My BEST Authentic Pad Thai Recipe ผัดไทยกุ้งสด - Hot Thai Kitchen

Sawasdee ka, welcome to Hot Thai Kitchen. So today is an exciting day because we are doing an updated version of the ultimate Thai dish Pad Thai. So I already have a video of Pad Thai and it's a perfectly fine recipe but today I am coming at you with more tricks, more tips for an even better version. So if you've already watched that one, check out this one anyway because you Let's start with the most important thing about Pad Thai which is the sauce. It's very simple, you need three ingredients, the sweet, the salty and the sour. So the sweet is palm sugar. So palm sugar, I will have a video all about it so stay tuned for that. Now when I do have it I'll link to it in the description below. But in short it's the nectar of the coconut or the sugar palm tree and it usually comes in a puck like this and all you have to do is just chop it with a sharp knife just like that. Some people like to pound it in a mortar and pestle, some people like to grate it. I just usually chop it and then it'll just crumble to small pieces like that. Now the salty, my favorite ingredient in the whole wide world as you all know is fish sauce. The fish sauce flavor is prominent in this recipe so you want to make sure it's good. I do have a video where I recommend what fish sauce to use, I will link to that below. If you're a vegetarian and you want to know what to use instead, I do have a vegan pad thai recipe. I'll link to that as well below. And now the sour is tamarind. This is also very very important. Tamarind is a sour fruit so this is basically the pulp of it mixed with water so you get sort of this thick consistency. You can buy the paste already made like this but I actually prefer making it from the pulp. The flavor and the acidity is much better. I do have a video all about how to make that. I'll link to that as well below. And that's it! No other ingredients necessary, it's a very simple but delicious sauce. Now one thing I'm going to do differently in this video is I'm going to caramelize my palm sugar first and develop that more intense caramel flavor. It is optional, if you're in a rush you can just dissolve it but why not? I've got time. I like to keep the heat relatively low at this point so it doesn't burn and catch you off guard. And I'm just waiting for the sugar to darken in color a little bit. We don't want it to get that caramel bitter. Oh the stove is hot! Okay make sure you keep stirring from the edges so that you keep mixing the part that's more cooked. I like that color again, not overly caramel. Go in with water and that will stop the caramel from cooking. And it'll harden right away, don't worry. Fish sauce goes in and tamarind goes in. And now it will smell like fish sauce in the air. You're just waiting for the sugar to dissolve because now when you add the water it will harden right away but that will just happen in time. So I'm actually going to just turn this off and by the time you're ready to use it all the sugar will be dissolved. That's how simple pad thai sauce is and you can make a whole bunch of this in advance, keep it in the fridge and it'll last you an indefinite amount of time. Let's go over all the other ingredients and this is where pad thai gets a bit complicated because it is a pretty long list of ingredients if you want to make like a legit version. And this is why very few Thai people actually make it at home because you know it's a lot of prep. But we're not in Thailand so we've got to make it ourselves, we want a good one. Let's talk noodles first. Rice noodles. So this is what I use, size medium. That's important, it's the pad thai size. This is the brand that I like, it's widely available. You don't have to use this brand but there are other brands where the noodles are thinner so when you make it, it doesn't have as nice of a chew. So if you make it and you find it's a bit mushy, just use less water, okay? It might be that your noodles are a bit thin. So I've soaked my noodles in room temp water for one hour, I drain them and then what I'm gonna do, I've discovered that if I cut them it makes it easier to eat, to separate at the end. So just take scissors and cut them once so that they're about half the length. And by the way, you can soak the noodles in advance, drain them, keep them well sealed in the fridge and it'll last you a few days. So you don't have to do this the day off, okay? Now the rest. I got shallots and garlic, pretty straightforward there. I got some pressed tofu. Pressed tofu is very very firm tofu, it's the firmest that you can get and it comes in a package like this. Now if you can't find pressed tofu, you can also use extra firm tofu, but if you feel like it's still gonna crumble in the pan, just fry them up first. Cut them up, fry them up, the frying will firm out the exterior