Pad Thai (Thai Fried Noodles)

...authentic recipe as cooked by a Thai.

The pad thai is easily one of the dishes you can find in a high-end Thai restaurant as well as at a street vendor's stall in a soi. The recipe usually uses fresh flat rice noodles (kway teow sen lek (below) which in Thailand, is made up of tapioca flour and rice flour).
Alternatively, you may use the dried rice noodles (kway teow sen chan, below) but you have to soak this in warm water for a few minutes before cooking.
For this pad thai recipe, we use wun sen (glass noodle) as mung bean flour is used to make this noodle, making it a healthier choice.


For 2 servings

Ingredients
- 150 g glass noodles (wun sen or tang hoon) (soaked in water for 10 minutes and drained dry)
- 50 g dried prawns (soaked in warm water for 10 minutes and drained dry)
- 1 tablespoon chai poh (dried radish) (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon red onion (chopped)
- 100 g fresh hard bean curd (tau kwa) (cut into small cubes and fried until golden yellow)
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup spring onion (koo chai) (chopped into 3 cm strips)
- 1 cup beansprouts (optional)

For Seasoning Mixture
- 1 cup of palm sugar
- Tamarind water
- Fish sauce

For Garnishing
- 1 tablespoon peanuts
- Spring onion (koo chai)
- Beansprouts (optional)
- 1 egg (to make 1 thin omelette)

Steps
1. Put the palm sugar into 1/3 cup of water and stir it. Pour mixture into a pre-heated pan over small fire and stir it until mixture thickens and becomes clear like a syrup.

2. Add the tamarind water in portion equal to the palm sugar syrup in the pan.

3. Add the fish sauce in one-quarter portion of the above mixture. Stir for 5 minutes until the mixture thickens and becomes fragrant. This should have a sweet-sour taste. Pour the seasoning mixture into a bowl and then set aside.

4. Pour 1 teaspoon oil into a pan over medium fire and fry the red onion and chai poh together until fragrant.

5. Add the dried shrimps into the pan and fry for 1 minute and then add the fried tau kwa.

6. Put in the glass noodles and 1/2 of the seasoning mixture and increase the flame to large. Stir well until the noodles are coated with the seasoning.

7. Add the spring onion and beansprouts and continue to fry.

8. Reduce to small fire. Set the noodles aside in the pan and add 1 teaspoon of oil. Crack 1 egg into the pan and use the bottom of the spatula to spread the yolk with the egg white. Move the noodles back on top of the egg mixture.

9. Increase to large fire for a few seconds until the egg is cooked. Flip the egg and noodles such that the egg sits on top of the noodles. Set aside the noodles.

10. Crack 1 egg into a bowl and make a thin omelette.

11. Put the noodles onto the omelette and garnish with peanuts, spring onion and beansprouts.

TIP :

You can add the unused portion of the seasoning mixture to the finished noodles if you want the noodles to be more tasty. If not, you can use the mixture next time you cook pad thai.

Please try this recipe. It is not as difficult as you may think. The results are definitely worth it. We will add a video shortly.