I’ve been having gastronomic visions of Thai food lately and I’m drooling for some Thai street hawker food … Pad Thai! It’s fairly easy to make and it doesn’t call for anything too exotic that an average Asian home kitchen won’t have, and nothing too expensive to buy from the local grocery store. Whatever you can’t find in the supermarket, the recipe is pretty easy to tweak and still retains its genuine flavour.
Pad Thai is stir fried noodles. Like most other Asian countries have their own version of stir fried noodles, Thai stir fried noodles uses rice glass noodles tossed in a combination of other simple ingredients, which makes it quite inexpensive to make.
I’m definitely on a mission to cook Pad Thai this weekend! Thankfully, my son likes it a lot! And my mom … well, I have to tweak a small portion for her, but it’s all too easy. Feel free to add other ingredients to this dish or omit others that you’re not so keen on or if you have certain allergies. If you like it a little more red than brown, just add ketchup. You can even mix in a bit of peanut butter for that distinct nutty flavor. And lastly, keep a stash of extra chili peppers, in case you like to bring out that Thai fire breathing dragon in you.
Here’s a fairly easy recipe for Pad Thai you might like to dig your chopsticks into.
Pad Thai
Ingredients:
- 1 (12 ounce) package rice noodles
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into bite-sized pieces
- ½ kilo shrimps, shells peeled
- 1 pack bean curd, fried and chopped in ½” cubes
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 4 eggs
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 3 tablespoons white sugar
- 1/8 tablespoon crushed red pepper
- 2 cups bean sprouts
- 1/4 cup crushed peanuts
- 3 green onions, chopped
- 1 lime or lemon, cut into wedges
- Cilantro/coriander, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp peanut butter
Instructions:
- Toss the glass noodles for in boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Turn off the heat and let stand for 5 minutes in the hot water checking for tenderness. Make sure the noodles are al dente, else it will turn to bits and pieces when you sauté’ them later on.
- Sauté’ chicken until brown and add in shrimps until they are pink and cooked through. Set aside. Heat some oil in the pan/wok and then crack the eggs into it. Stir in chicken, shrimp and fried bean curd. Cook for about 5 minutes.
- In a small bowl, mix together, vinegar, fish sauce, sugar, peanut butter and red pepper. Adjust all seasoning to your taste.
- Add the bean sprouts into the pan and mix while cooking until noodles are tender to the bite for about 3 minutes.
- Serve hot topped with coriander leaves, green onions, peanuts and more chilli pepper, if you must!
Photo Credit: matias dutto
Photo Credit: Mr T in DC
Photo Credit: ben reeichelt