Pan fried Thai basil shrimp

Today I'll be making Thai basil shrimp dish. Since it takes longer time than any 4-minute-high-heat-and-ready-to-eat frozen food, I usually make this kind of dish for dinner or the weekend.

Anyway let's start with the ingredients. I won't put the quantity down so it depends on how much you like.

1. Shrimp (recommend with head since that's where the flavor comes from --its brain)

2. Thai/ Hot/ Holy Basil. Make sure you're NOT using Italian Basil or you will ruin your meal for EVER.

3. Garlic

4. Fish Sauce

5. Shrimp paste

6. Sugar (sweetener is used in this preparation)

Peel off the shrimp and leave the head intact. Clean the shrimp well.

Chop the garlic and prepare the basil leaves. When you get everything ready, it's time for an actual cooking.

Turn on medium heat and put some vegetable oil on a pan. Follow by chopped garlic. Keep stirring until they are start sizzling, then leave it for a minute I think. Make sure you don't over cook it since it will continue cooking when we put other stuffs on.

Dig out one BIG table spoon of the shrimp paste from the jar. Dump onto the pan and stir.

Stir.. Stir..Stir...

When they mix together, put all the shrimp you got. Still on medium heat. Stir SLOWLY each side to make sure they are cook thoroughly. If you stir too fast, you're risking ripping off the shrimp heads from their bodies.  If it's too dry, put some water in a bit.

Then a magic at this point. I don't know how to measure this but I just squeeze the fish sauce in. Probably one table spoon.

Then dust them with sugar (or sweetener) just a bit like in the picture.

Stir again SLOWLY, and keep tasting. You can add more sugar / fish sauce as you like. Btw, make sure the shrimps are cooked before you start tasting it or you might get sick.

When you get a taste you like, turn off the heat and top with basil leaves. Keep stirring a bit.

Here is what you should get as a final product. If it doesn't look like this, just redo everything again.

Enjoy on top of a hot steamy jasmine rice. OMG YUM!