Western cooks too often go too light on fresh herbs, treating them more as garnish than flavoring. We prefer the Thai approach, which uses ingredients such as basil, mint and cilantro by the fistful.
Take Thailand’s chicken-and-basil stir-fry — gai pad krapow — which piles on basil, adding sweetness balanced by just a touch of herbal bitterness. We loved the simplicity of this popular street food, which sometimes is served with an egg on top.
In our version in the book “Milk Street Tuesday Nights,” which limits recipes to 45 minutes or less, we double down on the basil, using at two different times for two different flavors. Since this recipe calls for a skillet rather than a wok, the cooking is broken into two steps. The chicken comes first, with vegetables added later to keep them crisp.
Chopped basil leaves are added to the freshly cooked chicken, which mellows
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