Thai Beef with Basil

Despite being Taiwanese, I surprisingly don’t typically often cook a lot of Asian cuisine at home. But lately, I’ve been on an Asian food kick. I had some girl friends over the other night and they requested Thai food. So I prepared a meal complete with coconut curry with chicken and vegetables (recipe to come), Chinese garlic green beans, and Thai beef with basil. I love Thai beef with basil – it’s a fairly quick effortless recipe that you can easily prepare in under 30 minutes; most of the time is just spent prepping the ingredients.

Start by mincing 6 garlic cloves and 2 large shallots. Then slice 2 Thai bird’s eye chilies into small pieces, half of a red bell pepper into strips, and 3 medium carrots as into thin matchsticks. Feel free to seed the chilies if you don’t want too much heat. Also in the instance when you can’t find Thai birds eye chilies, then feel free to replace with serrano chilies instead.

VC note: I doubled the recipe for a crowd, so the ingredient amounts you’ll see in the photos is slightly more than what you’ll prepare.

Marinate and cook the beef

To get started, marinate 1 pound of raw ground beef with 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, 2 teaspoons of cornstarch, 2 teaspoons soy sauce, and 1 teaspoon white pepper in a bowl.

Then add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil over high heat in a large pan or skillet. Add in the marinated ground beef and cook, breaking it up with the back of a wooden spoon. Sauté until browned and cooked through, about 6-8 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.

Sauté the vegetables and prepare the sauce

Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in the same skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic, red pepper, onions, scallions, chilies, red peppers and carrots into the pan. Cook until slightly softened, stirring, about 3-4 minutes.

In a small bowl, whisk together the following ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili-garlic sauce
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

You can get chili garlic sauce online or in the ethnic aisle of your local grocery store. If you don’t have any on hand, you can substitute with sriracha or similar. And while you may not like the smell or taste of fish sauce on its own, I highly recommend keeping the fish sauce though. It adds a certain depth and complexity of flavor that can’t be replicated, and it loses all of its pungency when combined in the sauce.

Pour sauce mixture into skillet and stir until well incorporated and the sauce thickened, about 1 minute.

Finish and serve the Thai beef with basil

Return the cooked beef to the skillet along with basil leaves, toss until basil has just wilted.

Serve the Thai beef with basil along with some crunch and freshness in the form of fresh carrots tossed with lime juice, basil leaves, sliced chilies, roasted peanuts, and lime wedges. And don’t forget the steamed rice, which is the perfect base for the fragrant meat. I will generally serve with brown rice instead of white rice for health reasons, since it provides more fiber and nutrient.