Pad Thai is one of Thailand’s most famous and popular of dishes. It is a personal favourite of mine, especially with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and crushed salty peanuts. Below, I have visually broken down the cooking process into steps, which you may find useful if you have never made Pad Thai before.
Start with the egg in a wok with a dessert spoon of vegetable oil on a medium heat.
Mix the egg until frothy and bubbly to look a bit like scrambled egg.
Add any meat or prawns at this stage.
Once the meat is cooked, add the noodles and sauce. Like the Chinese Pork dish, we used rice noodles but Pad Thai tends to cook well with a slightly thicker cut, approx 5mm.
The sauce for a Pad Thai dish tends to have three elements, salt, sour and sweet e.g. fish sauce or soy sauce, tamarind juice or vinegar and sugar. I personally feel that if you are making Pad Thai with a pre-made sauce rather than a combination of the aforementioned, the better ones contain little or no MSG (Monosodium glutamate, it is a salt flavouring added to some brands of crisps, snacks such as peanuts, and sauces etc). The reason I don’t like it is because I always have a sore throat for at least 24-hours afterwards and feel dehydrated.
Add the bean sprouts (bean shoots) and vegetables.
Here I have used carrot and spring onion.
Finally, add some or all of the following: dried chilli flakes, fresh coriander leaves, a wedge of lime and some salty peanuts (that have been slightly crushed. You can use a pestle and mortar, rolling pin or coffee grinder).
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