so that it won't break apart on you, okay? Now this is chai po wan or sweet preserved daikon radish. Classic pad thai ingredient but it's very hard to find. It adds a little bit of a crunch, a little bit of a sweet salty je ne sais quoi. If you don't have it, I have discovered a good substitute. You can use the Japanese preserved daikon radish called takuan. This is like the yellow pickle you find in sushi sometimes. It's got like a very similar feel to it. Just chop it up really small. If you can't find it at all, just omit it. It'll be fine. Finally, dried shrimp. I got some sort of medium-sized dried shrimp over here and this is so important. It's sort of like shrimp jerky. It adds a lot of umami flavor to it. And then you just run your knife over just like that. You can also just run it in a food processor and blitz it into like little flakes. That works as well. So all of that we've just talked about I'm gonna add to the tofu bowl because they're all getting added at the same time. So for the sake of organization, trust me you will need, you want to just combine them. One more thing I'm gonna add and it's of course optional is thai chili flakes but I do think when pad thai is a little bit spicy it's good. All right, vegetables. Two vegetables but very important. I got bean sprouts and also garlic chives. So garlic chives are sort of like a mix of chives and green onions. Super super classic and all you have to do for the garlic chives is you want to cut off the ends because this part is pretty tough. So that can go and then cut them into like inch and a half, two inch pieces and make sure you wash these well. Sometimes they come with little snails that hide like inside at the of each stalk. So you know, FYI. So that goes with the bean sprouts. Other than that, okay, almost done. See I told you it's a lot of stuff. We got some eggs and roasted peanuts. Roast them fresh, tastes a lot better, trust me. And that is it. I'm done. I told you it was a lot of ingredients but trust me it's all worth it. Okay, let's get cooking. All right, I'm gonna heat up my wok and again I can't stress enough but have all your ingredients at arm's reach. This goes fast. So a little bit of oil goes in and you know how I said that was all the ingredients? Well I lied because you still need, well you don't need, but if you want to have some protein in it, I am using shrimp as is pretty classic of pad thai but you can do chicken, pork, whatever you want. I'm just gonna sear the shrimp first, cook them off so I don't have to worry about their doneness and I'll just add them back in at the end. And you can add as many shrimps as you like. I'm just searing them on one side and then when they're done, flip them, cook them on the other side and pray that the smoke alarm will not go off. That's it. Shrimp are super fast to cook so I'm just after flipping them, I'm going to turn it off and the residual heat will continue cooking the shrimp. Just move them into a bowl for now, we will add them back in later. And by the way, for our Patreon members for the show after the show, I'm going to talk about different variations of pad thai that exist in Thailand and if you want to know more about becoming a Patreon member, I will link to it in the description box below. I'm going to add a little bit more oil just to the same wok and this way we have all the shrimp flavor still in there as well. At this point, medium is okay. And now all the tofu and the garlic and the shallots and all that stuff in this bowl goes in. And we're going to saute that until the garlic and the shallots are wilted. If it looks a little dry like it does now, just add a little more oil. This is not diet food. Oh, like already at this stage, it smells like pad thai. It's all these combinations of ingredients. Oh, smells so good. Now the noodles go in. And now the sauce right away. I'm going to switch weapon to tong. And then at this point, I'm just going to keep tossing until the noodles have absorbed all the liquid. Now at this point, here's a trick. If you notice that the noodles have absorbed all the sauce, but you want to make sure it's done, like you're not sure if the noodles have completely cooked, turn it off. It'll be fine. Take your time to taste. And if it's still underdone, you can add a splash more water and then keep it cooking. That way, you don't end up with undercooked noodles. People think sometimes that if you stir fry, like you have to go, go, go, go, go, and you can't stop. You can, in this case anyway. Turn it off and really take your time. Don't panic. So I'm going to taste my noodles. And it's perfect. So we can keep going. And Adam is again dying from chili fumes, but that's okay. We sacrifice for hot Thai kitchen. All right. So now I'm going to push the noodles to one side. I'm going to make room for my eggs. You can add a little bit of