Thai Style Basil Fried Rice served with Tom Yam soup

Basil (九层塔), is a kind of herbs that i like to add in, in any kind of my cooking, shd it be Chinese, Thai or Vietnamese. It's aroma is unique, but not everyone can accept it easily, some crazy for it, some just wanna leave it alone. Vietnamese and Thai cuisine make use lots of Basil in their daily cusine that makes their food so much diff from Malaysian or Chinese food.

As far as Chinese food is concern, the only basil recipe i know off is Taiwanese style 3 Cup Chicken 台式三杯鸡. Taiwanese does eat quite a number of basil in their daily dish, they do use basil to make fried basil egg too. I hv tried these 2 Taiwanese dish b4, it is surely an delicious cusine if u are a basil lover.

The very 1st time i tried Thai Basil Fried Rice was 2 months ago when we were in Vacaville for Outlet shopping. The weather is so warm and we were so hungry at lunch time. My husband was using the GPS to search for nearest Asian restaurant and we found a very small size Thai cafe in one of the non prominent street of Vacaville city. We decided to make it a try since Asian food is always our priority whenever we hunt for food in the US. Not to say Western food is not good, but rather, rice and noodle is our Asian daily essential food what!

I ordered the Thai Basil fried rice in this small little Thai cafe, while my hubby ordered Pad Thai (Thai Style Fried Kuoy Teow). To my surprise, their food is so authentic and so much awsome and it is totaly not Americanized to suit to Ametican taste bud. Ever since that, i decided to give this recipe a try at home...since i hv all the ingredient ready, which includes Basil leaf, Thai red chilis, chicken meat, fish sauce and red/yellow bell pepper. Another "a must" garnishing ingredient is coriander leaf (香菜). It goes well with thai fried rice and the tom yam soup.

Tom Yam soup in this case, is only a supporting role to me. Without a Tom Yam soup, how can i say i hv cooked a complete authetic Thai meal as my dinner?

For the Tom Yam soup, it is best u smash one lemon grass, add Thai chili and Kaffir Lime Leaf in your soup base b4 u scope in the Thai Tom Yam cube/paste. Ingredient could be chicken, prawn or anything u delighted.

Serve hot and enjoy!