Pad thai
Thin rice noodles stir-fried with tamarind, fish sauce and palm sugar, egg, tofu and prawns, with beansprouts, chives and crushed peanuts.
What makes it pad thai
- Thin, flat rice noodles, soaked rather than boiled.
- Tamarind, fish sauce and palm sugar — sour, salty, sweet.
- Dried shrimp, tofu, egg, beansprouts and garlic chives.
Where it comes from
Stir-fried noodles came to Thailand with Chinese cooks. Pad thai — 'Thai stir-fry' — is usually traced to the late 1930s and 1940s, when the government of Plaek Phibunsongkhram promoted it as a national dish, partly to save rice and partly to build a sense of Thainess.
It's now the dish the world knows Thai food by, and often sweeter abroad than at a Bangkok stall, where sugar, fish sauce, chilli and lime are set out for you to finish it yourself.
How it varies
- Pad thai hor khai
- Wrapped in a thin omelette.
Be the first here
Start your own pad thaiNo one here has made pad thai yet. Start it as v1, and every version after is an experiment the next cook can learn from.
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