Veggie Pad Thai

Gathering the ingredients

Ah, Pad Thai! The name (also Phat Thai) means "fried Thai style" and it's classic street food, something knocked together on a cart in front of you for a few pennies. Fresh and tasty, a definite favourite of mine. Pad Thai can be veggie, although it's generally got fish sauce added and options of prawns or meat. No matter though, you just ask for it without. Street Pad Thai is generally quite a dry dish, slightly different from the wetter versions you'll find in an English Thai restaurant and I'll be going for the former rather than the latter. This means that prep is quite important here but don't worry there's not much to do. Approximate prep time is 20 minutes and cooking time, well, lets call it 10 minutes although bear in mind this is best cooked one portion at a time.

Prepping the ingredients

Ingredients for one portion

• Dessert spoon Tamarind pulp
• Dessert spoon brown sugar
• Dessert spoon light soy sauce
• 90 grams dried rice noodles (i.e. quarter pack)
  
• Oil for frying
• 50 grams of tofu cut into chips approximately 1" by 1/3" by 1/3". I used smoked tofu this time but any decent firm one will do. Missus.
• Pinch of red chilli powder or diced fresh red chilli. You judge how hot you want it although it's not meant to be an overly spicy dish as far as I can tell
  
• Half a shallot finely diced
• Four spring onions sliced into 1" sections for the green stem, less for the bulb
• Clove of garlic, crushed
• Egg
• Handful of bean sprouts
• Unsalted roasted peanuts roughly chopped
• Wedge of lime
• Handful of fresh coriander
• Granulated sugar
• Dried chillies
  

Making the sauce
Put the tamarind paste in a small bowl, add the same quantity (or a little more) of hot water and mix it together. If it's anything like the tamarind paste I picked up from local Asian grocers it'll be full of seeds and bits so remove them by hand and make a paste up. Bit messy, sorry! I have had jars of tamarind concentrate before which are a lot less fuss but I'd run out and the nearest stockist is a Chinese supermarket a few miles away so I went with this. Once you've prepared it add the sugar to balance out the lovely tart sourness of the tamarind. Finally add in the light soy sauce. If you're using fish sauce substitute it here.

Prepare your noodles by soaking them in a pan of hot water for about 8 minutes. Obviously, this will depend on your noodles but you want them slightly al dente, bendable but still a little firm and not fully puffed and saturated.

I estimate the frying time to be about five minutes so when you put your noodles in sling the wok on the heat, add the oil and get it hot! Fry the tofu for three minutes but don't let it burn. Then add in the shallot (if you've not got a shallot just use a small amount of onion ~ I'm lucky that a local shop sells then by weight so picking just one up is not a problem), chilli, garlic and spring onions. Remember, this is a stir fry so do stir it frequently!

Stir stir, fry fry

Give it another couple of minutes then push the mix to one side and add the egg. As soon as you add it chop it up to kind of omelette-ise it. Give it a minute of mixing and moving.

Add the noodles and sauce. Mix the lot together and heat through. If your noodles are a little too dry add a bit of water and soften them up.

All there bar the beansprouts which kind of obscure the view when added

Add the coriander and serve with the beansprouts over the top, a slice of lime, the peanuts, some dried chilli and the granulated sugar on the side. Personally though I avoid the sugar and have substituted green chillies in rice vinegar for the dried ones (slice a green chilli and leave it over night in a jar covered with a generous dose of vinegar).