When I was in college. There is a food court that is few block down the road called “Asian Ghetto” which have several Asian restaurants. There is one Thai restaurant that I love very much and I always order their Pad Thai. Pad Thai is really my comfort food there. If you know how stressful I was in college, you will know how many times I had eaten Pad Thai! A lot! Every time I got a chance to swing by my school, I go to the Thai place in Asian Ghetto to have a plate of Pad Thai.
Every since I had my first Pad Thai, I’m in love with this dish. I order it whenever I go to a Thai place because it’s full of flavor. At that time, I made up my mind to learn this dish.
Honestly, this is one easy dish that you can’t possibly mess up! Let’s see how we can make it!
sauce ingredients
- 4 tbsp of sugar
- 3 tbsp of tamarind paste
- 4 tbsp of fish sauce
- 1 tbsp of sirarcha sauce
- 1 tbsp of shrimp tomalley (optional)
Noodle Ingredients
- 2 tbsp of oil
- 4 garlic minced
- 1 tsp of dried shrimps (optional)
- 1 ½ tbsp of sweet pickle radish (optional)
- 1 ½ cup of diced protein (bean curd, shrimp, etc)
- 2 eggs
- 4 cups of rice noodles
Topping Ingredients (optional):
- 1½ cup of bean sprout
- 4 green onions, 2 inches strips
- ¼ cup of dried crushed peanuts
- ⅓ of lime
First, soak your rice noodles in cold water for 3 hrs. Pro Tip: If you want your noodles to be more chewy, you can soak for less time to yield a chewier texture.
One very important tip for any stir fry dish: Since it’s just a matter of few seconds between a perfect stir fry dish and a burnt goo due to the high heat. You want to have EVERYTHING prepped and ready before you move on to your cooking. Therefore, mix your sauce first. The key to delicious Thai cuisine is finding the golden balance of sweet, sour, spicy and salty. In this case, we have sugar for sweetness, tamarind paste for sourness, fish sauce for saltiness, and siracha sauce for spiciness. Add a tbsp of shrimp tomalley for extra umami flavor. However, it’s completely optional. You can buy shrimp tomalley at Chinese or Vietnamese supermarket.
Cut all your ingredients. Cut your firm tofu or your choice of protein into long dices. Cut your green onions into 2 inches strips. Crush some roast peanuts, for making peanuts you can check out my Kung Pao Chicken recipe! Mince your garlic, and your dried shrimp and sweet pickle radish. Dried shrimps and sweet pickle radish are optional choices since they might be rare to many people.
After prepping the ingredients, double check if you have everything ready. soaked noodles, mixed sauce, your choice of protein, two cracked eggs, mix of minced garlic, dried shrimps and diced sweet pickle radish in a bowl, mix of bean sprout, green onion in one bowl. After you have all 6 bowls ready. You can start cooking!
Heat your pan at high heat and add 3 tbsp of oil, stir fry garlic, dried shrimp and sweet radish for 20 sec to fuse the aroma to oil.
Add your protein and stir fry. You do not need to cook too thoroughly since you will continue to cook more in the process. Taking steak as an analogy, medium to medium well is good enough!
Add your soaked noodles and your Pad Thai sauce. Stir fry until the color is even
Push your noodles to a side so you have enough room to cook the eggs. Notice that we DID NOT scramble the eggs first. It means to be slightly scramble so we can still see the yellow and white. Put two cracked eggs at the other side and slightly scramble. Let it cook until the bottom is solid but top is still liquid. Move the noodles to the top and stir fry until it’s evenly mixed
Save some bean sprout and green onion for garnish later, Add the rest of veggie now. We want to add veggie at this very last step so it doesn’t over cooked. Now mix it very well. We are about to plate this awesome dish.
Pour into a plate, garnish with bean sprout, green onions and top with crushed peanuts. Here is your perfect Pad Thai! Enjoy!
- 4 tbsp of sugar
- 3 tbsp of tamarind paste
- 4 tbsp of fish sauce
- 1 tbsp of sirarcha sauce
- 1 tbsp of shrimp tomalley (optional)
- 2 tbsp of oil
- 4 garlic minced
- 1 tsp of dried shrimps (optional)
- 1 ½ tbsp of sweet pickle radish (optional)
- 1 ½ cup of diced protein (bean curd, shrimp, etc)
- 2 eggs
- 4 cups of rice noodles
- 1½ cup of bean sprout
- 4 green onions, 2 inches strips
- ¼ cup of dried crushed peanuts
- ⅓ of lime
- Soak rice noodles in cold water for 3 hrs
- Pre-mix the sauce by combining the sauce ingredient
- Heat up a pan at high heat, add 2 tbsp of oil to stir fry minced garlic, dried shrimp and diced sweet pickle radish for 20 sec
- Add your choice of protein, stir fry until it’s cooked
- Add the soaked noodles, add Pad Thai sauce and stir fry until the color is even
- Push the noodles to one side, crack two eggs to the other side
- Slightly scramble the eggs, when the bottom is half cooked, move the noodles on top of eggs and stir fry until mix
- Add 1 cup of bean sprout and 2 cut green onions, stir fry until mixed even
- Plate your Pad Thai with the rest of bean sprout, green onion and crushed peanuts as garnish