Pad Thai it is then

The people have asked for Pad Thai…. So Pad Thai is what they will get and what a good choice it is.

My story about Pad Thai starts at the beginning of my story. We had landed in Thailand about four days before, and I had been in a haze of jet lag, humidity and a pretty awful case of prickly heat. We went down to what can really only be described as a large outside shed, which enticed you to come in and eat with signs like “welcome, drink here, do not die”.

You end up sitting on the floor on these traditional Asian triangle cushions (I am sure they have a name, but I don’t know what it is) sat around glass tables and you get chatting to other travellers. Staring at the menu with complete confusion, a fellow traveller said to me, just try the Pad Thai, everyone likes Pad Thai, well he wasn’t wrong. It was simple, but delicious!

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So here it is, the traditional recipe for Pad Thai: 

Ingredients (for two people):

• 300 grams of straight to wok rice noodles or egg noodles
• 2 garlic cloves
• A handful of cooked tofu (optional)
• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 60 grams of bean sprouts
• 1 egg
• 6 Spring onions
• 2 chicken breasts and/or 6 king prawns
• A handful of crushed peanuts
• ¼ of a cup of water

For the sauce;

• 2 teaspoons of fish sauce
• 2 teaspoons of white sugar
• 1 dessert spoon of tamarind paste
• 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce
• If the sauce ingredients seems too much like hard work, you can cheat and buy some tasty pre-made Pad Thai sauces.

How to make it:

Step one: Place the oil into a wok and heat. Once the wok is hot, add the crushed garlic, tofu chunks and chicken cut into small strips and cook until the chicken has turned brown.

Step two: Add the noodles and water to the wok and cook on a high heat for about 1 – 2 minutes until it is hot.

Step three: Turn the heat down slightly and add the fish sauce, white sugar, tamarind paste and soy sauce. Cook for two more minutes.

Step four: Add the bean sprouts, spring onions and king prawns and cook for a further two minutes.

Step five: The next bit is tricky and takes practice. To make it real Thai style, you need to add a beaten egg, but so that it doesn’t turn your dish into mush, you need to push all your noodles to one side of the wok, then turn the heat up really high, beat the egg, and then quickly pour it in on the empty side of the wok, you are almost trying to make it fry like a thin omelette before it hits the noodles. Mix it all back together and heat for a further minute.

Step six: Plate up your dishes and then add the crushed peanuts on top.

In Thailand, you can buy Pad Thai from any restaurant but some of the best Pad Thai is from the street vendors in the cities for around 20p. If only we could buy food from the streets of our towns for that price and it taste better than the restaurants!

As with my other recipes, if you get a chance to make it, let me know what you think!

Next blog entry: Malaysia…….a food identity crisis?

Thailand Chicken and Cashew Nuts

Well, it is finally here, the authentic Thailand Chicken and Cashew Nut recipe. This is a meal I learnt how to cook at the Thai cooking school and it is really delicious and quite healthy too. The Thai name for this meal is: Kai phad med ma-muang (gold star for anyone who can pronounce that).

From start to finish this dish will probably only take you 25 minutes at most to prepare. It is very easy to make and very hard to go wrong, so a great easy treat for a Friday “culture food” night. To buy this meal from scratch will probably cost about £6-£8 depending on where you get it and also what you have in the cupboards already.

Ingredients (for 2-4 people depending on how hungry you are)

• 1 white onion
• 2-3 garlic cloves (depends how much you like garlic)
• A bunch of spring onions
• 1-2 red medium sized fresh chilli peppers (depends how much you like chilli)
• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce
• ½ a teaspoon of sugar (white or brown, it tastes just as good)
• A handful of cashew nuts
• A dessert spoon of oil

This dish is lovely served with egg noodles or rice. In Thailand I had it with both - it just depends what you prefer. This dish is also great with a small blob of sweet chilli sauce on the side. Read the instructions on how to cook the egg noodles or rice, typically egg noodles take less than five minutes and rice takes about 20 minutes.

How to cook it

Step one: Chop your onion up into medium sized slices and put your into a garlic crusher. Heat the oil in a non stick pan (preferably a wok) and fry the white onion and garlic until they just start turning brown.

Step two: Cut the chicken into small chunks and add the chicken to the wok. Stir fry it all until the chicken has cooked through.

Step three: Wash and cut up your spring onions into chunks of about 2cm, and then cut the red chilli(s) into tiny pieces. TIP: if you don’t like spicy food I would only add half a chilli and remove the seeds, if you love spicy food, keep the seeds and add as much as you like. Stir in the spring onions and chilli, and cook for about 30 seconds.

Step four: Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce, half a teaspoon of sugar and the cashew nuts. Stir for about 1 – 2 minutes until the food is piping hot.

Step five: Serve up on a plate with your egg noodles or rice and enjoy!

TIP: If you like Tofu, this dish can also be served with tofu in. The best kind of Tofu to buy is the pre-cooked stuff from most big supermarkets. Just add this in when you add the chicken in.

Once you have tried it let me know what you think…….. I had it for dinner tonight and it was delicious! Here is the one I ate earlier:

Whilst we were in Thailand, this dish made up about a third of everything we ate as we loved it so much. Although, I have to say in Thailand when you say “little chilli” it comes out with a full plant's worth of red chilli’s in it and it nearly blows your mouth off! Still somehow whilst you are there you can power through the spice and still enjoy the flavours!

Next blog: Not sure…. Some people have asked for Pad Thai, which is also delicious, but am tempted to move onto another country – what do you all think?