Home cooked: Pad Thai recipe

Since I left my corporate job, I have been experimenting a lot more in the kitchen. One of the things I wanted to try cooking at home was Pad Thai. I saw this one pot recipe from Tasty.com and it seemed pretty easy.

Boy, was I in for a surprise. I am not sure if it was the heat but I actually got tired preparing all the ingredients. I feel that it could have been more simple if I just sauteed everything instead of frying the egg, tofu and chicken breast separately. 

Yes, I deviated a little bit on the recipe I saw online. I added tofu, removed sriracha (because I have a kid to serve too, but really because we didn't have it in the pantry), did away with rice vinegar and used cane vinegar and a little bit of cooking wine instead.

Here is the full list of ingredient I used:

2 chicken breasts cut into strips 

4 small blocks of tokwa/firm tofu, chopped into small cubes

about 2 cups of bean sprouts

2 eggs beaten

spring onions

red onion (use shallots if you have it in your pantry)

garlic

400 g pad Thai noodles

sesame oil

olive oil

1/3 cup chopped peanuts

For the sauce:

1 lime

1/3 cup red cane vinegar

1/4 cup cooking wine

1/3 cup fish sauce (patis)

1 knorr shrimp cube

chili flakes (optional) 

1/3 cup brown sugar

I basically followed the instructions on the video. I first cooked the noodles according to package instructions. Drain and set aside. Using the same pan, add about half a teaspoon of sesame oil and some olive oil and cook the chicken breast. Once done, set aside. I did the same to the tokwa. Then, I fried the scrambled eggs. After that, I sauteed garlic and onions. I put in the green onions and bean sprouts into the mix. I later tossed the chicken, scrambled eggs and tokwa into the pan as well. Then, add the cooked pad thai noodles.

For the sauce, mix all the ingredients and pour over the pan. Then add peanuts. You can adjust the taste to your liking. The finished product looked a little pale than the usual pad thai we get at restaurants. People at home did say it was good. At least all the hard work was paid off with their compliments.

I added the chili powder (we did not have chili flakes at home) to my plate as each one of us at home had our own level of tolerance for spice.

Homemade Pad Thai with Chili powder

There you go. Do not hesitate to substitute ingredients that you already have in your pantry for recipes you see online. Enjoy!