A Quest for Pad Krapow from a Bangkok Street to a Brooklyn Kitchen
I walked into Trok Mor morning market with the same giddiness that a five-year-old child might have felt when walking into FAO Schwarz. You know, the old store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. It was just after 7am and the alleys were buzzing with people, and the air already saturated with the pungent smells of spices, herbs, frying foods, and moped exhaust. This was not a revelation; this was my second full day in Bangkok and it was the second time I had trawled Trok Mor for photo ops and the sort of breakfast that felt like dinner to my western sensibilities.
On the first day, I picked what looked good without knowing much about it. It was pork, that much I knew, mixed with red chili peppers, unidentified green leaves, and unknown-to-me seasonings. It was served over white rice and topped with a crispy fried egg that, much to my pleasure, had a hard-cooked yolk. I hate runny yolks.
It came in a plastic container and it was cold from sitting on the table, waiting for someone to make it their breakfast, or take it along for lunch. I didn’t know what it was, but after the first bite, I knew I wanted more of it.
As I approached the same stand from the day before, the girl behind the table immediately recognized me. She had asked to take a photo with me yesterday, and now, through a mix of Google Translate and hand gestures, told me that she posted it on Facebook and many people had liked it. This whole photo thing took me by surprise because I don’t have the sort of complexion that compels people outside of majority white countries to want to photograph, at least in my experience. That is, I am not blonde nor a redhead. Before this, I can’t remember a single time someone asked to take a photo with me while I was traveling.
But back to the food. Breakfast was the mission and that I accomplished. I got the same thing again, of course, but this time she gave it to me with a scallion omelet instead of a fried egg, for variety, I suppose. It also came, as before, with some sort of broth or sauce in a plastic bag, precariously tied closed and threatening to spill at any moment. But the Thais have this to-go packaging down to a science. All over the market, and around Bangkok, they just walked around drinking from plastic bags through a straw without spilling even a drop.
This morning I wanted to eat my breakfast slowly, not while standing in a corner of the market, wolfing the food down like the hungry animal that I was. Thankfully, my hotel was only a block and a half away so I took it there, along with a few other treats, and ate it by the pool. It was so good. This was my first time in Southeast Asia, and if this cold dish from a street market was this good, I could only imagine what other deliciousness awaited.
Despite all my photo-taking, I don’t have a single photo of this food from either day. I was too busy, I guess, shoving it in my mouth to think about the photographic potential. I regret it. Not eating it, but not taking a second to document it.
After the second time I had this thing that had me so enthralled, I decided that I needed to do my due diligence and figure out what I was eating. What were the ingredients? And, most importantly, how I could make it back home? The name of the dish, it turns out, is Pad Krapow, or variations thereof, and the mystery green leaves were holy basil – also known as tulsi in some areas.
Mystery solved. Now all I needed to do, once I got back to Brooklyn, was to cook it. But things are never that easy.
Holy basil proved impossible to find in New York City, and I tried! Almost every recipe I read acknowledged this and suggested either Thai basil or Italian (Genovese) basil instead, but warned that it just wouldn’t be the same. Holy basil has a distinctive flavor that neither of those substitutions can mimic. Although they are related – they’re all part of the mint family – they are completely different. Besides, the name of the dish is literally fried holy basil, which is what pad krapow means. The use of other types of basil in the dish is something that confounds Thai people. It was holy basil or nothing at all.
I suspect that part of the reason holy basil is so rare in the United States is that it is mostly a medicinal plant. It’s native to South Asia, largely India, where it is used in Ayurvedic and Siddha medicine. As such, it is rarely used in the USA. Its most notable culinary use is, in fact, in pad krapow. The difficulty sourcing holy basil in the US, or outside South Asia, for that matter, could very well account for why pad krapow is so little known here despite the popularity of Thai food as a whole. Or maybe the dish is just overshadowed by the beacon of light that is pad thai on restaurant menus. And if you know nothing about the proliferation of Thai restaurants outside of the country over the last few decades, know that it was no accident that pad thai – a dish invented by the government to alleviate rice scarcity – came to symbolize Thai cuisine on the world stage. It was one of the most successful feats of food diplomacy the modern world has ever known.
When I exhausted all commercial avenues in my pursuit of holy basil, I had no choice but to grow it myself. This is how committed I was to making this dish! So, I bought some seeds, sowed them, and grew four holy basil plants in a container on my Brooklyn rooftop terrace. During one of those trips to Lowes for soil and pots (this is how I came to plant over 30 different crops), I also picked up a Thai chili plant that Bonnie Plants, the company that sells it, calls Thai hot ornamental peppers. This seems to be a cutesy name Bonnie Plants gave the pepper, but as far as I can tell, they are just small bird’s eye chilis, which is what is often used in Thai cuisine. They have the same level of spice, 50,000-100,000 on the Scoville scale. Those are the chilis I used in this recipe.
