Prawn & tofu pad Thai recipe | Jamie Oliver recipes (2024)

FAQs

Why do you put egg in pad thai? ›

The crisp vegetables, savory noodles, and tangy sauce come together for its distinct taste. The eggs add a dash of protein. You'll get a helping of many foods, all in one dish. If you're looking for a delicious new meal to make for dinner soon, you'll love our spicy pad thai recipe.

Originating from Thailand, Pad thai (also called phad thai), is a popular street food dish of stir-fried flat rice noodles. The noodles are flavoured with tamarind, shrimp paste, chillies, fish sauce, sugar and lime. Common additions include eggs, tofu, prawns, chopped peanuts, bean sprouts and pickled radishes.

Pad Thai is stir-fry dish made with rice noodles, shrimp, chicken, or tofu, peanuts, a scrambled egg and bean sprouts. The ingredients are sautéed together in a wok and tossed in a delicious Pad Thai sauce.

If it's only made of those ingredients, what then makes it so unique? A Pad Thai has tamarind, fish sauce, garlic, dried shrimp, palm sugar, and red chili pepper. These simple ingredients make Pad Thai a bowl of five tastes—salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami.

The dish is mixed with a tamarind sauce and served with lime. The flavors of this dish are centered around a sweet-savory fusion. Salty, nutty, and with that slightly sweet sauce, it's a treat for tastebuds! Of course, every Pad Thai can be different.

The dish was created because Thailand was focused on nation-building. So this dish was created using rice noodles and it was called Pad Thai as a way to galvanize nationalism." Another explanation of pad thai's provenance holds that, during World War II, Thailand suffered a rice shortage due to the war and floods.

It can definitely be a part of a balanced, well-rounded diet. While pad thai includes many nutritious ingredients, its sodium content is considerably high. You can reduce its sodium by requesting the eatery go easy on the sauce and salt-contributing condiments.

When it's sold in restaurants outside Thailand, the noodles are sometimes bright orange – that's because sauces or spices, like paprika, have been used instead of tamarind. Authentic Pad Thai is a light reddish-brown colour.

Why is Pad Thai pink? The thing that has turned rice noodle into pink colour is a tamarind sauce and fish sauce that commonly use when cooke Pad Thai. So basically Tamarind sauces add to give a hint of sour and sweet.

However, Americanized versions might swap tamarind for ketchup, making it sweeter and less complex. They may also add proteins like chicken or shrimp, which aren't traditional. The noodles in authentic Pad Thai tend to be softer, whereas Americanized versions often have a firmer texture.

What is a substitute for tamarind paste in Pad Thai? ›

The vinegar-sugar mix works well in dishes like pad thai chicken. If your recipe calls for 1 tablespoon tamarind paste, substitute with 1 tablespoon vinegar mixed with 1 tablespoon brown sugar. If using fresh lime juice, substitute 2 tablespoons lime juice for every 1 tablespoon tamarind paste.

A typical pad thai in Thailand contained only noodles, egg, garlic, bean sprouts, ground peanuts, chives, and a protein – the typical mix ins found in American pad thais such as baby corn, carrots, green beans, squash, and zucchini were nowhere to be found.

Fry. To fry prawns, heat a little oil in a frying pan. Fry peeled prawns for 2–3 minutes and shell-on prawns for 5–6 minutes, until they turn pink.

After preparing raw prawns, you can cook them in a variety of ways. Boil them in water for 4 minutes, fry them in a pan or wok, or grill them on the barbecue, turning for 2-3 minutes, or until prawns turn opaque.

Prawns and shrimp are similar in texture and taste, so it's difficult to distinguish between them. However, some may say that prawns are meatier and sweeter when compared to shrimp. There are many ways to cook prawns and shrimp. They can be fried, grilled, sauteed, steamed, or broiled.