Ever since I've been trying to find a pad thai on Irish and European soil that had that authentic taste with the crunchy peanuts, that sweet sugary-ness and those rice stick noodles. The best I've had is, without a shadow of a doubt, Saba's on Dublin's Clarendon St. So I got their cookbook, staked out a few oriental shops around the town (Oriental Market on Moore St is great)....................invited a few friends 'round.....
and made my very own very pad-thai-tasting pad thai........
You'll need......
Meat, veg and noodles:
450g rice stick noodles (even just 400g will do - the shop on Moore St sells them in packs of 400g)
12 prawns
3 chicken breasts (really finely sliced)
3 dessert spoons of sunflower oil
3 eggs beaten
1 dessert spoon of sunflower oil for the eggs
100g bean sprouts
4 spring onions (chopped up into 1cm lengths)
4 dessert spoons of roasted, unsalted peanuts, crushed
1 dessert spoon of dried chillies
The All-Important Sauce:
8 dessert spoons of tamarind juice*
3 dessert spoons/60g palm sugar
2 dessert spoons of sugar
1 dessert spoon dried chillies
1/4 teaspoon salt
Serve with:
1 lime quartered
2 dessert spoons of roasted, unsalted, crushed peanuts
1 dessert spoon of dried chillies
You'll need to.......
*Get going on the tamarind juice - you'll need a pack of tamarind fruit - you put a heaped dessert spoon of it into a cup of hot water and leave it soak for about 10 mins...... then in your hand squeeze the paste in your hand and strain it all with a sieve and use the water with the bits of brown stuff as your juice, you'll get your 8 dessert spoons out of this.
Wash and chop your veg and chicken and prawns....
Now you'll need to get going on the rest of the sauce. Boil your 8 spoons of the above juice, your 60g of palm sugar, and other ingredients in the above sauce list and once the sugars have dissolved leave to simmer. It takes no time.
Next get the peanuts ready. Right I searched high up and low down and couldn't, for whatever particular reason, find unsalted peanuts. So we bought monkey nuts..... and Neil volunteered himself to de-shell them.....
Cover your rice stick noodles....... this is what they look like pre-soakage.....
( a pack (which will serve 4) cost just over €1 on Moore Street).............in just boiled water for about ten minutes, once softened, rinse with cold water and drain and leave near your hob, ready to toss on your wok. Do this with the dried chillies and peanuts too and your beaten eggs.
In your wok (I used a frying pan - bit of a boo-boo) heat the pan, oil it up and cook your very, very finely chopped/sliced chicken for about 3 mins and then add prawns. Cook both for a further one minute.
Add the noodles and stir all for a minute.
Now add your sauce, you made earlier, and make sure chicken, prawns and noodles are covered.
Bring the noodle mix to the side of the wok and add the eggs. Stir the eggs and then once they start to cook turn the noodle mix over on top of the eggs and mix them altogether.
Now add the beansprouts, spring onions, chillies and peanuts. Toss them altogether for about 30 seconds.
Serve with crushed nuts, chillies, a quarter of a lime and some sprigs of coriander.
Do squeeze the lime in.......
