Pork, Egg & Holy Basil Rice Bowls

A powerhouse of a meal all in one bowl. This Thai inspired stir fry is an affordable dinner packed with veggies and flavour galore. Pork, Egg & Holy Basil Rice Bowls are sure to be a new favourite in the weeknight meal rotation. 

I am THRILLED to finally present this recipe to you! I’ve been working on this dish for a little over a year and it’s been a challenging and complicated ride.

Each year, instead of a New Year’s resolution, I challenge myself to explore a certain type of cuisine. From visiting restaurants to bringing traditional methods back to my kitchen, it’s a fun way for me to step outside of my comfort zone and learn. I’ve been doing it for a few years now and 2018 was by-far the most difficult. I decided I wanted to get more in-tune with Thai cuisine. 2018 started out strong with trying new dishes and enjoying new flavours. If you know me, you know that 2018 was one hell of a challenging year and that my culinary vision was side-tracked by some pretty heavy personal changes. I persevered, but a lot of my goals for the year, including learning how to properly cook with Thai chilis, fell to the wayside. So, if you are wondering why I used jalapenos in a Thai style dish, let’s just say it is to ensure you don’t cry through the heat of the dish as I did once when recipe testing it with Thai chilis! Yikes.

One day, I’ll grow in my confidence with cooking with Thai Chilis!

One ingredient I loved learning to cook with and didn’t have a kitchen disaster with is Holy Basil. It’s such a  unique flavour that only really comes out when the leaf is cooked! The unique slightly spicy flavour and balanced licorice notes seem to be the perfect compliment of the sweet and salty sauce that the ground pork and veggies is cooked in! It isnèt any more expensive than commonly found basil at my local Superstore, but if you can’t source it, just prepare yourself that you will miss-out on that undeniable ‘zip’ of the Holy basil but it really is still delicious as heck. In my recipe testing I found that if you can’t get Holy Basil, reduce or remove all together the sugar in the sauce so the dish isn’t too sweet and flat in it’s flavours.

Now, can we talk about how this dish is topped with an egg? It’s like the perfect addition to this dish! When I first had Pad Graw Pao, which this dish is based off of, at a Thai restaurant in Toronto, I was very excited to have the yolk run all over the meat and rice mixture. The egg turned out to be slightly overdone (which has also happened to be at home). It’s slightly sad when that happens but it is life. Don’t best yourself-up over an over cooked egg! But when you do get it right, enjoy it! It is so satisfying (#YolkPorn) and add a creaminess to the dish that it otherwise doesn’t have. Yay for eggs, am I right!?!?

If you don’t have eggs on hand, packing-up leftovers for lunch or just want to switch the dish up a bit, it is totally fine to go egg-free! Just donèt shy away from topping it freely with green onion and red chili flakes as it is a great way to pull it all together and bring-up the oomph even more. Between the meat, veggies and rice it’s a satisfyingly full meal, making it the perfect one dish dinner!

It goes without saying as this is my mantra, but honestly this dish is SO AFFORDABLE! Rice, eggs and ground pork should be staples in any budget household and having the trifecta of oyster, dark soya and fish sauce in the fridge is a great, budget conscious way to flavour many meats and veggies. Beyond that, this dish is bulked up by the near invisible zucchini . If you like the combo of ground pork and zucchini may I suggest you check-out a recipe from the archives? Pork and Zucchini Lettuce Wraps are a great Springtime meal that is perfectly portioned for two and just as affordable as this Thai rice bowl!

Pork, Egg & Holy Basil Rice Bowls

A powerhouse of a meal all in one bowl. This Thai inspired stir fry is an affordable dinner packed with veggies and flavour galore. Pork, Egg & Holy Basil Rice Bowls are sure to be a new favourite in the weeknight meal rotation. 
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 4

Ingredients
  

  • Rice cooked to package's specifications. Should have 4 portions.
  • 1 tbsp Canola oil
  • 1/4 cup yellow onion finely diced
  • 5 cloves garlic minced
  • 2 Jalapenos (or Thai peppers, to heat preference)
  • 1.5 pounds ground pork
  • 1 cup zuchinni finely diced
  • 1/2 cup red pepper finely diced
  • 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
  • 1.5 tbsp fish sauce
  • 2.5 tsp oyster sauce
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1/3 cup holy basil * sliced (*see note)
  • 4 Eggs
  • 1 tsp Canola Oil
  • green onion for garnish
  • red chili flakes for garnish

Instructions
 

  • Cook rice as per bag's instruction.  In meantime, heat-up deep frying pan or wok to medium-high. Add canola oil, onion, garlic and jalapenos and cook until fragrant and onions are translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir often.
  • Add pork and cook until browned, about 4-5 minutes. Drain fat. Add zucchini and red pepper and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
  • While veggies and pork are cooking, combine soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, brown sugar and water in small bowl. 
  • Once veggies are soft, reduce temperature to medium and add sauce mixture. Let sauce simmer until slightly reduced. 
  • While stir fry is simmering, fry 4 eggs sunny side up (not flipped in the pan) with Canola oil for crispy  edges.
  • Add holy basil and remove stir fry from heat.
  • Assemble rice bowls! Add rice to bottom of large bowl followed by a generous portion of the stir fry mixture. Top with egg and then garnish with red chili flakes and green onions!

Notes

Holy basil can be difficult to locate and difficult to replicate it's slightly spicy and licorice-y flavour.  If you cannot find it, this dish is still great with commonly found basil. However, in recipe testing I found the dish to be too sweet with the brown sugar and commonly found basil.  Remove sugar from stir fry sauce!

Did you make Pork, Egg & Holy Basil Rice Bowls at home?
If so, take a picture and tag it with #PeppersAndPennies! I love seeing your creations and will gladly share your photo!

 

4 Comments

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




*