Vegetarian Pad Ga Prau

Stir-fries with holy basil, or in Thai, are very popular in Thailand, and rightly so. In particular, the unofficial national dish Thai Pad Ka Prao Moo Sap with minced meat is simply irresistible for me.

So that you can also enjoy this wonderful dish when you don’t eat meat, I have written down the recipe for my vegetarian Pad Ga Prau, or , here for you.

You can theoretically use any type of meatless minced meat substitute here. I prefer the dried soy granules, which you have to soak in water or vegetable broth, as they are more colour-neutral than pea-based alternatives.

The step towards a vegan dish is then not far, because you can simply leave out the fried egg. I am of the opinion, though, that the dish is then missing something. There are also vegan egg substitutes available, though I have no experience with them.

Preparation

In the following, I assume that we have already soaked the soy granules or that we are using another minced meat substitute that requires no further preparation.

First, we cut the Thai chilis into rough rings. You can easily adjust the heat level by changing the amount of chilis. If you cannot tolerate any heat at all, you can use mild red peppers from the supermarket instead. In my opinion, leaving them out is not an option, as the dish also lives from the flavour of the chilis.

Next, we peel the garlic and cut it into rough pieces. We then place it together with the chilis in a mortar and pound both into a rough paste.

In the next step, we fry the egg sunny-side up in a small pan in about a third of the oil until the white is crispy on the outside but the yolk is still soft.

Now we add the remaining vegetable oil to a wok or pan, heat it up and fry the freshly prepared paste in it until it releases its aroma. We then add the vegan minced meat, mix everything thoroughly and fry the mixture, stirring occasionally, until the minced meat is lightly browned.

We then add one tablespoon each of the no-fish sauce, the vegetarian mushroom sauce and the soy sauce, as well as the palm sugar, and mix everything thoroughly. We fry the whole thing for another two minutes, stirring repeatedly so that the flavours can blend.

Meanwhile, we pluck the leaves of the holy basil from their stalks. When the contents of the pan are done, we turn off the heat, add the leaves and mix everything thoroughly one more time.

Finally, we plate the finished vegetarian Pad Ga Prau with the fried egg. We add a few slices of cucumber that we have peeled with the kiwi peeler. We then serve the whole thing immediately with jasmine rice.