Have you ever had Three Cup Chicken before? If you have, and you are a fan, you’ll love Three Cup Squid Stir Fry (aka 三杯小卷)! This seafood dish calls for some of the same delicious ingredients such as black sesame oil, ginger, fresh basil leaves and more – creating an insanely flavorful dish!

Three Cup

“Three Cup” is a Taiwanese flavor, and I love it! Mostly because I love basil… but who doesn’t! Basil has such a delicious and flavorful taste.

So WHY is it called “Three Cup”? Well, it’s because it’s ingredients basically are made up mainly of 3 “cups” of sauces – Soy Sauce, Rice Wine, and Sesame Oil. We’re not actually going to use full ‘cups’ that is more of a figure of speech.

If Three Cup sounds freakin’ delicious to you too, check out my Three Cup Chicken recipe here!

Thick Soy Sauce

I do not use regular soy sauce for this recipe. I use Thick Soy Sauce, aka Soy Paste. There’s actually many different types of soy sauce! Thick soy sauce is a lot thicker than your normal soy sauce. It has a richer, sweeter flavor, which is perfect for this dish.

If you can’t find any thick soy sauce, you can actually use regular soy sauce. If you do this route, here’s a couple of recommendations:

• Add some sort of sweetener. Since Thick soy sauce is more sweet, you are now missing a flavor, so I would recommend adding a bit of sugar or sweetener of your choice.
• Thicken it. Since Thick soy sauce is, well duh, more thick, you may want to add something to thicken the sauce. To do this, you can mix cornstarch and water in a separate bowl to create a thickener, and then adding it to the dish prior to adding the basil.

Or even more simple – Oyster sauce can often be used as a substitute because it is similar in texture and it is also salty and sweet at the same time.

By the way you can find these sauces, in your local Asian grocery store or even on amazon here:

Kimlan Soy Paste / Thick Soy Sauce

Lee Kum Kee Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

• 12 oz squid, cleaned and cut into pieces
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 6 slices peeled ginger
• 3 tablespoons thick soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tablespoons rice wine
• 1 bunch Thai basil leaves

Instructions

Clean the squid thoroughly, cut into pieces, rinse with cold water.

Heat up a pot of water and bring it to boil. Blanch the squid for about 20 seconds. Drain and set aside.

Heat up a wok or large cooking pan, and add ginger and sesame oil.

Stir fry for a minute, and then add squid and mix well. Add michiu and thick soy sauce. Mix well to make sure everything’s coated with the sauce.

Add basil leaves, and then to combine well.

Remove from heat and serve!

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