Chicken Pad Thai
A popular and well-loved street food in Thailand, pad Thai is good for breakfast, lunch or dinner.Sweet, sour, salty and spicy, this chicken pad thai recipe does not rely on ready-made sauce. Instead, the sauce is made with essential ingredients to get the perfect balance of flavors.
Ingredients
For the pad Thai sauce
- 3 tablespoons palm sugar
- 4 tablespoons tamarind concentrate
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 teaspoon chili flakes
For the stir fried noodles
- 125 grams dry rice noodles soaked in warm water for 30 minutes then drained well
- 3 tablespoons cooking oil (this is stir frying so oil with a high smoking point is required)
- 2 shallots peeled and roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic chopped
- ⅓ cup chopped pickled daikon (available in Asian groceries)
- 1 bird's eye chili finely sliced
- 150 grams firm tofu cut into half-inch cubes
- 2 tablespoons dried shrimps chopped if large
- 3 large eggs
- 2 cups shredded cooked chicken
- 3 to 4 cups bean sprouts
- 2 cups scallions
- roasted peanuts roughly chopped (we used salted)
Instructions
- Prepare all the ingredients before you start cooking. This is important.
- Make the sauce by mixing together all the ingredients with 3 to 4 tablespoons water until smooth. It should be thick but pourable.
- Heat the cooking oil in a wok or frying pan.
- Saute the chopped shallot, garlic, chili and pickled daikon until aromatic.
- Toss in the tofu and dried shrimps. Cook, stirring, just until heated through.
- Turn up the heat and add the drained rice noodles.
- Pour in the sauce.
- Toss the noodles to distribute the sauce evenly.
- Pour in a quarter cup of water (if you skip this, the noodles will be too chewy) and keep tossing the noodles until the liquid has been soaked up.
- Push the noodles to the edges of the pan to make a well in the center.
- Crack the eggs directly into the well.
- Stir the eggs in a circular motion to scramble lightly. When the eggs are partially set, slowly gather the noodles to incorporate the eggs.
- Finally, add the scallions, bean sprouts and cooked chicken. Toss just until everything is heated through.
- Serve the chicken pad Thai immediately with lime or lemon wedges on the side.
