Hello, and welcome!
For my first blog post, I’m going to take a trip to South East Asia and tackle one of Thailand’s favourite national dishes. Pad Thai exemplifies all that is good in Thai cuisine – simple to prepare, delicious to eat, and endlessly adaptable. Pushed forward as a national dish by Thailand’s military during the 1930s, Pad Thai has since conquered the taste buds of people around the world, and is continuously evolving into exciting new recipes. And today, another iteration will be born: Pad Thai, Johnny style.
Pad Thai is a pretty flexible dish. Once the basic components of rice noodles, tofu tamardind, chilli, palm sugar and fish sauce have been assembled, there are a number of ways you can jazz it up. Throw in a handful of peanuts, spring onions, or even kung haeng – small, dried shrimp (which are like savoury salty explosions in your mouth) and you can endlessly personalise to suit your preferences.
Where to shop…
When scouting for ingredients, freshness, variety and price are key. I’ve found that the best place to shop for a good range of ingredients is in Kallio, Helsinki’s answer to London’s Shoreditch. There’s a quality mix of colourful, earthy locals infused with a burgeoning international community, and aside from the excellent nightlife and cheap beer, a large proportion of the city’s Asian and African markets are located on or around Hämeentie.
Vii Voan Asian supermarket is well worth a visit; good quality produce and an excellent selection from across the globe mean you can pretty much find everything you want under one roof. There are slightly cheaper places to shop if your prepared to hunt around, but in terms of convenience it’s hard to beat.
– Tip: google is your friend! Every city or town of a reasonable size will have Asian supermarkets, just see what’s near you and go explore!
Anyway, this is a selection of what you can use…
1 – Fish Sauce. Smells pretty pungent, but it’s one of the cornerstones of the perfect Thai food taste profile – savoury/salty, sweet, citrusy and spicy.
2 – Peanuts.
3 – Shrimp or prawns. Asian stores do excellent deals on frozen shrimp. This 1.8 kilo pack cost €11, and the shrimp are pretty decent! Alternatively, you can use chicken, or use broccoli for a vegetarian version.
Tip: try to buy saltwater shrimp, as freshwater shrimp can be gritty and taste muddy. It’ll usually tell you on the packet what the variety of shrimp is.
4 – Paprika/chilli powder. Part two of the flavour profile.
5 – Tofu. This cheap, healthy product is one of the main sources of protein for a large proportion of the global population.
6 – Palm sugar. Used in a variety of Asian dishes, this light sugar beautifully balances out the fish sauce and citrus notes.
7 – Rice noodles. Dirt cheap, extremely healthy, and adds ballast to the dish. A south east Asian cuisine staple.
8 – Aromatics. The nobbly brown thing is ginger, or “galangal” depending on the shop. The long straight sticks are lemongrass – an incredibly aromatic flavour enhancer – and the longer green vegetables are bog standard spring onions.
9 – Good old fashioned eggs.
10 – Bean sprouts. You can buy pretty large bags for a pittance. Use what you need and freeze the rest.
11 – Limes. Used to make a great tasting garnish.
12 – Dried Onions. Adds fantastic flavour and texture. I was actually recommended to use this ingredient by a Thai guy I met in the pub!
13 – Tamarind. A tart, fresh tasting cousin of the date.
Think of Pad Thai as the ultimate leftovers dish; throw in whatever you have in the cupboard. Aside from the staple ingredients, you can choose whatever you fancy. Be adventurous!
Preparation and cooking
First step is to soak the rice noodles. Soak as much as you can fit inside your thumb and index finger,which will be enough for 2 healthy portions. After around 20 minutes, they should droop over the handle of a wooden spoon but still be a heavy al dente. Drain them and set aside.
Tip: if you need more rice noodles, or want to eat the next day, soak as many as required and store the excess in a sealed tupperware in the fridge.
Whilst the noodles are soaking, prepare the pad thai sauce. Open your pack of tamarind and break into chunks. Put them into a saucepan with a little water, and slowly heat until the water starts to steam. Take the pan off the heat and mash the fruit pulp up until you have a thick, lumpy paste.
Then, the messy bit. Scoop the mixture into a sieve, place it over a bowl and squeeze all of the liquid out of mixture using your trusty wooden spoon, or even better – a muslin sheet.
Once it’s all in the pan, it should look something like this.
Add water until it has the consistency of tomato soup, and – hey presto! – you have your own tamarind water. Next, take around 60 ml of the tamarind water in a saucepan an place on a low heat. Add around the same amount of palm sugar and fish sauce. Stir until the palm sugar has melted. Keep tasting! If the sauce is too salty, add palm sugar. Too tart? Add fish sauce. Eventually you’ll reach a stage where the alchemy is just right and when this happens, take the pan off the heat and leave to cool.
Tip: freeze the remaining tamarind water, or put the concentrate into ice cube trays and freeze for ready made tamarind stock cubes. Do the same with lime juice, or anything else you can think of!
Whilst the pan is cooling, prepare the rest of your ingredients. Dice the tofu, chop the spring onion into 3/4cm chunks, crush or chop the garlic, crack the eggs onto a dish and plate the ingredients within grabbing distance of the cooker.
Tip: place the ingredients in the order in which you’ll use them, it will cut down on dithering and save you from overcooking your dinner!
Everything ready? Then let’s go…
Heat oil in a wok or large saucepan over a high heat until the oil beings to smoke. Add the chopped garlic and fry for a few seconds whilst continuously stirring.
Throw in the rice noodles with a splash of water. Cook them for a few seconds until the water has boiled off. (You can tell as the pan will stop sounding like steam hissing and will start popping like a frying sausage.)
Add the sauce, and stir for a few seconds until the noodles start to absorb the mixture.
Add your protein – in my case, king prawns and tofu. Cook for a few seconds until the prawns start turning pink. If you use chicken, cook until the meat sears.
Once the protein is cooking, move the mixture to one side of the pan and add your eggs. Let them sit on the bottom for a second, then scramble using your wooden spoon. Stir through the noodles when they start to set.
Add your bean sprouts and peanuts, and stir through.
Immediately, add your spring onions and dried onions.
Stir through and plate up immediately. Garnish with fish sauce, fresh wedges of lime juice and chilli flakes.
Leftovers
Any leftovers can be kept in the fridge for a day. However, due to Pad Thai’s speed of preparation it’s a much better option to keep the raw ingredients chilled and whip up a new dish as needed.
Tip: a good spice rack will assist you no end in cooking awesome tasting food. A small outlay at your local Asian supermarket will give you the ability to pimp up most dishes!
Thanks for trying out Pad Thai: Johnny Style! For my next blog, I’ll be heading much closer to home and will be cooking one of Finland’s favourite belly fillers – lohikeitto. And for those of you who don’t know how to use google translate, how does a healthy bowl of salmon soup sound instead?
Text by: John Cozzi
Food Dude: Urban Safari 