Pad-thai Sunday

Everybody says that cooking at home saves money and is better for your health, so I tried making chicken pad-thai for the first time today. I adapted the recipe from Poh's Kitchen and some other sites online, and added chicken instead of prawns :) Damn its hard to get the flavour right. Mine ended up being too sour and a little bland.

But alas it was a fair first try I say :)

(about 4 servings)
Ingredients

For the sauce:
100g tamarind - You can buy this stuff from asian grocery stores, I went into a random one and asked for tamarind (in an asian accent hehe x)) and they directed me to the aisle- I didn't know there were so many variations =\ so I picked the block mushy looking one and hoped for the best. It worked o-k i guess... but next time I'm going to put less cause it turned out too sour =(  $2.20

300ml warm water 


200g palm sugar - Reminder to self: use the ones that come in the block. I used the pre-made one today, it smelt weird =\  $2.60

50g caster sugar - I didn't put the extra sugar in because the palm sugar I bought was pre-mixed with sugar, I dont know if it'll be necessary though?

12g Salt 


32g Tomato sauce 

Other ingredients:


Either shrimp/chicken/beef.... I put in roughly 2 chicken breast fillets, it was about right for 4 people.  About $8 for pack of 4 from woolies.
1/4 red onion, sliced. $1.19 for 1 (woolworths)
3 eggs -beaten
200g rice noodles - assuming each person a BIG plate full. The rice noodles are the translucent looking ones that are hard and crispy looking. $ 1.70
Garlic Chives 
Bean Sprouts $0.80
Fried Shallots
Roasted peanuts 
Dried Chilli (optional, i dont usually eat chilli)  $1.60 for a packet of 100g
Lime wedges - OMG. LIMES ARE so expensive lately, I bought ONE from woolies and it was $4 @ 26/kg or something. Using lemons next time.

And now for the Method

I usually like to get everything ready and weighed before I start anything else, just because I go frantic when the fire turns on and usually stuff it up.

1. Soak your noodles, leave them for about 30 minutes. Make the tamarind juice. So dissolve the tamarind with the warm water, use your fingers and break up the lumps then let it stand for a few minutes. Sift the juice through and chuck away the leftover stuff :)

2. Make your pad-thai sauce! Add the palm sugar, salt and tomato sauce to the tamarind juice, stir and leave aside. Put your noodles in a smaller pot filled with hot water and cook them till they're soft. I dont remember how long this took, you'll just have to check as you're doing it :(

3. Reserve some bean sprouts and chives for garnishing. In a wok, they suggest you use a wok or a larger pan so the noodles fry and not steam. Anyway in your wok/pan heat some oil and saute half the amount of sliced red onions.

5. Add beaten eggs and saute (not really sure what that means yet..) So make sure you dont cook the eggs for too long, as soon as they're not runny anymore remove from the heat and set aside. Just note that if your'e using a wok with a narrow base your eggs will puddle up at the bottom and turn into scrambled eggs ={ thats what happened to mine! LoL.

6. Heat the remaining oil and add the rest of the onions, fry your chicken or beef (different method for prawns, look up Poh's Kitchen).

7. Add the noodles and all the remaining ingredients, including the sauce. Toss it around and about and check for seasoning.

8. And you're done! Plate it up with two teaspoons of crushed roasted peanuts, chilli (if u want) and beansprouts, chives, lime, make it look pretty and serve immediately. :)


I love raspberry iceypoles, they're so thirst quenching!

Tamarind juice- yeah it aint pretty. 

                                           Yum! the chicken was pretty good.

So there's the recipe I used today. Too bad it wasn't as successful as I hoped, oh well, live and learn right?!

Okay, now its time to watch Rise of the Planet of the Apes and have some icecream, HEHE.