Pad Thai Recipe – Week of Making New Recipes

As part of Bikinis in the Snow Week 2 – New Recipes for Dinner, we made this Pad Thai recipe.  As a family, we often get Asian food including Pad Thai.  That’s one of my favorite dishes, but we never attempted to make it at home.

For week 2 of Bikinis in the Snow, we were trying out new recipes we could make for dinner.  I was somewhat intimidated at first by the Pad Thai recipe.  There were a lot of ingredients that we don’t normally have in the house.  So, we made a run to grocery store and were able to easily find just about everything we needed.  We never could find the tamarind water.

If you would like to make this Pad Thai recipe, here is what you will need.

Pad Thai Recipe Ingredients

• 5 ounces pad thai rice noodles
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 6 medium shrimp, peeled, deveined (optional)
• 2 tablespoons 1×1/2×1/8″ slices pressed tofu (bean curd)
• 1 tablespoon sweet preserved shredded radish, rinsed, chopped into 1″ pieces
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 5 tablespoons tamarind water, or 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon tamarind paste mixed with 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons (or more) Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons simple syrup, preferably made with palm sugar
• 4 garlic chives, 2 cut into 1″ pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon ground dried Thai chiles, divided
• 2 tablespoons crushed roasted, unsalted peanuts, divided
• 2 lime wedges

To get step-by-step instructions, check out the Pad Thai recipe on Epicurious.

Pad Thai Recipe Review

I was pleasantly surprised at how well this turned out at home.  My husband said he was skeptical as he was adding fish sauce to the mix.  He is not a fish fan.  We were both amazed at how all of the spices and ingredients came together and made an authentic tasting Pad Thai.  It tasted almost like the Pad Thai we get at our favorite restaurants.  I ended up adding a little bit of fish sauce and sriracha to my plate though.

The kids tried this dish as well.  They really liked the tofu.

Overall, I recommend making this dish at home.  Again, it’s not a recipe that we would make all of the time, but definitely one we will throw into the mix of week night meals.