The Asian aisle at my local grocery store has soo many bottles and jars of Asian sauces – sweet-sour, kung-pao, ginger-garlic. Most of the time, I tell you to skip the pre-made stuff – it’s just easier to combine fresh ginger, fresh garlic, soy sauce or other easy-to-find ingredients to make your own type of sauce:
But when it comes to Pad Thai noodles, a do-it-yourself sauce can be tricky. The recipe for the sauce includes tamarind paste, which isn’t that easy to find in most American grocery stores. Thai Kitchen Pad Thai sauce is the only one my store carries, and it’s good! Let me know if you’ve tried others and have had good/bad results.
This recipe takes 10 minutes to prep and less than 8 minutes at the stove.
Pad Thai noodles comes together really fast – so easy to make yet so easy to mess up.
1. Dried rice noodles are not cooked the same way regular pasta noodles are cooked. If you try to cook dry rice noodles in a pot of boiling water (like you do with spaghetti) – you’ll end up with a mushy mushy mushy mess. Instead, soak the noodles in hot (not boiling) water. That will soften the rice noodles and the stir-fry will finish cooking the rice noodles.
Even when making Vietnamese Pho Noodle Soup, another dish that uses dried rice noodles, I soak them in water – then briefly touch down in boiling water to cook. They’ll cook in 1 minute!
2. The shrimp, egg, garlic, ginger and vegetables all cook at different heat setting and different times. In order to make sure nothing is under or over cooked, you have to adjust heat and add the ingredients into the wok or pan in a certain order. Prepare all of your ingredients first, and have them all ready within arm’s reach.
3. Shrimp is not very forgiving to cook with. Because of their size, they are so easy to overcook! Then they become rubbery. To make sure that the shrimp is perfectly cook AND also get a nice sear – we sear them each side first before we do anything else. The shrimp are only cooked half-way. We’ll add them back into the pan near the end of the stir-fry. In fact, this is the technique that I use for stir-frying all meats and seafood. Sear at high heat, remove, then add back into finish cooking towards end.
4. Egg is also another funny ingredient – if you just crack an egg into a stir-fry, you’ll end up with a soggy mess. The egg will coat all of the ingredients and weigh down the dish, making it very “wet” and mushy. Instead, right after the shrimp are taken out of the pan, the egg is added to the pan. Give it a good scramble, and when it sets, remove the cooked eggs from pan too. You can just put the shrimp in the same bowl as the shrimp. This way, your Pad Thai will get nice bits of perfectly scrambled egg.
I know this seems like a lot of information – but don’t worry – here’s a video and the recipe will give you step by step!
via:http://www.steamykitchen.com/31889-cheater-pad-thai-recipe-video.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SteamyKitchen+%28Steamy+Kitchen%29
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