23rd March 2026

I was catching up with Masterchef the Professionals and saw the episode with John Chantarasak which reminded me of the cookbook Kin Thai. I was lucky enough to be taken to Anglo Thai for my birthday which funnily enough was the day John had been filming Masterchef. I had taken my book ‘just in case’ and towards the end of the meal our waiter came over, said John had just popped in unexpectedly after filming and I managed to get my book signed, I was so chuffed.

Flicking through Kin Thai yesterday I came across the recipe pad grapao neua (stir-fried minced beef with holy basil) which is very similar to a recipe in Chefs at Home by Saiphin Moore which we loved so I thought this would be great for a Monday. 

Just like the other recipe, this is extremely delicious and fast.  I used quorn mince (again) and reduced the chillies, we haven’t been eating many chillies recently for one reason and another so my tolerance is probably much lower than it usually is, I decided therefore to be sensible and reduced the birds eyes down from 6(!!!) to 2. 6 might make one or both of us weep, it was spicy but probably could have been a little hotter. I also did not have any green beans but I did have some sugar snaps to use up so used them (not authentic but saves them going to waste).  We actually really liked the clean crisp crunch they gave.

I decided to make the mince first and cook the eggs after as I wanted my egg yolk to be soft and I also did not fry the eggs (or mince part) in as much oil as the recipe suggests but really it worked well.  I see that the crispy egg would give a crunch so next time may just add some crispy onions.

I could not get Holy basil but did manage to find Thai basil.  I misread the instructions and proceeded to chop my Thai basil rather than leave them whole and I also only had 20g.  It did still really taste of Thai basil which was very nice. 

This was really very delicious and very very quick, we enjoyed this very much and I will definitely make again.