Description
Designer Richard Saja shares his favorite lunch recipe while he’s hard at work.
Ingredients
Scale
For the rice:
- 1 cup white jasmine rice (broken preferred)
- 2 cups coconut milk
For the stir-fry:
- 3 glugs olive oil
- 2 tsp Maldon sea salt
- 1/2 lb mushrooms (shiitake mushrooms preferred because they stand up to a stir-fry)
- 2 large or 3 small shallots, roughly chopped
- 6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 20 to 25 small red bird’s eye chili peppers, stems removed
- 1 tbsp crushed red chili flakes (Richard’s favorite variety comes from El Potrero Trading Post in Chimayo, NM)
- 1 bunch Thai purple basil leaves
For the chicken:
- 1 glug olive oil
- 2 lb ground chicken
- 4 tbsp fish sauce (I like Red Boat or Pufina Patis)
- 3 tbsp coconut sugar syrup (substitute the same amount of any kind of brown sugar if necessary)
Instructions
For the rice:
- Put rice and milk in a pot and cook until all liquid is absorbed.
- Jasmine rice cooks quickly, especially the broken variety, so set aside covered and fluff with a fork before serving.
For the stir fry:
- In a large pot or wok add 2 glugs of olive oil, sea salt, and mushrooms and sauté on medium flame for about 3 to 4 minutes each side, until they’re barely browned around the edges. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl and set aside.
- Add 1 glug olive oil and on a very low flame cook shallots, garlic, chilies and crushed red chili flakes for 20 to 30 minutes.
For the chicken:
- In a separate pot, pour glug of olive oil in a pot and add chicken. Break apart as it cooks down and add fish sauce and sugar and toss together. When meat is cooked through, remove from heat.
- Using a slotted spoon, add cooked chicken and sautéed mushrooms and basil leaves to shallot-oil mixture. Stir-fry on a high flame until basil leaves have wilted and mixture is heated through.
- Divide coconut rice between 4 bowls, top with chicken mixture, garnish with basil leaves and serve.