Pad thai: rice noodles soaked, not boiled, and a wok on full heat
One of Thailand's best-known noodle dishes rests on two things home cooks easily skip: the noodles are soaked in warm water rather than boiled, and the dish is fried one portion at a time. The sauce is a triangle of sour, salty and sweet: tamarind, soy sauce and palm sugar. Each portion takes about four minutes in the wok, so everything must stand chopped beside the hob before you light the gas.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Noodles soaking 30 min
- Sauce and prep 10 min
- Wok, portion by portion 10 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneSoak the noodles in warm water
Cover the noodles with warm water (about 40 °C) and leave 30 minutes, until the ribbons are pliable but still springy and slightly firm in the centre. Drain thoroughly and toss with a teaspoon of oil.
Ingredients: 250 g flat rice noodles, 5 mm
TipRice noodles finish in the wok by absorbing the sauce. Boiled in water they are already soft, and meeting hot sauce they collapse into paste — one of the commonest reasons pad thai fails.
Pliable, but still springyMake the sauce
Warm the tamarind paste, soy sauce, sugar and chilli in a small pan 2 minutes, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the sauce turns glossy. Taste: it should read sour first, then salty, then sweet — in that order.
Ingredients: 3 tbsp tamarind paste · 2 tbsp soy sauce · 3 tbsp sugar · ½ tsp chilli flakes
TipThis is the moment to adjust, not later. Tamarind pastes vary in acidity; if the sauce is too sour, add half a tablespoon of sugar; if it tastes flat, a tablespoon more tamarind.
Sugar dissolved, sauce glossySet everything beside the hob
Chop the garlic, cut the spring onion into 3 cm lengths, roughly chop the peanuts, beat the eggs, quarter the lime. Divide the noodles, shrimp and sauce into two portions and line them up in bowls within reach.
Ingredients: 200 g raw peeled shrimp · 2 pcs eggs · 3 cloves garlic · 4 tbsp rapeseed oil · 150 g mung bean sprouts · 1 bunch spring onion
All chopped before you light the gasHeat the wok and sear the shrimp
Heat the wok over maximum heat until it just begins to smoke. Add 2 tablespoons of oil, then half the garlic and, ten seconds later, half the shrimp. Fry 90 seconds, tossing, until pink. Push to one side of the wok.
TipA home hob delivers 2–3 kW; a restaurant wok burner up to 20 kW. A double portion cools the pan so far that the ingredients steam in their own juices instead of frying. Portion by portion is not fussiness, it is physics.
Wok smoking, shrimp 90 secondsAdd the egg
Pour half the beaten egg onto the empty side of the wok. Wait 20 seconds for it to start setting, then break it into large curds with the spatula.
Egg to one side, twenty secondsAdd the noodles and sauce
Add half the noodles and pour over half the sauce. Toss and turn with tongs 2 minutes, until the noodles drink the sauce, turn amber and glossy, and a few strands begin to catch on the base. If they stick, add a tablespoon of water, not oil.
Amber, glossy, lightly caughtSprouts at the end, then serve
Add half the bean sprouts and spring onion, toss 30 seconds and slide onto a plate. Scatter with peanuts, add a lime wedge and a handful of raw sprouts. Wash the wok, reheat it and cook the second portion. Pad thai is eaten straight away; it is not reheated.
Ingredients: 60 g roasted peanuts · 1 pcs lime
TipThe sprouts get thirty seconds and some stay raw on top: they are there to crunch. Fried longer they go limp and watery.
Peanuts, lime, raw sprouts on top
Before you start
Instead of soy sauce
The sauce is originally built on fish sauce (nam pla), not soy: saltier and deeper. If you have it, use 2 tablespoons in place of the soy. The soy version is milder, and vegetarian if you leave out the shrimp.
Without tamarind
Replace it with 2 tablespoons of lime juice and one of rice vinegar. The flavour is sharper and less fruity, but the sour–salty–sweet triangle stays intact.
With tofu and preserved radish
Classic street pad thai has cubes of fried tofu and sweet preserved radish (chai po). Diced tofu fried before the garlic is the simplest approximation of that flavour.
