Interest Food (Pat Thai)

How to make Pat Thai

Pad Thai Recipe

          Most of these ingredients should be available at a respectable Asian food market. You should cook this in a decent-sized wok. If you don’t have one, get one already. The best carbon-steel, non-Teflon ones are less than $15, and after you season them, they’re good to go—you’ll use it for everything. if you’re still stubborn, fine, use a large pan, and see if your conscience won’t wake you up at night.

          This is best done in individual batches of, say, 4 oz worth of noodles, adjusting the proportions of other ingredients and wiping the wok clean in between, but a large batch wouldn’t be the worst thing.

If you want to go totally vegetarian or avoid fish sauce, you can experiment on the umami end with some salty seasoning sauce like Maggi, but it is pretty much guaranteed to not taste as good. If you don’t have tamarind concentrate, you can use regular white vinegar as a substitute. And if you really have to have bit of that reddish color—this is unorthodox—add a half or whole teaspoon of paprika; it won’t be as bad as adding ketchup.

• 8 ounces 4-5 mm dried flat rice noodles
• Warm water
• 3 tablespoons palm sugar
• 2 tablespoons liquid tamarind concentrate mixed with 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons red shallots
• 3 eggs
• 12 medium-to-large tail-on shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 2 tablespoons preserved turnip
• 2 tablespoons dried prawns
• 1/2 cup firm tofu, preferably marinated or smoked
• Vegetable oil
• 1 to 2 tablespoons peanuts
• 1 fistful mung bean sprouts
• 2 tablespoons Chinese chives, cut into 1-inch pieces
• Scallions for garnish
• Lime wedges for serving

1.       Soak noodles in warm, not hot, water for 20 to 25 minutes until softer but not mushy. If in doubt, under soak, as you can always hydrate them more during the cooking process.

2.       In the meantime, get all your ingredients ready in small bowls. Dissolve palm sugar in tamarind concentrate, water, and fish sauce. Roughly dice the shallots and set aside. Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk them lightly. Cut the tofu into rectangles 1/8-inch thick, roughly chop the preserved turnip, and add them to a bowl with the dried prawns and fresh shrimp. Crush the peanuts into granules in a mortar and pestle or food processor and set aside.

3.       For the next stir-frying steps, go two-handed. Use two spatulas to stir everything. You’ll be able to pick up, separate, fold, and toss the noodles around so much more easily.  

4.       Heat a few tablespoons of oil in the wok at medium heat. When hot, throw in red shallots, and fry until nicely colored and fragrant. Then turn the heat to high. Don’t burn anything, all right?

5.       Once the pan is now nice and hot, throw in noodles (drained) and keep on stirring. Preferably, right before cooking, you can dunk noodles in boiling water for 10 seconds with a bamboo ladled strainer (helps mitigate stickiness and clumping, but if not, it’s OK).

6.       Add palm sugar, tamarind, and fish sauce mixture. Stir the noodles until the mixture is evenly distributed.

7.       Add dried prawns, tofu, preserved turnips, and fresh shrimp, and stir again.

8.       If noodles are getting dry, add water in scant 1/4-cup increments. Noodles should take anywhere from a few minutes to 5 -10 minutes cook, depending on the size of the batch and your stove’s firepower. Just take a strand out to taste and make sure it’s not hard or super chewy. You’ve had Pad Thai before; you know when it’s about right. The noodles should attain a light brown color as the sugar caramelizes.

9.       Set the noodles to one side of the wok. Add a tablespoon of oil, and then toss in the eggs. Before they are further cooked, flop the noodles onto them and toss around to distribute the eggs.

10.    Add ground peanuts and stir all over. Taste for flavor for balance, the most important aspect of a well made Pad Thai. You can adjust the profile by adding more regular sugar, fish sauce, a squeeze of lime juice, or vinegar.

11.    When almost done, add Chinese chives and stir-fry for a minute more. You can either pour this onto a waiting mound of plated bean sprouts and or add the sprouts now and turn off the heat and then toss the whole thing around, your choice.

12.    Plate with lime slice and piece of scallion. If you want to make it fancy and old-school, add banana flowers cut in lengthwise wedges to be nibbled along. To top this, serve it all in a basket made from fresh banana leaves. Good luck with that.

 Wow ... So Easy...