Pad Thai
The taste of Thai food is characterised by hot, sweet, salty, and sour flavours. In the correct proportions they make your palate dance. An hour ago I ate this Pad Thai and my palate is still dancing a chilli, lime, tamarind and prawn paste samba!
Minimal perishable ingredients are used in this dish, a telltale sign that it has origins as traditional street food that is cheap and super quick to prepare.
Every Thai restaurant in Melbourne serves their own interpretation of Pad Thai. Most I find too sweet and too oily. Cooking the rice noodles at home I can eliminate these shortcomings, and while my version is probably not strictly Thai, it’s a fairly convincing facsimile.
200g flat rice noodles
Tamarind Pulp
30g blachan (fermented shrimp paste)
1 chicken breast
200g can shrimps or 6 green prawns
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 spring onion, green tops only
200g bean shoots
2 tablespoons crushed peanuts
2 tablespoons peanut oil
sauce:
juice of 1 lime
1 1/2 tablespoons tamarind paste*
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce (nam pla)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes
1/4 cup stock or water
garnish:
Lime wedges
1 tablespoon extra crushed peanuts
50g extra bean shoots
Put the noodles into a large bowl and cover with hot water. Set aside to soak for 30 minutes while you prepare the remainder of the ingredients.
Finely slice the chicken, shell and devein the prawns and cut each into three pieces.
Wash the spring onion tops and cut into 5 cm lengths.
Prepare the sauce by mixing all the ingredients together.
Heat your wok until smoking add the oil and the crumbled blachan. Fry for a few minutes, then add the chicken and prawns. Stir fry briefly, then add the spring onion and peanuts. Add the egg to one side and cook into a puffy omelette. Roughly break up the cooked egg, then add the drained noodles and the sauce ingredients. Continue to cook over a high heat until all the sauce is absorbed, tossing the ingredients frequently. Add the bean shoots, toss to combine.
Serve the noodles. Garnish with extra spring onion pieces, peanuts, beanshoots and lime wedges. Serves 2
* Tamarind trees grow commonly throughout Asia. The fruit is very fibrous and contains many pips. Tamarind paste can be bought ready prepared, in jars, but you can also buy the fruit, including seeds, dried and compressed into blocks. The pulp needs to be broken up into small pieces, soaked in warm water for about 10 minutes, massaged in the figures to separate the seeds then passed through a fine mesh strainer. Strained tamarind paste is what you require for this recipe. It imparts a characteristic sourness.
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14 comments on “Pad Thai”
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Please Pass the Recipe by Sandra Gay is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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Thanks for this great advice, I’ve tried many recipes in my restaurant. This is my made up version and I was very happy with the result. I’ll look at your recipe and maybe make some adjustments and i am cook in Marion’1s Kitchen so visit once my recipe blog.
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PS. Just remembered it, I’ve visited the High Heel Gourmet before. I think it was through your site. I just love her blog.
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Going to Sydney to visit my granddaughters this weekend. Usually we go somewhere to have this dish. I’m going to have a go at it. Let you know.
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Mary, have a look at the high heeled gourmets comment below, I learned a lot from her post AFTER my own. Last week I used just warm water to soak the noodles, the texture was much better and I replaced the fresh prawns with dried which I bought from the Asian grocer. Soak them for 15 minutes before using. Once mastered this will be a favourite, I promise!
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Thanks, I need all the help I can get.
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Beautifully presented!
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I absolutely love that description about your palate and the samba! Brilliant! We love Pad Thai and yours looks just beautiful!
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I’m Thai and totally agree with you about sweet oily PadThai they served outside the country! Yuckkkkkk beyond believe. Their curries are mostly all taste the same too! You have to try them in Thailand.
I’m so curious about the roasted shrimp paste. I will have to find out if they have them here in the US. It is not an ingredient in an authentic PadThai but I’m sure it would add interesting flavor to your version. (BTW if you are interested I have a recipe for an authentic version on my blog too with step by step pictures.)
There is one ingredient that would make the taste of your PadThai more complex, the pickle turnip or pickle radish. (Picture can be found on my blog)
Oh almost forgot, do not soak the noodles in hot water, room temperature water would be better for them. So when you stir fry them, they won’t clump in a bunch or breaking apart and half an hour is good if you want your noodle soft.
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Thanks for your advice, I’ve tried many recipes. This is my made up version and I was very happy with the result. I’ll look at your recipe and maybe make some adjustments.
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This is one of my Mom’s favorite foods, great timing!
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You’re so welcome
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It’s very simple Sam, well within your capability!!
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Oh, my favourite! Though I’ve never attempted it, in fear I’d get it wrong – Asian food can be intimidating like that sometimes. You are definitely right about so many being oily or sweet – or worse – both.
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