Sarah's Spicy Pad Thai
This dish, typically associated with Thailand, requires quite a bit of effort to prepare, but it is well worth it. This is an especially nice dish to prepare if you've got some help in the kitchen as the preparation isn't terribly complicated - just lengthy. Originally served as part of Sarah's Spicy Pad Thai.
- Pad Thai (2002-03-25)
- Thai-Style Chicken Stir-Fried Noodles (2002-09-16)
Ingredients
- 12 ounces Thai rice noodles
- 10 cloves garlic
- 2 large shallots
- 1 medium thin red chile pepper
- 1/2 cup frozen, roasted and unsalted peanuts
- 4 tablespoons grocery-store fish sauce
- 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
- 4 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 3 tablespoons dark brown sugar (firmly packed)
- 3 large eggs
- 1 pound jumbo uncooked frozen shrimp ( pre-peeled and cleaned, tail-on)
- 3 tablespoons canola oil (divided)
- 2 cups fresh mung bean sprouts (picked over and rinsed)
- 4 medium scallions (trimmed and chopped into 1/2 inch pieces)
- 1 lime (cut into wedges)
- red pepper flakes
- 1/4 cup cilantro (washed and dried)
Instructions
We begin by heating a large pot of water for the rice noodles and pre-heating the oven to 350 degrees.
Meanwhile we prep the ingredients. We want everything ready for the stir-fry in about an hour. We mince our shallots and garlic, yielding 1/2 cup and 3 tablespoons respectively, and place in another bowl. We slit our red chile and using a spoon seed it. We cut the chile into small pieces and place them in the bowl with the shallots and garlic. We put the frozen peanuts on a foil-lined cookie sheet and bake for 3 minutes. We remove to cool.
We mix the fish sauce, soy sauce, rice vinegar and brown sugar in a medium bowl for the sauce. We lightly beat our eggs in another bowl. We place our peanuts in a resealable plastic bag and gently crush with the smooth side of a meat mallet. Then we put these into a bowl. We also have bowls for our bean sprouts, scallions, and cilantro.
When the water is boiling, we add the rice noodles and cook for 4 minutes, according to the package directions. We drain them in a colander and rinse with cold water. We set the colander aside and rinse out the pot for use for the stir-fry.
In another colander, we defrost our shrimp under cold running water for 5 minutes according to the package directions. We drain and let sit for another 5 minutes. We remove the tails and chop each shrimp in half.
In our clean and dry pot, we heat a tablespoon of oil over medium heat. When it is hot, we add the eggs and cook for a minute or so until they are set but not browned. We remove the eggs from the pot and place in a clean bowl.
We heat the remaining oil in the pot over medium heat and add the shallots, garlic, and chopped chile pepper. We stir-fry for a minute, add the shrimp, and raise the heat to medium-high. We stir-fry for about 3 or 4 minutes - we want the shrimp to be pink and almost cooked through. We remove the shrimp and vegetables to a clean bowl (we don't want to overcook the shrimp).
We quickly rinse the cooked noodles again and drain. We then add the rice noodles and 3/4 of the sauce to the empty pot still on medium-high heat. We toss these around to heat. Next we add the bean sprouts and scallions to the rice noodle pot. We cook for a few minutes, tossing often. When the noodles and veggies are hot, we add the shrimp, cooked eggs and the rest of the sauce, and stir.
We serve the shrimp-noodle dish with a squeeze of lime and sprinkled with the peanuts, red pepper flakes, and cilantro.