Pad Thai

Last night I taught my Thai class at Newton Community Ed.  Each time I teach this class I tweak the recipes a bit, change things around and edit.

last night we made:
Jasmine Rice
Cucumber Pickle
Fried Spring Rolls (Beef and Shitake)
Chicken with Holy Basil
Thai meatballs with Peanut Sauce
Thai Beef Salad (my personal fave)
and Pad Thai

I've seen many, many Pad Thai recipes and none of them have satisfied me for the necessary mix of hot and sour, salty and sweet.  They all generally made too little sauce to the ratio of noodles and/or incorporated odd ingredients in order to make it 'user friendly'.  A few weeks ago the fabulous Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim fame posted her version of Pad Thai for beginners and something about they way she wrote it, more as a technique primer than a 'recipe', caught my attention. 

First, she has you make a good quantity of the sauce and you balance the flavours in that sauce for the components that are critical for making Thai food - hot, sour, salty, and sweet.  Having made Pad Thai many times I know it is not easy to try and adjust the seasonings in the end.

Most of the ingredients should be easy to find these days.  The only ingredient I had to seek out were the dried shrimp.  I can usually only find these in a true Asian market, or course Super 88 has them if you are in the local Boston area, or perhaps Asian market on Waverly Hill Road in Waltham.  The dried shrimp are kept in the refrigerated section not on the shelf.

When I poked around in the store I happened to find some very, very tiny ones. For an idea of how small those are, one strip of the butcher block underneath them is 2" wide.  The shrimp are between 3 - 5 cm long.  I have bought them in the past and they were much, much larger and very orange.  These, as you can see, are very pale in colour.  These are an important flavour in the dish and I highly recommend seeking them out.

Pim also implores you to treat the shrimp in a particular manner.

It's important to use the mortar here and not your cuisinart, which will turn to dried shrimp into a hard, dried chunks (entirely capable of cracking a tooth) instead of fluffy bits of salty shrimp.

However we didn't have a mortar and pestle last night, I really didn't want to lug my 20 pound slab of marble mortar and pestle with me so we tried using a spoon and a bowl but it was not getting us anywhere near flaky and fluffy.  We dredged through the cupboards and found a mini chopper and I am guessing because these shrimp were so tiny and soft it worked perfectly instead of making shrimp rock candy we had fluffy light shavings and we were off and running.

I confessed to my students after they had made the dish that I had used them as guinea pigs for the recipe, but I don't think they minded at all, the recipe worked perfectly.  This recipe, friends, is restaurant quality Pad Thai.  I highly suggest you go and read her words and heed her advice, this Pad Thai recipe can't lose.

Comments

[Pam]

I think there were a couple of other not-so-easy to find ingredients [read not in Shaws or Stop&Shop] in that recipe - the palm sugar, the fish-sauce and the chinese chives if you don't go to Russo's. I'll have to make an extra stop or three on Saturday when we make this for some friends.

It was yummy!

We had a great time last night!

Pam

[jo]

I made it for dinner tonight with Maine shrimp, as the whole shrimp, which are here for a limited time only at Whole Foods and a are sweet and soooooo good, and scallions in place of the Chinese chive/garlic chive. Scallion greens worked great!
Palm sugar, as I said, you *could* sub out dark brown sugar in its place.
The fish sauce/Nam Pla/ Nuoc Mam, should be in Whole Foods or perhaps even a good Super Stop & Shop should have it.

Thanks for coming to class last night, you guys were a great group.

See you at Tapas at Cambridge in March.