pad thai recipe authentic
Pad Thai is a Thai noodle stir fry with a sweet-savoury-sour sauce scattered with crushed peanuts. It’s made with thin, flat rice noodles, and almost always has bean sprouts, garlic chives, scrambled egg, firm tofu and a protein – the most popular being chicken or prawns/shrimp.
Pad Thai became popular after World War II because it was an inexpensive dish that could be made using only a handful of ingredients and could provide Thai people with plenty of nutrients. Further, during the war, there was a shortage of rice but noodles were plentiful, easy to find, and fulfilling. It can definitely be a part of a balanced, well-rounded diet. While pad thai includes many nutritious ingredients.
You can instantly prepare a mouthwatering Pad Thai dish for yourself at home.
Ingredients for Pad Thai sauce
35 g palm sugar, chopped
3 Tbsp water
3-4 tablespoon Thai cooking tamarind
2 Tbsp fish sauce
Ingredients for the dish
4oz (115g) dry rice noodles, medium size, soak in room temp water for 1 hour
2 Tbsp dried shrimp, medium size, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup chopped shallots
(85 g) pressed tofu, cut into small pieces
3 Tbsp finely chopped sweet preserved daikon radish
Dried chili flakes, to taste (optional)
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
10 medium sized shrimp
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups (120 g)bean sprouts
7-10 stalks garlic chives, cut into 2 inches
1/4 cup roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
1 lime
For garnish:
chili flakes
roasted peanuts
bean sprouts
garlic chives
Instruction
Add palm sugar to a small pot and melt over medium heat.
While the sugar is melting, keep stirring until it darkens in color.
Immediately add water, fish sauce, and tamarind paste.
The sugar will start hardening. Bring sauce to a simmer, then turn off heat. The hardened sugar will not have dissolved at this point, but let it sit while you prep other ingredients and it should be dissolved by the time you need it.
Do not boil the noodles just soak it for 1 hour in ROOM TEMP water, and they will finish cooking in the liquid of the sauce.
After soaking in the water drain the noodles and keep aside.
Cut drained noodles to make them shorter. This makes them easier to toss and separate in the wok.
In a bowl, combine tofu, garlic, shallots, preserved radish, dried shrimp, and chili flakes.
Heat a wok or a large nonstick skillet over high heat and add just enough oil to coat the bottom.
Sear shrimp or any protein you’re using, until done and remove them from pan.
In the same wok over medium heat, add a little more oil if needed, then add everything in the tofu bowl and saute for a few minutes until garlic starts to turn golden and shallots are wilted. If the wok looks dry, add a little more oil. (Use enough oil otherwise the noodles will clump up together.)
Turn heat up to high then add noodles and sauce. Keep tossing until all the sauce is absorbed.
Once sauce is absorbed, you can turn off the heat and taste the noodles. If they’re still under-cooked, add a little more water and continue cooking, being careful not to add too much water.
Once noodles are done, set noodles to one side of the pan. Add little extra oil to the empty space and add eggs.
Break the yolks, then put noodles on top of eggs and cook for about 30 seconds. Flip and toss to mix eggs into noodles.
Toss the cooked protein back in, plus any collected juices.
Then add bean sprouts, garlic chives and half of the peanuts. Turn off the heat and toss until well mixed.
Serve immediately with a lime wedge and extra peanuts on top.
For a classic presentation you can add a little extra side of bean sprouts and some garlic chives garnish.
Be sure to squeeze a bit of lime on top before eating.
Enjoy! VIEW MORE
