Pad Thai

Pad Thai is often called the signature dish of Thai cuisine. There are several regional variations, indeed it has been said that Thailand has not only a different curry for every day of the year, but also a different pad Thai for every cook in Thailand! This is our variation. We're sure you'll like the recipe below, however for a very simple, fast, easy-to-prepare Pad Thai, please click here for an instant version.

This recipe requires 1 cup of dry roasted, unsalted peanuts. For best preparation, coarsely break them up in a stone mortar and pestle.

Ingredients

8 ounces Chantaboon rice noodles. These should be soaked at room temperature for an hour or more depending on how soft you prefer the noodles. It may take some experimentation to determine your preference, start with warm water.
5-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped.
2 tablespoons chopped shallots
1/4 cup dried shrimp or 1/2 fresh cooked shrimp
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup regular sugar (or crushed palm sugar but it doesn't make much difference).
2 teaspoons tamarind concentrate mixed with 5 teaspoons water (this makes tamarind juice)
1 medium egg, beaten
1/4 cup chopped chives
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, coarsely broken up.
1 cup bean sprouts
1/2 cup tofu that has been diced (1/2" cubes), marinated in dark sweet soy. "Firm" tofu works best.

Method

Heat a little cooking oil in a wok and add the garlic and shallots, and briefly stir fry until they just shows signs of changing color. At this point one option is to add chicken meat and cook a bit longer, if you prefer chicken pad Thai. Add the remaining ingredients except the egg and the bean sprouts, and stir fry until the noodles soften (about 5 minutes). As you stir the noodles, periodically throw in 1-2 tablespoons of water, and after 2-3 minutes add 1 tablespoon of rinsed, salted radish (optional). Continuing to stir with one hand, slowly "drizzle" in the beaten egg to form a fine ribbon of cooked egg (if you don't feel confident with this make an egg crepe separately, and then roll it up and slice it into quarter inch wide pieces, which you add to the mix at this point). At this point, a very tasty but optional addition is a small handful of dried shrimps. Add the bean sprouts and cook for no more than another 30 seconds. Remove from the pan to a serving platter.

Garnish

Mix a tablespoon of lime juice with a tablespoon of tamarind juice and a tablespoon of fish sauce, and use this to marinade half a cup of uncooked bean sprouts, half a cup of chopped chives, and half a cup of very coarsely ground roasted peanuts. Sprinkle this mixture on the cooked pad Thai. Cut several limes into segments and also slice up some cucumber into rounds then halve the rounds. Put the lime segments and cuke segments around the serving platter.

Pad thai is served as above. You may add Thai chili powder, sugar and crushed peanuts at the table.

For a very simple, fast, easy-to-prepare Pad Thai, please click here for a variant recipe.

Somtam

Som tam (Thai/Isan ส้มตำ) is a spicy papaya salad originating in Laos and the Isan region of northeastern Thailand. Som (ส้ม) in Isan and Lao is sour, and tam (ตำ) means pounded. The transliteration is also sometimes written as som tum, som dtam or som dtum. Other names for the dish are papaya pok pok (from the sound produced when preparing the dish in a mortar), tam som or, in Lao and Isan, tam mak hung (ตำหมากหุ่ง, Lao) (mak hung is the Lao and Isan word for papaya).

The main ingredient is grated, unripe papaya, seasoned and pounded to a softened state in a mortar. Chili, garlic, lime and fish sauce are also usually added, while yardlong beans and tomato are optional. There are many variations of the dish, some made with carrot instead of papaya. The dish combines the four main tastes of Lao/Thai cuisine: sour lime, hot chilli, salty fish sauce, and sweetness added by palm sugar. The papaya itself is unripe and fairly neutral tasting. It is served at room temperature, traditionally with sticky rice. It is also sometimes served with pork rinds, raw water spinach, raw winged beans or raw cabbage. Very often it is paired with Gai yang (ไก่ย่าง in Thai), grilled chicken..

In Laos and Isan the dish is normally more spicy and sour, while the Central Thai version is milder. Som tam Lao usually features salted/fermented mud fish (ปลาร้า in thai) or salt-preserved crab (ปูเค็ม in thai), while som tam Thai is prepared with dried shrimp and bean and is often sweeter.

Som tam can also be prepared with other unripe fruits, notably mango, in which case it is known as tam ma-muang (ตำมะม่วง in thai), and cucumber, tam mak teng.