Authentic Classic Pad Thai

Authentic Classic Pad Thai - made August 31, 2019, modified from Hot Thai Kitchen

I took some liberties with the original recipe so this probably isn't as authentic as Hot Thai Kitchen intended. But it was more authentic than some of the other recipes I've found in that it uses palm sugar and tamarind concentrate rather than more Westernized ingredients like ketchup, brown sugar, etc. My modifications were more to make it how I customize pad thai when I order it in Thai restaurants.

No surprise, I omitted the bean spouts. Can't stand bean sprouts. They don't taste like anything but they interfere with the texture of the noodles while, when cooked, can look so much like noodles they co-mingle like little noodle imposters but have an annoying crunch I don't like. So no bean sprouts here.

I did genuinely look for tofu in the grocery store to include it but, not being a purchaser of tofu on any regular basis, I couldn't find them. And I didn't want to include them badly enough to track down a store employee to ask where the tofu was. So no tofu. The other ingredients like daikon, garlic chives and peanuts, I also excluded simply because I didn't want them in my version of pad thai. I figure as long as I got the sauce right, that would be good enough.

I did have to make a special trip to the Asian grocery store to find the palm sugar and the tamarind concentrate so if you don't have those handy, you will likely need to find some substitutions, e.g. brown sugar for the palm sugar and ketchup for the tamarind concentrate. Pad thai noodles are more widely available in mainstream grocery stores but I also bought these at the same Asian grocery store since I was already there anyway plus they're always cheaper at the Asian grocery store.

This actually did taste like "real" pad thai. Having the right noodles and the authentic sauce ingredients probably helped. Here's what I did wrong (you know there had to be something) and what I would do better next time: palm sugar doesn't melt like regular sugar in liquid. The palm sugar I bought came in a plastic container of palm sugar pellets that weighed 15 grams per pellet. When I whisked the sauce ingredients together, the pellets didn't dissolve with the addition of the tamarind concentrate, fish sauce or room temperature water. They did gradually shrink over time in the liquid but not nearly enough or fast enough. I would recommend using hot water in the sauce to help with melting the palm sugar.

Second, is I let the rice noodles soak in room temperature water for an hour. That was a good idea as that's one of the blog suggested to prevent the noodles from becoming like mush. After 45 minutes though, the noodles, while pliant, seemed a little coarse and tough to me so I decided it'd be a much more brilliant idea to soak the noodles in boiling hot water for awhile. Fifteen minutes later, you guessed it, pliant mush.

Despite all this though, I still liked how the pad thai turned out. The flavor might've been a little bland but I was okay with that. If you want more spice, add more chili flakes or Thai chilies. I want to try more pad thai recipes now that I (still) have tamarind concentrate and palm sugar to use up but for my first foray, this was pretty good.

Sauce
45 grams palm sugar
1/4 cup tamarind concentrate
2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons water

Pad Thai
4 ounces dry rice noodles
8 - 10 shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon chili flakes
2 eggs, whisked together
3 green onions, green tops sliced into 1" lengths
1 lime

1. Soak the noodles in room temperature water for 1 hour, until the noodles are very pliable.
2. Whisk the sauce ingredients together; set aside.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over high heat in a wok or large frying pan. Sear the shrimp until just pink. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. In the same pan, add 1 - 2 tablespoons more oil and saute the garlic until brown. Add chili flakes.
5. Drain the noodles, add to the pan, add sauce and toss together over medium high heat until noodles have absorbed the sauce.
6. Once the noodles have absorbed the sauce, push to one side and add eggs to the empty space. Scramble the eggs gently until set halfway. Put the noodles on top of the eggs and let the eggs set another 10 - 15 seconds. Toss mixture together to break up the eggs. Add shrimp, green onions and lime juice; toss together. Serve immediately.