Pad Thai is a Thai noodle stir fry with a sweet-savory-sour sauce scattered with crushed peanuts. Also spelled phat Thai, it is a stir fried rice noodle dish commonly served as a street food in Thailand as part of the country’s cuisine. It is made with thin, flat rice noodles, and almost always has been sprouts, garlic chives, scrambled eggs, firm tofu and a protein being shrimp/prawns or chicken.

Ingredients

Pad Thai Sauce

• 3 tbsp. palm sugar or brown sugar
• 3 tbsp. water
• 3-4 tbsp. Thai cooking tamarind
• 2 tbsp. good fish sauce

Pad Thai

• 115g dry rice noodles, medium size( soak in hot boiling water for 3 minutes or soak for 1 hour in room temperature water)
• 2 tbsp. dried shrimp, medium size
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped shallots
• 85g pressed tofu, cut into small pieces
• 3 tbsp. finely chopped sweet preserved daikon radish
• Dried chili flakes to taste
• 3 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 10 medium sized shrimp(or as many as you like)
• 2 eggs
• 21/2 cups bean sprouts
• 7-10 stalks garlic chives, cut into pieces
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
• 1 lime
• Garnishes- roasted peanuts, bean sprouts and garlic chives

Procedure

To make Pad Thai sauce

• Add palm sugar or brown sugar to a small pot and melt over medium heat. Once the sugar is melting, keep stirring intil it darkens in color. Immediately add water, fish sauce and tamarind paste, the sugar will harden immediately.
• 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.

To make 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 bowl, combine tofu, garlic, shallots, preserved radish, dried shrimp and chili flakes.
• Heat a wok or a large non-stick skillet over high heat and add just enough oil to coat the bottom. Sear the shrimp, or whatever protein you using until done and remove 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.
• Turn heat up and 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 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 little extra oil to the empty space and add eggs. Break the yolks, then put the 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(be sure to squeeze a bit of lime on top before eating). For a classic presentation you can add a little extra side of bean sprouts and some garlic chives garnish.