Probably one of the most famous Thai meals out there — Pad Thai. I like it, but Thai cooking has so much more to offer than just this one dish. Explore!
This recipe comes together extremely fast, so have everything prepped and ready before you start cooking.
(Experiment 113) Pad thai
Ingredients
- 20 uncooked shrimps I use size 16-20
- 350 g thin rice noodle
- Oil
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1-2 eggs beaten
- 3 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tbps tamarind paste
- 2 tbsp sugar
- ~1 cup soybeans
- 2 shallots or 1 small onion
- 2 green onion minced
- 1-2 Thai peppers minced
- Optional: Lime wedge chopped peanuts, and fresh coriander
Instructions
- First, you want to soak your noodle so they get tender, do so by putting them in a pot with water for 60 minutes or so. Tip, you can actually make that the day before, drain it, cover it with plastic film. Saves time.
- While you wait, remove the shells from the shrimp and reserve.
- Heat a pan to medium-high, add some oil, add the shrimps, garlic, peppers, and shallots and cook for about 45 seconds while stirring.It’s now time to add the noodle, tamarind, fish sauce, sugar, and 2tbsp of water, cook for about 60-90 seconds. Tip, the noodle are ready when they start sticking. You will see what I mean.
- In the pan, push the food on one side and dump the eggs. Cook for a minute and make sure to break them into pieces. You can then mix everything back together. Turn the heat off and add the soybean and green onions and mix. Done
Notes
Tamarind paste is hard for me to get in my area, but it’s a key component to this meal. There are a few substitutions you can use, but I’d highly recommend ordering some online if you can. I tried vinegar and brown sugar as a substitute, and… meh. If you’re going to improvise, lime or lemon juice with brown sugar apparently gets you closer to that fruity tang tamarind has next time I’ll try that instead.