What does Pad Thai taste like?
In this blog post, we will answer the following question: What does pad Thai taste like? We will discuss the many versions of Pad Thai, and teach you how to make this traditional dish.
What does Pad Thai taste like?
A good Pad Thai tastes slightly acidic, spicy, bitter, and sweet and connects the beaten egg with the other proteins and vegetables, resulting in a light and a slightly addictive dish.
There are several secrets to cooking a good Pad Thai and although at home we do not have the necessary tools (we do not have a real wok with direct heat) we can always look for our tricks to get a delicious recipe that is also prepared in 15-20 minutes.
The important thing is to have flat and dry rice noodles that we must soak in water beforehand and then make a good stir-fry and a perfect sauce. But no, there is no “strict” recipe to make this sauce, here it happens a bit like with grandmother’s stews, that each grandmother has her own particular recipe.
Everything will start with a stir-fry with garlic, Chinese chives, shallots and then sauté the tofu and prepare the sauce and caramelize it a little, lightly mark the prawns and make the scrambled eggs. The result has to be flagrant and with a mixture of flavors that take us directly to the other side of the world.
Pad thai, the success of Thai cuisine
In Thailand there are different versions of this recipe depending on the area of the country that prepares it, thus putting its characteristic touch with different ingredients and sauces.
There it can be found practically anywhere, from small stalls in the middle of the street to the most luxurious restaurants. And it is that this Thai dish based on rice and other ingredients contains a lot of protein, thanks to the tofu, prawns and you can even add chicken.
If you are a person who dares to do everything in the kitchen, read on to find out how to prepare homemade pad thai with its most characteristic and innovative recipes.
The many versions of Pad Thai
There are many versions of Pad Thai in Thailand, depending on the country’s area where it is prepared since different ingredients can be used to give the sauce its characteristic flavor.
It is made both with rice noodles, the version that we will make today, and not soy noodles, called “Pad Thai Woonsen” (ผัด ไทย วุ้นเส้น), which I also like a lot. Besides, there is also another variety of Pad Thai that is served wrapped in a fragile layer of egg omelet, called Pad Thai Ho-Khai (ผัด ไทย ห่อ ไข่).
We can use both prawns or prawns as chicken, pork, or the vegetarian version only using tofu as for the protein.
In Thailand, we accompany it with Chinese garlic or chives, a piece of lime, sugar, roasted peanuts, and roasted chili powder, so that each person can adjust their flavor to taste.
These are the basic condiments to enrich the dish: fish sauce for the salty flavor, tamarind paste for the acidity point, and palm sugar.
Other FAQs about Pad Thai that you may be interested in.
What does Pad in Thai food mean?
Pad Thai – a traditional recipe
Pad thai is the most traditional dish of Thai cuisine that has made its way into Spain. It is a very simple dish where rice pasta is combined with vegetables and prawns (although it is also made from chicken or other ingredients).
This dish is characterized by the sauce that is made with tamarind paste and fish sauce. These two ingredients are a little more difficult to find but in any specialized supermarket or a large hypermarket, we have them.
Regarding pasta, it must be rice pasta. The pasta can be in the form of noodles or noodles, but it must be long rice pasta.
Oriental recipes are one of my downfalls, on the blog I love to make recipes for traditional Chinese food, such as homemade lemon chicken or beef in oyster sauce. If you make them at home with our own hands and with quality ingredients, I guarantee that they will be incredible.
Ingredients to make Pad Thai
- 210 grams of rice noodles
- 5 prawns
- Garlic
- 2 chives
- 1 package of assorted mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon of palm sugar
- 1 tablespoon fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
- Peanuts
- 1 package of tofu
- Soy sauce
- Lime
How to prepare home Pad Thai
- In a saucepan, we put the tamarind paste, the fish sauce, the palm sugar (if we do not have it, we can put brown sugar), and a little soy sauce over low heat. We reduce the sauce that will be used to dress our pad thai.
- Sauté the vegetables in a wok, start with the garlic sprouts and chives. We can put the vegetables that we want.
- Add the mushrooms below. We do not add salt because the sauce already has it.
- Add the prawns and tofu. We continue cooking the vegetables.
- Cook the rice noodles as indicated by the manufacturer. We can use noodles, rice noodles … whatever we want.
- Add the pasta to the wok along with the sauce and the peanuts, sauté everything and serve with a little lime and coriander if you like.
Enjoy!
Conclusions
Pad Thai represents the perfect combination of Thai gastronomy’s four primary flavors: sweet, bitter, salty, and sour. The real name of this dish is kway teow pad thai. The first two words are of Chinese origin and translate as rice noodles, and the Thai term pad or pat translates as a stir fry.
We serve the pad thai on a large plate or individual plates and garnish with fresh coriander leaves, bean sprouts, chopped peanuts, chives, and a lime wedge.
If you have any questions or comments on the content, please let us know!
References
Thaiest.com – Thai Food Dishes You Must Try
Thespruceeats.com – Traditional Thai Recipes
Aboutthatfood.com – Thai Food
