I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Thai food holds my heart in a very special way. Sometimes I wish I could go into some of my favorite Thai restaurants and just say, “teach me your ways.”. For obvious reasons, I don’t think that will be possible. I’m obsessed with finding authenticity in Thai cooking. So instead of walking into a restaurant, I got on google. Google then took me to YouTube. Youtube ended up showing me incredible women cooking authentic Thai food in American and in Thailand. I wrote down key ingredients and tried my luck at it myself. It took a few failures before coming up with this recipe. I can say with full confidence that this Pad Thai recipe tastes like being at an authentic Thai restaurant.
Although it’s not absolutely necessary to use a wok, I do recommend purchasing one. They aren’t super expensive, and it’s just so much easier to cook Asian dishes in a wok as opposed to using a pan.
Here is the wok I own: WOK
Another note I would like to add is that some of these ingredients might be hard to find in your usual grocery store. If you’re in Atlanta, then I’d recommend dropping by the BUFORD HIGHWAY FARMERS MARKET. It’s an incredibly huge market with specialty items from all over the world. It’s in the Thai section that I find the chili paste and tamarind paste. If you happen to be somewhere else in the world, I would google “Asian market” and see if you can’t find one near by.
PAD THAI WITH CHICKEN
PAD THAI SAUCE
4 tbsp tamarind paste
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbs rice vinegar
1 tbsp paprika
1 large lime, juice of
4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp chili paste
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp soy sauce
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
PAD THAI
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 chicken breasts thinly sliced
7 oz. extra firm tofu, sliced in small rectangles
1 bundle of scallions, sliced thinly lengthwise in 2 inch pieces
16 oz. thick rice noodles
1 cup fresh sprouts
3/4 cup roasted peanuts
3 eggs
DIRECTIONS:
Soak rice noodles in a large bowl of super hot water. Let soak for about 25 minutes. Drain water and set aside. It’s important to not over soak the noodles.
Heat a wok or tall sided pan to high heat.
Add in vegetable oil and chicken. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. The chicken should be almost cooked at this point. Move chicken to one side of the wok. Add in tofu and let fry in the oil to get it crispy.
Move tofu and chicken to one side of the wok and add in eggs. Let the eggs coagulate a bit and stir. After about a minute, the eggs should be almost cooked but still runny.
Add in the rice noodles and mix everything in the wok together. Scrape the bottom while you mix.
Add in the sauce all at once. Mix everything together and let the noodles sit for a minute. With time the noodles will cook and also soak in all of the sauce. Stir noodles every minute till the sauce has been soaked up and the noodles are all coated and wet in appearance. Should take about 5-8 minutes.
Turn off heat and add in half the amount of sprouts, scallions, and peanuts. The other half of these ingredients will be used when plating.
Serve pad Thai immediately and top with remaining sprouts, scallions and peanuts.