Pad Thai
Ingredients
Pad Thai Sauce
- 3 tbspn palm sugar, tightly packed, chopped 35 g
- 3 tbspn water 45 ml
- 3-4 tbspn Thai cooking tamarind
- 2 tbspn fish sauce
Pad Thai
- 4 oz dry rice noodles, medium, soak in room temp water for 1 hour 115 g
- 2 tbspn dried shimp, medium size, roughly chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, chopped
- ¼ cup shallots, roughly chopped
- 3 oz pressed tofu, cut into small pieces 85 g
- 3 tbspn preserved sweet daikon radish, finely shopped
- 3 tbspn vegetable oil 45 ml
- 10 medium shrimp
- 2 eggs
- 2½ cup bean sprouts, loosely packed 120 g
- 7-10 stalks garlic chives, cut into 2" pieces 70 g
- ¼ cup roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
- 1 lime
- garnishes and condiments for serving: chili flakes, roasted peanuts, bean sprouts and garlic chives
Instructions
Pad Thai Sauce
- In a small pot on medium heat, add palm sugar and melt. Once melting, keep stirring until it darkens in color. Immediately add water, fish sauce and tamarind paste. The sugar will harden immediately and this is ok.
- 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. Check that it is dissolved before you start cooking.
Pad Thai
- Cut drained noodles once with scissors so they are half as long. This makes them easier to toss and separate in the wok.
- In a mixing 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 until done and remove them from the 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. (Don't skimp on oil otherwise the noodles will clump together.)
- Turn heat up to high then add noodles and sauce. Keep tossing until all the sauce is absorbed.
- If you are using a jar of Pad Thai sauce, use the whole jar to make sure the noodles are well covered after soaking some of it in. You can add a little water if needed.
- Once sauce is absorbed, you can turn off the heat and taste the noodles for doneness. If they are still undercooked, add a little more water and continue cooking, being careful not to add too much water.
- Once noodles are done, push them to one side of the pan. Add a 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 shrimp 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.
- Squeeze a bit of lime on top before eating.
Notes
https://hot-thai=kitchen.com/best-pad-thai
- Use only Thailand or Vietnam tamarind paste
- You can soak noodles in advance, drain and keep them well sealed in the fridge for a few days.
- Find Thai sweet preserved radish on Amazon
- If substituting chicken, pork or beef for the protein, slice into bite-sized pieces and marinate them with just a bit of fish sauce or soy sauce so the meat isn’t bland.
- You can bake a big batch of sauce in advance and store indefinitely in the fridge.
- The recommendation is to cook no more than 2-3 services at a time to avoid crowding the pan and making the noodles soggy.