To get the perfect Pad Thai you have to go to Thailand and spend some time eating at the street vendors in Bangkok, now this isn’t for everyone as the hygiene at these places may not seem to be that important to them. I have taken various family members and friends, from the UK, to my favourite vendors but some of them have down right refused to even sit at a table and wait while I eat, but that’s their choice and loss. 
Pad Thai looks such an easy dish to do when you actually watch the Thai people but it is very hard to replicate back in the west, in-fact its hard to replicate even when you live in the country. The basic ingredient of rice noodles can be your 1st stumbling block as the type used in Thailand are often not available in the west. The ideal type are the thread rice noodles not the broad rice noodles and they must be softened first before you start the dish. In Thailand this step is not necessary as the noodles they have seem softer and only take 30sec or 1min to soften in the wok with some water.
The list of ingredients are also a point of disagreement, with everyone having their own recipe and style and some people actually saying their is an official recipe that other don’t follow. The following list of ingredients are what I have seen go into the majority of Pad Thai’s in Bangkok, it should be noted that the amounts have been omitted as this is a very personal preference.
- Thin Rice Noodles (pre-softened)
- Firm Tofu (cubed or strips your choice only make it bite size)
- Dried/fresh/frozen prawns (shrimp)
- Meat (your choice which, bite size pieces, can be omitted for vegetarian option*)
- Cooking Oil
- Shallot (chopped)
- Garlic (crushed roughly)
- Egg
- Pad Thai Sauce (see below for more on this)
- Crushed Red Dried Chillies
- Beansprouts
- Crushed Peanuts
- Spring Onions
- Lime
Pad Thai Sauce
The sauce used for Pad Thai various from vendor to vendor but after some time I believe that the pad thai sauce is far more simple than I first thought. To make a Pad Thai sauce combine equal amounts of tamarind paste and fish sauce (about 3tablespoons of each) with 2tablespoons of palm sugar, bring to a simmer and stir it gently until the sugar dissolves and the sauce is runny, this takes about 2-3mins.
An even easier method to making pad thai sauce is to add fish sauce, brown sugar and oyster sauce directly to the noodles as they get stir fried in the wok, I’ve seen this done many times by street vendors often replacing the brown sugar with palm sugar.
The Method
Again there are much differences on how best to bring all these ingredients together, so what I suggest here is just that, a suggestion.
Heat the wok and add 1-2tablespoon of oil, shallots and garlic. The wok should be on a medium high heat but be prepared to increase it as the stuff is added. Fry these for about 30 sec then add prawns and meat and cook it quickly moving the stuff in the wok all the time. Add the tofu, fry for 30 sec then add the noodles all the time ensuring the food is moving in the wok, If the noodles start to stick add a few tablespoons of water. After about 2mins move all the food to one side of your wok and crack in the egg on the free side and fry it rapidly while moving it about, when it is almost cooked move the noodles mixture onto the egg and add the pad thai sauce, or sauce mix, and fry for a few more minutes. Last thing to go in is the beansprouts, spring onion and chillis, mix these through the Pad Thai and remove from heat after about 30secs.
Plate the food up and sprinkle crushed nuts over the top, serve with a wedge of lime, beansprouts and peeled cucumber on the side of the plate, with fish sauce, dried chillies and more crushed nuts as the accompaniments. This is, to me at least, the perfect pad thai.
Thai food was available to the uninitiated but with over 1700 Thai restaurants in the UK, if you haven’t tried Thai food already you would probably be in a minority. On offer from the stalls was the famous pad thai (stir-fried Thai noodles) and kaeng khiew wan gai (green chicken curry) as well as food carving demonstrations.