Recipe: Stir Fried Minced Pork with Thai Basil (Pad Horapa Moo)

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates as we were away on a family staycation last weekend :)

This Thai dish, pad horapa moo (minced pork with Thai basil) is perfect for busy weeknights. My kind of fast food, as it takes under 20 minutes to prepare and cook, and it's very delicious!

In Thailand, they usually use krapow, also known as holy basil. I didn't have that, so I substituted with horapa (Thai basil). The minced pork is cooked until golden, then seasoned with fish sauce, brown sugar and oyster sauce. We love Thai basil (and we have an abundance of it growing in our garden), so we added about  1 1/2 cups of it. This dish is usually served with white rice and a fried egg on top. To keep it authentic, we did just that :)

We absolutely love the taste of this dish - the minced pork was very flavorful and slightly spicy. Of course, you can adjust the spiciness level by adding or reducing the amount of chillies used. We used about 4 since we were serving this to the kids as well.

What do you usually cook on a busy weeknight or do you opt to eat out? :)

Stir fried minced pork with Thai Basil (Pad Horapa Moo)
Recipe by Baby Sumo
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 11-13 minutes
Serves 3-4


Ingredients
350g minced pork
2 cloves garlic, minced
2-6 bird's eye chilli, deseeded and minced
1 onion, diced
2 tbsp cooking oil
1/3 cup water
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/8 tsp brown sugar
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 1/2 cup Thai basil leaves, washed

Rice, for 4
4 fried eggs (see Step 4 in this recipe)

1. In a wok, heat oil over medium high heat. Once hot, add the garlic, chilli and onion and cook for 2 minutes, until the garlic is lightly golden and fragrant.

2. Add the minced pork and cook for about 5 minutes, until it is lightly golden and cooked through. Add water, fish sauce, brown sugar and oyster sauce and cook for another 1 1/2 - 2 minutes, until the sauce has slightly reduced. Taste seasoning. Finally, stir in the Thai basil leaves until slightly wilted.

3. Serve immediately with white rice and a fried egg.

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Recipe: Plain White Loaf (Wu Pao Chun Champion Toast 金牌土司)

Every year, I make a resolution to make more bread for my family but on the other hand, I have a love/hate relationship with yeast (I don't always have luck with it and sometimes the yeast is dead and our bread doesn't rise and we end up with a brick).

Recently, I saw many of my blogger friends making the plain white loaf (recipe originating from the famous Taiwan's Master Baker Wu Pao Chun), also known as Champion Toast. It looked so good, I knew I had to try it too!

Plain White Loaf.... perfect to be eaten anytime of the day!

Making this bread is very easy as I can use my KitchenAid to knead the dough. The dough rose beautifully, and for the first time, I felt really happy baking bread.

The bread tasted delicious and the texture was great -so soft and fluffy. We bake this almost everyday now, and enjoy this as our daily loaf. Most days though my kids and Hubby would eat almost 3/4 of the loaf before the end of the evening when it's hot out of the oven. That's how much they love it!

My son assists me everyday when he is on school holidays :) My lil baker boy.

Champion Toast... yeah!

This white loaf is perfect for making French Toast. We would always save a couple of slices to make this for breakfast the next day!

Plain white loaf (Wu Pao Chun Champion Toast 金牌土司)
Recipe by Baby Sumo, adapted from here

Preparation time: 15-20 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Makes 1 loaf (11cmx20cm)


Ingredients

375g bread flour
30g caster sugar
3/4 tsp fine sea salt
20g salted butter, cut into small cubes
1 tsp instant dry yeast
240g cold milk

1. In a mixing bowl, place the flour, sugar and yeast. Mix well. 

2. Then, add in salt and milk to the mixing bowl. Using low speed with hook attachment (speed 1 on KitchenAid) mix into a dough, about 2 minutes.

3. Add in butter, then knead using low speed for another 15-20 minutes until you get a shiny and smooth dough.

3. Shape the dough into a bowl and place back in bowl. Cover the mixing bowl with a cloth and proof until doubled in size, about 1 - 1 1/2 hour. To test if it has sufficiently risen, press a finger into the dough and withdraw it quickly, the indentation should remain.

After first proofing

Test to see if it has sufficiently risen

4. Gently punch the centre of the dough with your first to deflate it. Divide dough into 3 balls. Flatten each ball, then roll into a rectangle shape (like rolling a swiss roll), and place into a lightly greased 11x20cm Pullman tin. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for another 1 hour, until the tin is 90-95% full.

Place dough into Pullman tin for second proofing

5. Cover the Pullman tin, bake in a preheated oven at 190°C (fan-forced) for 30 mins.

Perfect white loaf for breakfast! This one has got raisins.

Note: If you intend to add filling to the bread such as raisins, cranberries or nuts, add them in Step 4 while you roll the bread into rectangle shape. Also note that it is normal for your Kitchen Aid to be very noisy and hot after kneading for 10 mins.

Bread with Bordier butter = simple irresistible!

Freshly baked, spread with some homemade roselle jam

French Toast with bananas, apricots, caramel sauce and maple syrup. Oh and some crushed Maltesers as well.

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