Juana, author of La Cocina de Babel , takes us to Thailand with Pad Thai, a recipe to cook in a wok that will open all your senses and make you feel like you are in Asia. It is a very complete recipe, healthy and rich in flavour, and that will also give you a lot of play because, although Juana presents it to us with prawns, it admits many varied ingredients, you can make it with chicken, beef, tofu... Enjoy! !

For me, traveling is a necessary exercise that should be able to be practiced many times in life. It is not only 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 from a distant country, taste sensations and simple pleasures is what you will find in pad thai, the traditional dish and perhaps the most famous in the country where I want to take you, Thailand .

Thailand is the country par excellence of street cuisine. Sitting on small plastic stools around tables set out on the sidewalks, Thais savor this and many other delicious and varied dishes, bringing life to the already busy streets.

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

Do we travel with our senses to Thailand?

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

Ingredients (for 2 people)

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

To accompany:

  • A handful of coriander leaves
  • bean sprouts
  • 25gr of peanuts
  • Chive
  • 1 lime cut into quarters

Preparation

  1. Put 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 sharp knife , finely chop the shallot, the spring onion into slices of approximately half a centimeter and the tofu into small cubes of one centimeter on each side.
  3. Grate the palm sugar and reserve.
  4. Peel the prawns leaving the tail and remove the intestinal thread by making a cut with a sharp knife along the back.
  5. We heat our wok until it is very hot and add a couple of tablespoons of oil where we will fry the tofu for a few minutes until it is golden; at that moment we incorporate the prawns just enough so that they take color on both sides. Remove the tofu and prawns from the wok and reserve.
  6. Heat a little more oil in the wok, add the shallot and cook for a few minutes over medium heat until softened and making sure it does not burn. When it is soft, add the palm sugar, tamarind, fish sauce and two tablespoons of water, stirring until the sugar melts and mix with the rest of the ingredients to form a sauce.
  7. Raise the heat, drain the noodles and sauté with the sugar and tamarind sauce for a few minutes until they soften completely (if you see that there is a lack of 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 mix gently. We move everything to one side of the wok and in the part that is free we put the egg that we will stir quickly with a wooden paddle to obtain a kind of scramble that we will mix with the rest of the ingredients.
  9. We serve immediately on a plate that we will decorate with the chopped peanuts, coriander, chives, a few more bean sprouts and lime.

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

Comments

Claudia said:

Hola Mar, muchas gracias por tus palabras! En cuanto al tamarindo, bien lo encontrarás en tiendas especializadas en cocina oriental o también deberías verlo en la sección Internacional de grandes superficies. En cuanto a la salsa de pescado, a falta de una salsa concentrada, puedes usar caldo de pescado o de marisco. Saludos!

Claudia said:

Hola Mercedes, muchísimas gracias por tus hermosas palabras!! Juana estará encantada, un saludo!

Mercedes said:

Para mi siempre es un placer sensorial ver tus recetas, sabes transmitir todo un mundo de color y sabor en tus palabras y fotos.
Un plato extraordinario.
Felicidades Divita.
Un besote

Mar said:

Hola!!!
Me encanta vuestra web, podéis informarme donde conseguir el tamarindo concentrado y la salsa de pescado? He entrado en vuestra despensa y no lo tenéis a la venta. A mi hija le encanta la comida tailandesa y me gustaría darle una sorpresa con vuestra receta.
Muchas gracias por todo

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