute until sauce reduces and thickens.
Remove from heat and toss through 1/2 bunch of basil.

Make a truck load of this and have it for lunches during the week, it reheats well. If your diet permits eat it with steamed jasmine or basmatti rice.

Did you know: basmatti rice is as nutritious as brown rice, with a texture much closer to white rice.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.