Hey there Honey's and New-Bees!

Thai food is one of my favorite foods to eat. Back when I was in university, there was a little Thai restaurant down the street from campus that I would make my way down to every Thursday and treat myself with a bowl of Basil Beef with Eggplant. Since I now live across the country, it’s been years since I’ve been back to that restaurant, but I still look for that dish every time I go out for Thai. Over the years I’ve found many similar dishes, but none have compared to the one from that little mom & pop restaurant.

A couple months ago I walked into a small asian grocery store by my place and found a fantastic price on eggplant and on sweet basil (also known as Thai basil) and decided to try and recreate this meal on my own. After a quick Pinterest search I found a pretty great Thai Basil Beef recipe, made a couple of modifications and added eggplant. The results were spectacular, and it only took about 20 minutes and just as amazing as the dish from that little restaurant. 

This is a really great dish that’s really easy to whip up any night of the week, even if you choose to omit the eggplant (I know not everyone loves eggplant as much as I do). I really hope you enjoy this recipe  and please leave a  comment of  how it turned out for you 😊.

Before cooking anything start by prepping your eggplant and Thai sauce.
Slice your eggplant into large sticks, salt it, place it in a strainer and let it sit for a couple minutes while you prep your sauce. You might have seen a few eggplant recipes that call for salting, straining, rinsing and patting down eggplant (which can takes several hours) before actually cooking it. Although I’ve gone through this process a couple of times, most of the time I haven’t found it’s made much of a difference as long as the eggplant is fresh (plus it saves me a ton of time skipping this step), so I’ve streamlined the process by salting it about 10 minutes before cooking, letting it strain while I prep the rest of my meal then patting dry before cooking. However, if you’re using an older, less fresh eggplant it’s worth going through the trouble of salting a couple hours before as the salt will help remove any bitterness. If you want a little more info I suggest checking out  Food 52 which has a great post all about  salting eggplant 😊.

While your eggplant is salting, combine and whisk together the tamari, fish sauce, sugar and lime in a small mixing bowl and set aside for later.

Now that you’ve made your sauce, pat dry the eggplant and warm your olive oil in a medium size dutch oven (or large skillet). Once the oil has warmed up, fry your eggplant in small batches making sure not to crowd the pan, lightly tossing the eggplant so that it cooks evenly on all sides – which is about a minute per side or until the eggplant is golden brown. Once done remove the eggplant sticks from the pot and transfer them to a cool bowl and pour a quarter of your Thai sauce on top.

Using the same pot you fried the eggplant in, fry your onions and red pepper together until the onions are translucent then add your beef, garlic and chilli sauce  and continue to cook.   When you’re beef is par-cooked (about half cooked) gradually add half of the remaining thai sauce and mix well.

Once the beef is completely cooked, lower the heat and add in your eggplant, Thai basil and remaining Thai sauce and continue to stir until the basil is limp (about 3 minutes), and that’s it!

Serve over jasmine rice, top with some green onions and ENJOY!