Your pad thai recipes/advice please!

[escargot]

I'm contemplating making this for dinner tonight - it's one of my favourites when we eat out but I've yet to attempt it in-house. Any recipes/tips gratefully received.

[Wadeski]

dont skip the tamarind or fish sauce (it wont taste right without).

[Pferdestarke]

Palm sugar is your friend, as well as toasted crushed peanuts, coriander and fresh red chili.

I find the noodles hard to handle so i rarely attempt it.

[Mobile Chicane]

I find the thing with rice noodles is that they go soggy if boiled.

Depending on the shape / thickness, stick the noodles in a bowl and throw boiling water over for 10 - 60 minutes, then test.

As soon as they're done to your liking, refresh in cold water and drain.

[Wadeski]

how was it?

[escargot]

Pretty tasty for a first attempt actually. It wasn't hot enough and I need to reduce the amount of lime juice but I was fairly chuffed.

[Pferdestarke]

Lime's a tough one to get just right. I spoilt a dish the other night with a squeeze too much.

[Mobile Chicane]

escargot said:

Pretty tasty for a first attempt actually. It wasn't hot enough and I need to reduce the amount of lime juice but I was fairly chuffed.

So what did you do in the end? It's one of my favourites too when out and about, but I've never attempted it at home.

[escargot]

3 packs of 'straight to wok' rice noodles
Juice of 2 limes (too much)
Good slug of fish sauce (probably 2-3 tbsps or so)
2 tsps tamarind paste
2 tbsp of granulated sugar
1 chilli (not enough)
Onion
Spring onion
Garlic
Prawns
Egg
Good bunch of coriander
Handful of salted peanuts (ground up in a mortar and pestle)

Essentially I just combined the wet ingredients & sugar together and set aside. Fried off the onions, garlic and chilli, fried the prawns until on the point then cracked the egg in. Once the egg was done, the 'sauce' went in along with the noodles for the final stir frying. Peanuts, coriander & spring onion to garnish.

A good pad thai shouldn't be wet, and this wasn't. One and a half limes would have sufficed along with a couple more chillies though.

[Stig]

I've done it a variety of ways, from prepping the tamarind through to easy 'cheats'. I've found this to be great if you want something quick and easy:

http://www.wingyipstore.co.uk/display-product.php?...

Easy to make it more 'authentic', just add dried prawns, crushed peanuts etc. I even add a splash of Ketchap Manis. Works a treat

Get a bunch of these whilst you're at it - hopelessly addictive!

http://www.wingyipstore.co.uk/display-product.php?...