Pad Thai - sweet, sour, salty & hot!

February 16, 2017

Pad Thai is one of Thailand's top street food. Pad Thai is a quick stir fry of rice noodles with sweet, sour, salty and chilli hot seasoning, chives & bean sprouts and crushed peanuts. Recently, I had the good fortune of tasting a really delicious, well fried and authentic Pad Thai. This motivated me to try my hand at cooking it at home. After researching a number of recipes and with that taste still in mind, I started to experiment with the proportion of seasoning used. I finally end up with the following recipe. Hope you like it too.

VIDEO LINK: https://youtu.be/vf1QnUTAXTE?si=N56UwtbNH5K_J-PL

Ingredients

120 gm Thai rice noodles (soak in water till flexible, then drain)
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1 shallot (minced)
3 cloves minced garlic (minced)
1 tablespoon preserved turnip (minced)
1/2 piece firm tofu (cut into 1 inch long sticks)
1 tablespoon tamarind paste (mixed with 1 tablespoon water)
2 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 fresh chilli (chopped)
1 egg
8-10 fresh shrimps (or dried prawns soaked in hot water)
Dash of ground white pepper
1 handful of bean sprouts (top & tail)
1 handful of chives (cut into 1 inch long pieces)
Garnish
- 1/2 cup peanuts (toasted & chopped)
- 1 handful of raw chives (cut into 1 inch long pieces)
- 1 handful of raw bean sprouts (top & tail)
- 1/2 lime

Method

1. Heat pan and add 1 tablespoon of oil. Add shallot, garlic, preserved turnip and tofu and fry till brown.

2. Add noodles to the pan and give it a quick stir fry for a couple of minutes.

3. Add tamarind, sugar, fish sauce and ground chilli. Stir. Keep heat at high.

4. Make a space in the centre and crack the egg into the space. Scramble egg till cooked. Fold egg into noodles.

5. Add shrimp and stir.

6. Sprinkle with white pepper and add bean sprouts and chives. Stir fry for a couple of minutes to mix well. Noodles should be soft and dry.

7. Remove noodles to a serving plate and sprinkle with ground white pepper and chopped peanuts.8. Serve hot with the a wedge of lime on the side, raw Chinese chives and raw bean sprouts on top.