oil if you're afraid that the egg's going to stick. I need more oil. The eggs go in. I'm going to break the yolks. And now I'm going to just push all these noodles over the eggs. Let that sit for about 30 seconds so the eggs will cook. And the color looks nice. It's a little bit darker than my original version because we caramelized the sugar. Oh, chilies. Chilies in the air. Okay, let's toss. Get a little bit of charring, nice and smoky flavor. That's perfect. Now, almost done. Half of the peanuts are going to go in. All the vegetables, it looks like a lot, but trust me, it is okay. It will wilt down. And then I'm going to turn off the heat now. So the bean sprouts are actually really, really important because they help lighten up the texture of the noodles. Otherwise, if you don't add that much bean sprouts, it becomes a very heavily, like heavy noodle dish. But with the crunch and the bean sprouts, it's just the perfect consistency. And that's it, you guys. Pad Thai, super fast. That is exactly what I was going for. Yes. When you plate Pad Thai, it's very important, especially the first one that you go around the wok and pick up all the bits and pieces because those tend to like fall behind. And then the first plate will be like a bunch of noodles and no tofu, no nothing. So just pay attention to that. Yes. My goodness. Now, classic garnishes. We've got lime. Lime is actually very important. It adds a brightness to it and it just turns it into something a little bit more fresh. It is technically optional, but I always put it. And I'm going to show you how Thai people cut lime, which is also the most sensible way to cut lime for most effective juicing. Instead of doing wedges or slices or whatever, you cut it just off the core, right? And then this piece becomes super easy to squeeze. And then with the rest, you again slice it off the core. You want to avoid the core because the core is what makes it hard to squeeze. Then for the final piece, you cut the core off. There you go. And then you can cut these smaller if you wish. But in Thailand, the limes are much smaller. So typically you'll just see like a piece like this on the side. But that's like, that's a little ridiculous because it's huge. So this is North American sized lime. So I'm going to cut that down in half. And then now you've got an easy to squeeze piece of lime. I'm going to throw in a little extra peanuts on top. It always comes with a side of bean sprouts. I'm just showing you like what's classic here. But you don't have to. And some people like to add extra bean sprouts because again, this is sort of like a heavier dish. So the bean sprouts will help lighten it up. And then to make it beautiful, you can add an extra side of garlic chives. And I'll show you a way to cut it prettily. So you take like two, three plants and then you cut them at a sharp bias. There you go. Doesn't that look great? Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, wait, what happened to the shrimp? Aha. You think I forgot, but I didn't because well, okay. Honestly, I wanted to put them on top at the end anyway, but I would have forgotten if Adam hadn't pointed them out to me, but I wanted to save the shrimp for putting on top because it's like an expensive ingredient. You want to show off. You don't want to like hiding under all the noodles. You want people to see how many shrimp are you getting on this plate? I paid $15 for this. You know, how many shrimp are you going to get? This is my restaurant days coming through. All right, now we are ready to eat. I'm going to do a squeeze of lime. Give it a toss. Oh yes. I'm going to do this. Make sure I get some bean sprouts, some garlic chives. I'm going to get some tofu, bits of eggs. Oh yes. That is the smell. I am telling you, they just don't make Pad Thai like this in Thai restaurants outside of Thailand for reasons I don't understand because it's not hard. It is a lot of ingredients, but I'm telling you, if you take the time to source all the ingredients, it is so, so well worth it. It should not be overly sweet, okay? Like Pad Thai should not be like syrupy, drenchy, sweet. It should be a perfect balance of sweet, salty, sour, and a lot of umami coming from the fish sauce, coming from the dried shrimps, crunchiness from the bean sprouts, and some nuttiness from the peanuts. I mean, every ingredient is there for a reason, and it is so good. So good. So I hope you give this a try. The recipe, as always, will be on hotthaikitchen.com. When you make it, send me a photo on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and if you haven't subscribed to the show, make sure you do so you don't miss an episode like this, and click the bell icon as well so you get a notification when I post a new video. Thank you as always for watching, and I will see you next time for your next delicious Thai meal.