Pad Thai

I often find myself watching cooking videos and podcasts on my ipod. Youtube is wonderful for finding every possible how-to video. As of late, I have been especially into Korean and Thai cooking. Today I dug down to the heart of Chinatown and wandered through a couple of Thai markets for ingredients and ideas.

One of my favorite Thai dishes is Pad Thai. It’s truly comfort food, when done right. I finally built up the nerve to cook it. I was amazed that it wasn’t that hard to prepare.

Pad Thai

Ingredients:

Thin Flat Rice Stick Noodles
Eggs – a couple
Tofu – diced small, extra firm
Another protein (optional)
Garlic – chopped
Ground Peanuts – crushed, roasted
Chives –
Beansprouts – I didn’t have any and didn’t see any good ones in the store
Tamarind Concentrate
Sugar – when done right, you should use palm sugar – I didn’t have any
sriracha or chili paste
fish sauce – sometimes available kosher from koshergourmetmart – if vegetarian, use extra soy sauce
soy sauce
Vegetable Oil – non fragrant oil is important, peanut or canola works well
lime wedges – very important player in this dish

The trick is to have everything read to go, before you heat up your wok.

Get your sauce ready. For 2-3 servings, I used 2 tablespoons of tamarind, 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 2 teaspoons of chili paste.

Cut up your tofu and let it dry on papertowels.

Chop up veggies and/meat

Cook the rice noodles. Pour boiling water over noodles in a bowl and let sit for 10 minutes. Do not overcook them. Very important.

Ready to get down to business now. Heat up a large wok with 2 tablespoons of oil. Add in your garlic and tofu. Fry a bit. Move the garlic and tofu to the side. If using meat, this is when you would cook it. Crack in your eggs and scramble. Let it set a bit.

Toss in your noodles. Toss in the sauce and mix. Throw in the beansprouts and any other veggies you might be adding. Mix up and stir fry a few minutes.

Serve on to a plate. Sprinkle over some chopped peanuts. Serve with a lime wedge to squeeze over. The lime juice is essential and very yummy in this dish.

This meal turned out to be a hit tonight. Feel free to play with ingredients a bit. Add more or less of sauce ingredients to meet your taste. I will probably add more heat (chili paste) next time as well as more lime juice squeezed on. I was very happy with this meal and will make again. Very easy quick dinner night meal.