pad thai

Juana, author of La Cocina de Babel , takes us to Thailand with Pad Thai, a recipe to make in a wok that will open all your senses and make you feel like you're in the middle of Asia. It's a very complete, healthy and flavourful recipe, and it's also very versatile because, although Juana presents it with prawns, it can be used with many different ingredients, you can make it with chicken, beef, tofu... Enjoy!

For me, travelling is a necessary exercise that we should be able to practice many times in our lives. Not only is it a source of pleasant sensations and beautiful moments, it is a way of opening our minds to other ways of life; it makes us more tolerant by showing us other cultures, making us aware that there is much more, and everything is perfectly valid and respectable.

Flavors and aromas of a faraway country, taste sensations and simple pleasures are what you will find in pad thai, the traditional and perhaps most famous dish of the country where I want to take you, Thailand .

Thailand is the quintessential country of street food. Sitting on small plastic stools around tables set up on the pavement, Thais sample this and many other delicious and varied dishes, bringing life to the already busy streets.

The basic ingredient in pad thai is rice noodles , which are stir-fried with various vegetables, bean sprouts, tofu, shrimp or pork, and to make it all even more tempting, egg. With a slightly acidic taste due to the use of tamarind pulp and salty due to the fish sauce (nam pla), I assure you that if you are a lover of Asian cuisine, this delicacy will not leave you indifferent.

Shall we travel with our senses to Thailand?

Ken Hom carbon steel wok , Seigaiha porcelain bowls by Tokyo Design Studio and Green Cosmos stoneware plate by Tokyo Design Studio

Ingredients (for 2 people)

• 150gr of rice noodles
• 1 shallot
• 1 spring onion
• 75gr of hard tofu
• 6 prawns
• 2 tablespoons palm sugar or brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of concentrated tamarind
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 egg
• 30gr of bean sprouts
• Vegetable oil for frying

To accompany:

• A handful of cilantro leaves
• Soybean sprouts
• 25gr of peanuts
• Chive
• 1 lime cut into quarters

Preparation

1. We put the noodles in a container with cold water and let them hydrate for approximately one hour.
2. Meanwhile, on a cutting board and using a sharp knife , finely chop the shallot, the spring onion into slices of approximately half a centimetre and the tofu into small cubes of one centimetre on each side.
3. Grate the palm sugar and set aside.
4. We peel the prawns, leaving the tail on, and remove the intestinal tract by making a cut with a sharp knife along the back.
5. Heat your wok until it is very hot and add a couple of tablespoons of oil, where you will fry the tofu for a few minutes until it is golden. At that point, add the prawns just enough so that they take on colour on both sides. Remove the tofu and prawns from the wok and set aside.
6. Heat a little more oil in the wok, add the shallot and cook for a few minutes over a medium heat until it softens, making sure it doesn't burn. When it's soft, add the palm sugar, tamarind, fish sauce and two tablespoons of water, stirring until the sugar melts and mixes with the rest of the ingredients to form a sauce.
7. We raise the heat, drain the noodles and sauté them with the sugar and tamarind sauce for a few minutes until they are completely soft (if you see that there is not enough liquid, you can add a little water).
8. Once the noodles are ready, add the reserved shrimp and tofu, the spring onion, and bean sprouts and mix gently. Move everything to one side of the wok and in the free part, add the egg, which you will quickly stir with a wooden spatula to obtain a kind of scrambled mixture that you will mix with the rest of the ingredients.
9. Serve immediately on a plate and decorate with chopped peanuts, cilantro, chives, a few more bean sprouts and lime.

Ken Hom carbon steel wok and porcelain bowl Seigaiha Tokyo Design Studio .