Pad Thai

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

For me, travel is a necessary practice that one should be able to do many times in life. It's not only a source of pleasant sensations and beautiful moments, it's a way to open 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 distant country, taste sensations and simple pleasures are what you will find in the pad thai, the traditional and perhaps most famous dish of the country I want to take you to, Thailand.

Thailand is the country par excellence of street food. Sitting on small plastic stools around tables set on the sidewalks, Thai people enjoy this and many other delicious and varied dishes, filling the already bustling streets with life.

In pad thai the basic ingredient is rice noodles which are stir-fried together with various vegetables, bean sprouts, tofu, prawns or pork and, to make everything even more tempting, egg. Slightly sour in taste due to the use of tamarind pulp and salty because of the fish sauce (nam pla), I assure you that if you are a fan of Asian cuisine, this delight 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 firm tofu
• 6 large prawns
• 2 tablespoons of palm sugar or brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of concentrated tamarind
• 2 tablespoons of fish sauce
• 1 egg
• 30gr of bean sprouts
• Vegetable oil for frying

To accompany:

• A handful of cilantro leaves
• Bean sprouts
• 25gr of peanuts
• Chives
• 1 lime cut into quarters

Preparation

1. Place the noodles in a container with cold water and let them hydrate for about an hour.
2. Meanwhile, on a cutting board and with a knife sharpened, finely chop the shallot, slice the spring onion into rounds about half a centimeter thick and cut the tofu into cubes about one centimeter per side.
3. Grate the palm sugar and set aside.
4. Peel the prawns leaving the tail and remove the intestinal vein by making a cut with a sharp knife along the back.
5. Heat our wok until very hot and add a couple of tablespoons of oil where you will fry the tofu for a few minutes until golden; at that moment add the prawns just long enough to color them on both sides. Remove the tofu and prawns from the wok and set aside.
6. We heat a little more oil in the wok, add the shallot and cook for a few minutes over medium heat until it softens, making sure it doesn’t burn. When it’s tender, add the palm sugar, tamarind, fish sauce, and two tablespoons of water, stirring the Set until the sugar melts and combines with the rest of the ingredients to form a sauce.
7. Raise the heat, drain the noodles and toss them with the sugar and tamarind sauce for a few minutes until they soften completely (if you see they need more liquid you can add a little water).
8. Once the noodles are ready, add the reserved prawns and tofu, the spring onion, bean sprouts and gently mix. Push everything to one side of the wok and in the free space crack the egg, which you will quickly stir with a wooden spatula to obtain a sort of scramble that you will mix with the rest of the ingredients.
9. Serve immediately on a plate decorated with chopped peanuts, cilantro, chives, a few more bean sprouts and lime.

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