Pad krapow, like pad thai, is a relative newcomer to the Thai food scene. But, in Thailand, pad krapow is much more widely eaten than pad thai, despite the popularity of the latter in other countries. A survey carried out in 2020 showed that pad krapow was the most popular menu item among Thai people. And yet, according to an article published in December of the same year, many people in the country didn’t know the history of the dish or its origins.
Although there are some obscure roots from the late 17th century, mostly the mentioning of holy basil, it wasn’t until the late 1950s that pad krapow began to gain popularity in Thailand. The dish, one of the experts consulted in the article explains, is actually a product of Chinese migration. Initially, it was a simple dish made with soybean paste, garlic, meat, and holy basil. Soon, the soybean paste was replaced by a chili and garlic paste, which is the core aromatic component of pad krapow today. Still, the dish retained its simplicity until more recently when chefs began adding vegetables like beans, mushrooms, and even corn.
Dr. Ratchanee of Mahidol University, the expert quoted in the article, explains that the reason the dish is number one with Thai people is because “it is delicious and when stir-fried, you smell the pad krapow and it stimulates your appetite. When you smell it, you want to eat it.” This is her opinion, of course, but I agree. She adds that it is fast and cheap to make, which is probably true in Thailand but certainly not if you have to spend a few months growing the holy basil before you so much as slice a chili pepper.
After my holy basil plants were big enough to harvest, the last piece of the puzzle was to come up with a recipe. For this, I consulted a slew of pad krapow recipes from cookbooks and blogs. Some of the ingredients were standard across recipes, while some recipes used ingredients that others did not. For example, one recipe called for green beans, another for bell peppers, and another one for kaffir (makrut) lime leaves. I am also growing a makrut lime tree in a container on my roof terrace, but that is a story for another day.
The pad krapow I had at Trok Mor was pretty simple and I wanted to keep my version the same. Instead of following any of the recipes I consulted, I created an original recipe that best suited me while keeping the core ingredients: soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, chilis, garlic, sugar, meat (pork, in my case), and, of course, holy basil.
Friends, it was all worth it! This pad krapow was delicious. It was so delicious, in fact, that my notoriously picky teenager decided to brave the heat of the chilis to eat it. The heat, of course, can be adjusted by using fewer peppers.
And so, my quest for pad krapow came to a satisfying end. This is, without a doubt, the most work I have ever put into making a meal, especially one that cooks in less than 10 minutes. The research, the finding the seeds, the sowing them and watching the plants grow, the waiting. The waiting! It was all part of an exploration into the unfamiliar in a way that I could have never predicted the first morning I set foot in Bangkok. This was a transformative experience in the way that only traveling while perpetually hungry and with an appetite for new culinary experiences can be. The sort of appetite that seeks to learn and appreciate. I didn’t know what I was eating that early morning in Trok Mor, but I am glad that not knowing didn’t stop me from giving it a try.
And if you are in NYC and need some holy basil, I know a woman.
Pad Krapow
3 small Thai chilis (about 1½” long)
2 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon canola or peanut oil
½ pound ground pork
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1½ teaspoons oyster sauce
1½ teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon packed light brown sugar
pinch of ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon MSG (optional but recommended)
¾ cups packed fresh holy basil leaves
Salt to taste
2 fried eggs and jasmine rice to serve
In a mortar and pestle, mash the chilis and garlic into a paste. If you don’t have a mortar and pestle, you can mince them very small or use a small food processor.
Place a wok over high heat and add the oil. When the oil is shimmering, add the pork in a flat layer and cook without stirring until it starts to form a crust underneath. Break up the meat into small pieces with a wooden or wok spatula. Continue to stir and cook until the meat is no longer pink and all the liquid it released has evaporated.
Move the meat to one side of the wok. If the wok is dry, add a splash of oil. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic and chili paste to the empty space you just made. Cook, stirring, for 30 seconds or so, then stir into the pork, making sure to mix well.
Turn the heat back to high and add the fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, ground black pepper, and MSG. Cook, mixing and tossing, for 30 seconds or so until everything is mixed well.
Turn the heat off and add the holy basil. Mix into the pork until begins to wilt. Add salt if necessary.
Serve with jasmine rice and a fried egg.
Serves 2
Further Reading and Watching
“You Think You Understand Thai Culture Because You Eat at Thai Restaurants? Think Again” Food & Wine article by Alexandra Domrongchai
“Pad Kaprao: The Story Behind Thailand’s Real National Dish” video by OTR Food & History
I have kind of a food forest in my backyard, and tulsi basil is among the most prolific of my yearly volunteers. I can’t remember why I planted it years ago. I think it was to make tea, which I did try making and didn’t care for. Yesterday, I walked by a tulsi basil plant buzzing with bees, and decided to try making tea again. You just changed my mind. I am making pad krapow! What a great article! Thanks for the inspiration!
My favourite Thai dish! ❤️ Luckily in the UK I can get holy basil without too much trouble, as I'm incapable of keeping even the hardiest plants alive...