Pad Thai is probably the most well known of all Thai foods. It is a mixture of noodles, meats and seasonings and is unlike any other noodle dish I have had. You can find it on almost any street in Bangkok and it’s very cheap to boot, usually costing about 20-25 baht per serving. It’s also fun just to watch the ladies make the Pad Thai, especially those in the Khao San Road area where everything seems to become a show.

Pad Thai is typically not made at home by Thai’s, but is rather a snack to be had when out shopping or running errands. This is Golf’s recipe taken from her experience living in Bangkok and brought to our American kitchen. I can attest that it is very similar to Pad Thai that I have had in Bangkok and the islands. Eat this right after making it as it does not seem to reheat well at all, the noodles become very dried out (though still delicious). I hope everyone that tries this enjoys it as much as I do and I hope even more that you get to have the real thing from a street vendor in Thailand some day.

Pad Thai (serves 2)
2 cups thin rice noodles, soaked for 5 minutes
1/4 cup (about 1 ounce) pork minced
5-6 med. shrimp, shelled and de-veined
1 egg
1 cup (4 ounces) bean sprouts
3 spring onions, chopped
1/2 TBS chopped shallot
1/2 TBS chopped garlic
1 1/2 TBS chopped salted Chinese radish (if can find)
1 tbsp (or more to taste) thai chilli powder
1/4 cup ground peanut (unsalted)
2 TBS sugar
1 1/2 TBS fish sauce
2 TBS tamarind juice or vinegar
2 TBS water
4 TBS cooking oil

1. Fry shallot and garlic in 2 TBS of oil over medium heat until fragrant (about 2 minutes).
2. Add noodles and water, stir until tender. Add sugar, fish sauce and tamarind juice to season. Stir everything together, then push the noodles to the side of the wok.
3. Add 1 TBS of oil to the same wok, add pork, prawns, salted Chinese radish, and chili powder. Saute until the pork and prawns are done, add noodles together and mix well, then push everything back to the side of the wok again.
4. Put the last 2 tbsp of oil into the wok, break the egg in and stir until done. Add noodle mixture to the egg and mix well, then add the bean sprouts and spring onion.
5. Stir until everything is done.
4. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle peanuts on top. Serve immediately.

Let us know what you think and if you have questions please feel free to ask away, I’ll pass them along to Golf.

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There are many spicy foods, but none seem to come even close to Thai foods. I’ve had Indian food in India and Mexican food in Mexico and neither one brought tears to my eyes the way Thai food, real Thai food, did the first time I had it.

It seems like Thai’s like to add chili’s to every dish and you’ll find a variety of chili condiments on the table at any Thai restaurant. The most common are simple dried chili powder and nam prik which literally means “chili water” and is a combination of fresh chili’s, vinegar, fish sauce and lime juice.

Thai’s use a wide variety of chili’s in their cooking, but the most common are the prik kee nu and the prik chee faa chili’s. Both will curl your hair, but the prik kee nu is definitely the hotter of the two. Tread carefully with these chili’s if you’re not used to spicy food and I mean REALLY spicy food, not what you typically find in America.

Prik kee nu chilis are green or red and about one inch in length. You can find them in most major cities in the U.S. in Oriental grocery stores and they freeze well (up to one year) so if you’re just visiting the city for the weekend you can buy lots and freeze them. Simply wash the chili, dry thoroughly and put it in a Ziplock freezer bag to freeze.

When the prik kee nu is dried it is called prik hang and is even hotter if that’s possible. You can also find these in Oriental groceries and the smaller the chili the hotter it will be. Golf and I get these shipped to us by her dad from Thailand by the kilo, we typically use about ½ pound a month. You will very likely get better mileage

When I started eating with Golf she would always tell the waitress to make our order paed mak mak. I had no idea what that meant for weeks until finally she told me, paed means “spicy”. So my introduction to spicy Thai food was extra spicy from a Thai perspective. In years before that I know that any Thai food I got was served for Western tastes and even now if I am by myself and order food paed mak mak they won’t make it nearly as spicy as they do when I am with Golf.

Don’t think though that Thai food is just about the spicy chili’s. The spicy dishes usually combine other elements such as sweet, sour and salty together in intriguing ways. If you haven’t tried real Thai food yet then I suggest you subscribe to my feed and keep coming back. Golf has promised to start posting at least one authentic Thai recipe a week so you should be able to build quite a recipe base very quickly.

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